Selling a yacht from France to a buyer outside the EU
Selling a yacht from France to a buyer outside the EU: export VAT exemption, proof of exit, customs, flag deregistration, mortgage discharge and escrow.
The short answer
- Export exemption: a sale by a French VAT taxable person to a buyer outside the European Union can be invoiced without VAT only if the vessel actually leaves the customs territory of the Union.
- Deadline: the exemption requires exit before the end of the third month following the month of delivery, so the departure date is a legal deadline and not a matter of convenience.
- Proof of exit: the standard evidence is electronic certification of the export customs declaration by the customs office of exit; alternative evidence is possible but is assessed case by case.
- Written deed: under French transport law, any deed transferring ownership or another right in rem over a French flagged ship must be in writing, failing which it is void.
- Deregistration: since 1 January 2022 the registration and francisation of pleasure craft are handled by the maritime affairs administration, and the deletion certificate is issued in the seller's name.
- Mortgage: a registered maritime mortgage survives the sale; the lender's discharge must be obtained and the entry cancelled before deletion and reflagging can proceed.
An export sale looks simple. A yacht lying in Antibes, La Ciotat or Port Camargue is sold to a buyer in Dubai, London, Miami or Geneva, the survey goes well, and both sides assume the tax and administrative side will follow. It does not follow. It has to be built, in order, before the money moves.
Four systems attach to the same hull at once: the French VAT rules on exports, the Union customs rules on goods leaving the customs territory, the register recording ownership and charges, and the contract itself. Run them in the wrong sequence and the outcome is rarely a dispute between the parties. It is an exposure landing on the seller alone, months later, on a boat he no longer owns.
What follows is the framework, the chronology, the documents and the risks, for a seller in France whose buyer is outside the Union and for a non-European buyer who wants to understand the French side of the file. It is general information rather than advice on a particular transaction, since much depends on the seller's status, the ownership structure and the yacht's history. There is more on our page on French yacht and pleasure boat law.
Who is selling, and why it changes everything
The first question is not where the buyer lives but whether the seller is a taxable person for VAT purposes. Everything downstream follows from that answer, and many files are structured before anyone has asked it.
A private seller and a company seller are not in the same position
Where a private individual sells his own pleasure boat, the sale is ordinarily outside the scope of French VAT. There is no output tax, so there is no exemption to claim. That does not make the formalities optional: the customs status of the hull, the deletion from the French register and the buyer's position at destination all still have to be handled.
Where the seller is a company, a charter operator or a dealer, the sale is in principle a taxable supply located in France unless an exemption applies. The export exemption is not automatic. It is a conditional relief the seller must substantiate, and if the substantiation fails the authority does not chase a buyer in a third country. It reassesses the French seller, with interest and possible penalties, on a transaction already closed. The same care is needed where an individual held the yacht through a company, used her commercially, or recovered input VAT on the purchase or on refit works.
The buyer's establishment matters too
French rules distinguish goods exported by the seller or on his behalf from goods exported by a buyer who is not established in France. Both can lead to exemption, but not with the same evidential burden: a yacht handed over in a marina and sailed out by her new owner is not in the position of one loaded on a transport ship under a bill of lading. Where the buyer organises the departure himself, the seller is relying on someone else's diligence to secure his own tax position, which is why the contract must allocate that risk expressly.
The export VAT exemption and what actually proves it
The condition that is read too late
The exemption is conditional on the goods physically leaving the customs territory of the Union, and French administrative doctrine ties this to a time limit: exit before the end of the third month following the month of delivery. That window is generous when the yacht is ready to sail and short when she is not. Refit works that overrun, a winter berth booked through March or a crew visa that has not come through each consume it quietly. The departure date therefore belongs in the contract with a mechanism attached, and where the yacht genuinely has to stay in France, that is a signal to restructure rather than to proceed and hope.
What counts as proof of exit
The seller carries the burden of proving that the yacht left. The primary evidence is the export customs declaration certified electronically by the office of exit, which closes the movement and confirms that the goods physically left. Where that certification cannot be obtained, French doctrine accepts alternative evidence, which may include transport documents, the import declaration filed at destination and commercial documents identifying the goods and the destination. Alternative evidence is weighed by the authority; it is not a right. For a yacht leaving under her own power the file is thinner by nature and is usually reinforced with clearance in a non-Union port, marina invoices, fuel receipts, crew documents and position data. Practice is not uniform across member states and continues to evolve.
Who is the exporter of record
Union customs law ties the capacity to be named as exporter on the declaration to establishment in the customs territory. A buyer in Dubai or Miami cannot simply lodge the declaration in his own name at a French office. It has to be organised in advance, through the seller, a customs representative or a representation arrangement of the right scope. Discovered on the quay on the day of departure, this is a common reason why yachts leave France with no usable export file behind them.
What we see in practice
We are usually contacted after the sale rather than before. The pattern repeats: the deed was signed, the price was paid in full on the day because the buyer was in a hurry and nobody saw a reason to hold anything back, and the yacht sailed. No export declaration was lodged, each side assuming the other had dealt with it. Months later the seller must justify why no VAT was charged, and the material has to be assembled after the event from a buyer who no longer answers emails. We see the mirror image too, with the deletion certificate applied for only once the new registry asks for it. Neither is beyond repair, but rebuilding a file afterwards costs several times what building it in advance would have cost, and no outcome can be assured.
Customs status after the sale
Export also changes the yacht's customs status. A vessel in free circulation leaves that status behind and becomes non Union goods, so on a later return she is in principle liable to import duties and import VAT unless a relief applies. Reliefs exist for goods returning unaltered within defined conditions, and a temporary admission regime exists for vessels used in the Union by persons established outside it, but each has its own requirements on ownership, use and duration, and none can be assumed. A buyer who exports the yacht and then wants to cruise the Riviera the following summer needs that answered before completion, because the answer sometimes makes an export sale the wrong structure.
Deregistering the French flag and moving to the new registry
The written deed
French law is strict on form. Any deed creating, transferring or extinguishing ownership or another right in rem over a French flagged ship must be in writing, on pain of nullity, and must identify the parties and the vessel. A chain of emails or a broker's confirmation note does not transfer ownership. The deed is also where the export architecture lives: the departure undertaking, the allocation of the customs formalities, the evidence the buyer must return and by when, and the consequences if the yacht stays. A one page bill of sale copied from a template rarely does any of this.
The deletion certificate
Since 1 January 2022, registration and francisation of pleasure craft have been handled by the maritime affairs administration rather than customs, the related annual charge having been reformed and transferred in the same reorganisation. Deletion is applied for by the seller, who remains the registered owner until it is granted, and the certificate is issued in his name. It is what the new flag state will require, since no serious registry accepts a vessel still on another register. Two consequences follow: the seller cannot delegate this step and forget it, and there is an unavoidable interval between deletion and foreign registration during which the yacht is, on paper, between flags. That interval has to be planned around the departure and the insurance cover.
Mortgages and clean title
A maritime mortgage registered against a French yacht follows the hull, and a sale does not release it. The lender's discharge must be obtained and the entry cancelled, and timing it is often the hardest part of the calendar, because the lender will not release until it is paid and the buyer will not pay until the charge is gone. That circularity is what escrow exists to solve, and it is why the register should be searched early. Old entries never cancelled, a yard's charge for unpaid works or a preferred claim by a supplier are all discoverable in advance; discovered late, they stop a closing dead.
Escrow, delivery and the release of the price
In a domestic sale, price against keys works. In an export sale it does not, because the seller's principal risk crystallises after delivery. Only once the yacht has gone is it known whether she left in a way that supports the exemption and whether the evidence will be produced.
The answer is a staged release. Funds are held by a third party bound by professional rules and by written instructions: in French practice a lawyer's regulated client account, a notary, or a broker under a mandate with a financial guarantee. Most of the price is released on completion of the deed and clean title. A defined balance is retained and released only against the documents the seller needs, within a set period, with an express consequence if they do not arrive. That balance should bear a rational relation to the tax exposure rather than be a token sum; where a retention is unacceptable to the buyer, a bank guarantee can do the same work.
Delivery deserves a document of its own. A short protocol of delivery and acceptance signed at the berth, recording date, place, condition, inventory and handover of the ship's papers, closes a category of dispute and fixes the date from which the export period runs.
What we see in practice
The recurring error is not ignorance of the rules but inversion of the order. Parties sign, pay and sail, then attend to the register, the mortgage and the customs file in whatever sequence the paperwork happens to arrive. We regularly see the whole price released on the day of signature although a mortgage entry was still live, on the strength of a lender's email promising a discharge shortly. We also see buyers who genuinely intended to take the yacht to a third country, then changed plans and kept her in a French marina for the season, without appreciating that they had moved their seller's tax position and not merely their own cruising plans. Consulted early, most of this is handled by drafting: sequencing, a retention, an evidence schedule, a departure undertaking. Consulted late, the work becomes evidential reconstruction against a counterparty who has already been paid.
What happens if the yacht does not leave
If the yacht does not leave within the period allowed, or leaves but the seller cannot prove it, the exemption is not made out and the supply reverts to being taxable in France. The authority looks to the seller as the taxable person, and the assessment carries interest and can carry penalties.
His position is then uncomfortable in a specific way: he invoiced without VAT and has been paid. Recovering the tax from a buyer in a third country requires a contractual right, a solvent and reachable counterparty and a realistic forum. Where the contract is silent, he is arguing about an implied allocation of tax risk with someone holding both the yacht and the money.
The available lines are broadly evidential and contractual: whether alternative proof of exit can be assembled and whether it meets the standard applied; and what the deed says about the departure undertaking, the VAT indemnity, the retention and its release conditions, and jurisdiction and enforcement. In some files there is also a question about the responsibility of the professionals involved. Which line is available depends entirely on what was written before the money moved.
Clauses that carry the risk
A few provisions do most of the work, and their absence is conspicuous: an express undertaking by the buyer to remove the yacht by a stated date; an obligation to lodge or cooperate in lodging the export declaration, with the exporter of record settled in advance; a schedule of the evidence to be returned and the deadline for each item; a VAT indemnity covering tax, interest and penalties and drafted to survive completion; a retention or guarantee sized against that exposure; an allocation of berthing, insurance and running costs between signature and departure; and a jurisdiction clause chosen with enforcement in mind. What makes them effective is negotiating them at the memorandum stage, while both sides still have leverage.
Frequently asked questions
Does a private seller have to charge French VAT when selling to a non-EU buyer?
Ordinarily no. Where a private individual sells his own pleasure boat outside any business activity, the sale falls outside the scope of French VAT, so there is no output tax and no exemption to claim. The formalities still apply, and the position differs where the boat was held through a company, used commercially, or where input VAT was recovered.
What proof does the French tax authority accept that the yacht has left the EU?
The primary evidence is the export customs declaration certified electronically by the customs office of exit. Where that cannot be obtained, French doctrine accepts alternative evidence such as transport documents, the import declaration filed at destination and commercial documents identifying the vessel and the destination. Alternative evidence is assessed case by case and is not a right, so it should never be the plan.
Can the buyer sail the yacht away himself and still support the exemption?
Yes in principle, where the buyer is not established in France and takes delivery here before removing the vessel. The difficulty is evidential: a yacht leaving under her own power produces a thinner paper trail than one shipped under a bill of lading, so the file is reinforced with third country clearance and port records, and the contract must oblige the buyer to return them.
How long is the seller exposed after the sale?
The exemption depends on exit before the end of the third month following the month of delivery, but the exposure lasts considerably longer, because a reassessment can arrive well after the deal has closed. That is why the evidence file is assembled and retained rather than left with the buyer, and why any retention is tied to production of documents.
What happens if the buyer keeps the yacht in France after completion?
The exemption is undermined and the exposure falls on the seller as the taxable person. The buyer has his own problem: a vessel under a non-Union flag staying in French waters must fit within a customs regime with conditions of its own, notably on the establishment and status of the person using her. Silence solves neither problem.
Can the price be released before the deletion certificate is issued?
Commercially it often is, and that is precisely the practice that causes difficulty. Deletion is applied for by the seller as registered owner and issued in his name, and the new flag state will require it. A sensible structure releases the bulk on completion and clean title, retaining a balance against the deletion certificate and the export evidence.
Does the yacht lose her EU VAT paid status when she is exported?
Export takes her out of free circulation, so on a later return she is in principle treated as non Union goods and liable to import formalities unless a relief applies. Reliefs exist for goods returning unaltered within defined conditions, and temporary admission exists for use by persons established outside the Union, but each depends on ownership, use and timing.
Conclusion
An export sale is not a domestic sale with a foreign buyer attached. It is a sequence in which the tax, customs and register outcomes each depend on something happening at the right moment, and in which nearly all the residual risk sits with the seller once the money has been paid and the yacht has gone. The files that close cleanly are those where the order of operations was fixed in writing before the deposit was released: search the register, discharge the mortgage, document the delivery, lodge the export declaration before departure, make the evidence of exit a contractual obligation rather than a favour, and retain enough of the price to make that obligation real.
Where the yacht is valuable, the ownership structure is not straightforward, or the buyer wants to stay in European waters after completion, the structure is worth examining before the memorandum is signed rather than after.
About the author
Guillaume Leclerc is an avocat admitted to the Paris Bar, practising through SELARL Victoris, 34 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris. His practice covers yacht and pleasure boat transactions, financing, tax and disputes, including sales and purchases, flag and registration questions, VAT and customs status, brokerage and refit disputes, and enforcement. He works in French and English and handles files remotely by video conference for clients in France, Switzerland and abroad. You can read more on our page on French yacht and pleasure boat law or get in touch through the contact page.
Last reviewed: September 2026.
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