Gibraltar · Register of British Ships
Your yacht, on a British register, wherever she is berthed.
We register privately owned pleasure yachts on the Gibraltar register. Filed directly with the Maritime Administration — no agent in another country, no chain of intermediaries, and one person handling your file from the first question to the certificate.
The case for the flag
Why private owners bring their yachts to Gibraltar
We work only with pleasure yachts in private, non-commercial use. No charter, no commercial coding — which keeps the process short and the cost predictable.
No one in between
We file with the Maritime Administration and the Regulatory Authority ourselves, here in Gibraltar. Nothing routes through an agent in another country, so nothing is lost, delayed or marked up on the way.
One person, start to finish
The person who checks your title chain is the person who lodges the application and is named on the register as your representative. Nothing is handed on, and you never explain your situation twice.
One payment, then five years of quiet
We file and pay all five years up front with both authorities. No annual invoice, no renewal reminder, nothing to remember until year six.
She never comes here
Your yacht stays where she is. A surveyor local to her measures her once — under 24 metres there is no re-measurement for the life of the registration — and the rest is handled from Gibraltar.
Eligibility
Who can register a yacht in Gibraltar
Gibraltar accepts owners from a wide range of countries, but not from everywhere. The lists below are the ones that count, under the Merchant Shipping (Pleasure Yachts) Regulations 1997.
Individuals and joint owners
- British citizens
- British Overseas Territories citizens
- British subjects under the British Nationality Act 1981
- British Nationals (Overseas)
- Commonwealth citizens
- Nationals of an EEA State
- Citizens of an approved country:
Argentina · Aruba · Bahrain · Brazil · the Canary Islands · China · the Faroe Islands · Haiti · Israel · Japan · Liberia · Madeira · the Marshall Islands · Monaco · Panama · South Korea · Switzerland · Suriname · the United Arab Emirates · the United States of America
Commonwealth countries
Antigua and Barbuda · Australia · The Bahamas · Bangladesh · Barbados · Belize · Botswana · Brunei Darussalam · Cameroon · Canada · Cyprus · Dominica · Eswatini · Fiji · Gabon · The Gambia · Ghana · Grenada · Guyana · India · Jamaica · Kenya · Kiribati · Lesotho · Malawi · Malaysia · Maldives · Malta · Mauritius · Mozambique · Namibia · Nauru · New Zealand · Nigeria · Pakistan · Papua New Guinea · Rwanda · Saint Kitts and Nevis · Saint Lucia · Saint Vincent and the Grenadines · Samoa · Seychelles · Sierra Leone · Singapore · Solomon Islands · South Africa · Sri Lanka · Tanzania · Togo · Tonga · Trinidad and Tobago · Tuvalu · Uganda · United Kingdom · Vanuatu · Zambia
EEA States
Austria · Belgium · Bulgaria · Croatia · Cyprus · Czechia · Denmark · Estonia · Finland · France · Germany · Greece · Hungary · Iceland · Ireland · Italy · Latvia · Liechtenstein · Lithuania · Luxembourg · Malta · Netherlands · Norway · Poland · Portugal · Romania · Slovakia · Slovenia · Spain · Sweden
Companies
- Incorporated in Gibraltar, the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man or an EEA State
- Incorporated in a Commonwealth State
- Incorporated in one of the approved countries listed opposite
- A registered Foreign Maritime Entity
The company's own nationality is what counts here, not the nationality of the people behind it.
If you are not resident in Gibraltar, you must appoint a representative person here. That is the role we fill, and it is included in every price below for the whole term, not sold separately.
The one exception is a company incorporated in Gibraltar, which does not need one. Every other owner does, whether an individual or a company from anywhere else.
Fees
One price, and exactly what is inside it
The government fees are included in every price below, not added to them. Further down we set out exactly what those fees are, so you can see what our own work costs you.
Registration and five years on the certificate, settled at the outset.
SAVES £500 AGAINST PAYING YEAR BY YEAR
- Eligibility and chain-of-title check, with no obligation
- Declaration of ownership and application prepared and lodged
- Registry queries answered on your behalf
- Carving and marking note issued to you and returned
- Resident representative in Gibraltar for the whole five years
- All five years filed and paid up front
- Ship radio licence, MMSI, call sign and EPIRB registration
- Red ensign supplied with your certificate
- One invoice, one transfer, and no further action until year six
The same service, paid as you go, renewed each year for as long as you keep her.
- Eligibility and chain-of-title check, with no obligation
- Declaration of ownership and application prepared and lodged
- Registry queries answered on your behalf
- Carving and marking note issued to you and returned
- Resident representative in Gibraltar throughout
- Ship radio licence, MMSI, call sign and EPIRB registration
- Red ensign supplied with your certificate
- Renewal filed and invoiced each year
A Gibraltar company whose only purpose is to own the yacht — for joint owners, a mortgage, or a resale in mind.
- Company formed and the yacht registered in its name
- A holding company only — it owns the yacht and does nothing else
- No trading and no bank activity, so returns are nil returns
- Companies House filings kept current
- Income Tax Office returns filed
- A Gibraltar company needs no representative person
Additional services (only if needed)
| Transfer of ownership when you sell her | £295 |
| Recording or discharge of a marine mortgage | £395 |
| Certificate of deletion | £225 |
| Change of the yacht's name | £195 |
| Duplicate or replacement certificate | £125 |
The two authorities, and what they charge
| Maritime Administration — registration, yacht under 24m | £254 |
| Maritime Administration — annual renewal of the certificate | £29 |
| Maritime Administration — transfer of ownership | £87 |
| Maritime Administration — recording or discharge of a mortgage | £87 |
| Maritime Administration — change of name | £58 |
| Maritime Administration — certificate of deletion | £29 |
| Regulatory Authority — ship radio licence, annual | £22.50 |
| Tonnage measurement by a local surveyor, once | paid by you |
| Carving and marking aboard | paid by you |
Government figures are from the Gibraltar Maritime Administration fee brochure effective 1 August 2026, and are included in our prices rather than added to them. The only cost you pay to anyone else is your surveyor, once. Fees paid to the authorities are not refundable if you leave the register early. A company-owned yacht is billed annually rather than five-yearly, because the company itself has to be filed for every year. We register privately owned yachts under 24 metres in non-commercial use.
What arrives
A certificate, a licence and a flag
The Certificate of Registry comes to you from the Registry of Pleasure Yachts, and we send a Gibraltar red ensign with it, 45 × 30 cm, free with every registration.
We also obtain her ship radio licence from the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority. That licence allocates her MMSI number and call sign and registers her EPIRB, so a distress beacon identifies your yacht by name to search and rescue rather than as an unknown signal. It is included in every price on this page — you should not have to arrange it separately, and a boat with a VHF set and no MMSI is not properly licensed to use it.
Keep the certificate aboard. It is not a document of title — if a buyer or a lender needs proof of ownership or of what is secured against her, ask us for a Registrar's transcript.
Process
What happens, and which parts are yours
Two steps are yours because they happen where the yacht is berthed. Everything else is ours.
-
We check she can be registered
Builder's certificate or bills of sale back to build, any existing registration and whether it can be closed, outstanding mortgages, and who will own her. If there is a problem in the title chain, this is where it surfaces.
Same week · no fee until you decide to go ahead -
We settle how she will be owned
Either you own her personally with us as your resident representative, or a Gibraltar company holds her. This decides everything downstream, so it is agreed before any paperwork is drawn.
A few days · about a week if a company is being formed -
You have her measured where she is berthed
An approved tonnage surveyor local to the yacht measures her once and issues the tonnage certificate. You instruct and pay the surveyor directly, and send us the certificate — we will tell you what the measurement has to show. Under 24 metres this is never repeated.
Your step, once only · timing depends on your surveyor -
We lodge the application
Declaration of ownership, evidence of title, the tonnage certificate and the fees go to the Maritime Administration. We deal with any queries directly and keep you posted.
About a week at the registry, if the papers are clean -
You mark her, and the certificate issues
The carving and marking note comes to you showing her name, port of registry, official number and gross tonnage. GRP and steel hulls are exempt from most of the old Section 7 requirements, so in practice this usually means her name displayed permanently on the bows or on each side of the deckhouse. You sign the note to certify it is done and send it back. The Certificate of Registry follows.
Your step · a signature, not a shipyard visit
Your part
What we need from you
We complete and lodge every registry form — the application, the declaration of ownership, the notice of name, the signal letters, the sanctions declaration and the radio licence — and tell you where to sign.
About the owner
- A scan of your passport — a plain scan is fine
- Your full name, address, nationality and occupation, as they should appear on the register
- Two emergency contacts with telephone and email, for use by search and rescue
If a company will own her, we also need its certificate of incorporation, registered office and registration number. A certificate of good standing is required as well where ownership is transferring rather than being registered for the first time.
About the yacht
- Three name choices, in order of preference
- Builder's name and address, country and year of build
- Hull number, type and construction material
- Engines: how many, inboard or outboard, serial numbers and estimated speed
- How many people she carries
- Radio equipment aboard — makes, models and serial numbers
- EPIRB make, model, serial and its 15-character hex identity
- The tonnage measurement survey
Proof that she is yours
If she is a new build
- The builder's certificate — that is the whole of it
If she is second-hand
- The bill of sale to you, and the chain of bills of sale back to the builder's certificate
- Evidence of her previous registration
- Her deletion certificate, or evidence you have applied for it — she cannot be registered here while she is registered elsewhere
- Evidence that any mortgage has been discharged
A gap in the chain of ownership is the one thing that can stop a registration outright. It is what we look for first, before you have paid anything.
Tonnage measurement
Who measures her, and where
This is the one step we do not carry out, because it happens wherever the yacht is berthed. She can be any age and she never has to be inspected in Gibraltar — but the measurement must come from an organisation the Administration recognises, and that list is short.
Classification societies
- American Bureau of Shipping (ABS)Website ›
- Bureau Veritas (BV)Marine contact ›
- Det Norske Veritas (DNV)Find an office ›
- Lloyd's Register (LR)Find an office ›
- ClassNKSearch by port or office ›
- Registro Italiano Navale (RINA)
Recognised by the Gibraltar Yacht Registry to carry out statutory survey and certification on the Administration's behalf, at any size. Only some of them publish a searchable office finder — the labels above say which.
Certifying authorities, under 24m only
- MECALAuthorised surveyors by location ›
- International Institute of Marine Surveying (IIMS)Find a surveyor on the map ›
- Yacht Designers & Surveyors Association (YBDSA)Website ›
- Society of Consulting Marine Engineers & Ship Surveyors (SCMS)Website ›
A yacht under 24 metres may use any of these instead of a classification society. Which route suits you depends on where she is berthed and what the quotes come back at — tell us and we will compare them with you.
Where to start looking
MECAL publishes its authorised surveyors by location, and the list currently includes Gibraltar and Tarifa as well as Mallorca, Barcelona, Malta, Portugal, France, Italy and Turkey. Appointments are arranged through their central office rather than with the surveyor directly.
Failing that, ClassNK's directory searches by port rather than office — Algeciras, Cádiz, Barcelona, Valencia, Marseille, Genoa, Naples, Piraeus, Izmir, Istanbul and Lisbon are all in it.
If your surveyor is not working under one of these ten organisations, the Administration will refuse the measurement and you will pay for it twice. Ask us before you instruct anyone.
What to ask for, word for word. The organisation is authorised by the Registry; whether a surveyor authorised for Gibraltar statutory work is available at your particular port is a separate question, and it is the one most often overlooked. So do not ask for "a survey" — ask for this:
"I require a tonnage measurement survey and certificate acceptable to the Gibraltar Yacht Registry, for registration of a pleasure yacht under 24 metres."
Questions
Common questions
Does the yacht have to come to Gibraltar?
No, and she never does. She is not inspected here at any point. The only thing that happens where she is berthed is the tonnage measurement, which is carried out once by a surveyor local to her.
How long does it take?
Once the survey is done and your documents are with us, the registry normally issues within about a week — allow two to be comfortable. That assumes the paperwork is clean: a gap in the chain of bills of sale, or a yacht still registered elsewhere, is what turns a week into a month. The measurement has to be complete before anything is lodged, and how soon a surveyor can attend is the part neither of us controls.
Can I register her in my own name, or do I need a company?
It depends on your nationality. Citizens of the countries listed in the eligibility section can register personally. A company is a choice rather than a requirement in those cases, and is usually taken where there are joint owners, a mortgage, or a resale in mind.
Is the Certificate of Registry proof that I own her?
No. The certificate proves nationality and identity, not title — it says so on its face.
Does she need surveying every year?
No. Under 24 metres the tonnage measurement is done once and is never repeated for the life of the registration.
Does a Gibraltar flag change my VAT position?
No. Flag state does not determine VAT. Your position depends on where the yacht was imported, where she is kept and used, and your own residence — and a Gibraltar flag and a UK flag are equivalent on that question. We are not tax advisers; where it matters we will say so and point you to someone who is.
Can she be registered while there is a mortgage on her?
Yes. A marine mortgage can be recorded against a Gibraltar-registered yacht, which is what a lender normally requires. It is recorded on the register rather than on the certificate.
What happens when I sell her?
Either the registration transfers to the buyer, or she is deleted from the register and the buyer flags her elsewhere. Each is a straightforward registry procedure, and both are priced in the additional services above.
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A short note is enough. We will come back with whether Gibraltar is the right register for you, what it will cost, and how long it should take. We answer in English or Hebrew.