Greek Cruising Taxes: Background

Created by doina. Last modified on 2007-01-12 09:52:19
Contributors:
Topic: European Union
Countries: Greece

I understand Doug Decker's anger at not being warned that Cruising Tax would apply to his vessel in Greece. I was lucky, I was very adequately warned.

The history of the tax is interesting.

Originally it was proposed to apply the tax to all leisure vessels for two reasons. First, so that vessels using out-of-the-way without port police would pay their way; second, so that port police would not have to deal with leisure traffic. I think the proposed charge was small - something like €80 for a year for 12m. However, the Greek leisure yacht lobbies are very powerful (just have a quick look around Zea marina!) and obtained exemption for Greek flagged yachts before the law was introduced. To obtain the same revenue, the charge was substantially increased. Originally expressed in law as a number of Drachmae, that created funny numbers when the shift to Euros took place.

At that stage the EU flag yachts started moaning loud, long and effectively. Their contribution was removed. That left only the non-EU yachts to be taxed. The revenue required was the same - so those poor guys are now being charged something like €250 a month for 12m yacht to make up for the lost tax base. So they're abbreviating their stays to avoid the tax.

What's now occurring is that the port entry fees (charged to everyone on a per visit basis) remain, while all yachts not based full time on a marina contract (and therefore not paying docking fees) are due to pay daily docking fees as well. Hence Doug's "double the rate of a Greek flagged yacht" for overnight stays.

The current proposal is to exempt all vessels below 10m from traffic log bureaucracy (I don't know whether that also applies to non-EU yachts). Additonally, port police tasks are being delegated to "quay-masters", who'll collect the local fee (€4 or so for 12m) and plug you in with water and electricity if its around. And nowadays, you'll never be charged for anchoring off, you'll often be ignored if you're on a public quay, and half or more of the harbours you visit will have no port police anyway. The sailing section of my website gives advice on Port Police Protocol in its Greek Detail pages www.jimbaerselman.f2s.com/

So I'm never sure whether I should moan about those tax charges or not. The total berthing and bureaucratic costs in Greece are low compared to the rest of the Mediterranean, excepting, perhaps, Turkey.

But it really would help if the entry document explained the rules clearly. It could then be used as a brief to train the local port police too!

Jim Baerselman