The crew gratuity on a crewed French Riviera charter is 10 to 15 percent, calculated on the base charter fee alone. You decide the figure at the end of the week, and nobody on board is allowed to ask you for it.
Under the MYBA terms that Riviera bookings usually run on, a gratuity is left to the charterer, and a captain who solicits one is in breach of the guidelines he signed.
Most of our clients budget 10 percent from the start and settle the exact number on the last morning.
Quick Answer
- How much: 10 to 15 percent of the base charter fee, before VAT and before the APA
- Who gets it: one amount to the captain, who shares it equally across the crew
- When: disembarkation morning, at the end of the week
- How: cash in euros, or a transfer we set up for you before you board
How Much to Tip on a French Riviera Charter
The number that matters is the base charter fee, the headline weekly rate on your contract. VAT, the APA, delivery fees and anything you spent ashore all sit outside the calculation.
That matters more here than in most places, because the Riviera APA on a motor yacht runs 30 to 40 percent of the fee. Tipping on the full invoice instead of the base rate costs you 30 to 40 percent more than you owe on the APA alone, and half again once VAT is in the number.
On a EUR 150,000 week, which is where a lot of our Riviera bookings land, 10 percent is EUR 15,000 and 15 percent is EUR 22,500.
We treat 10 percent as the working default and 15 percent as the number for a week the crew genuinely made: the chef who rebuilt a menu around one guest’s allergy, the deckhand who had the tender waiting every time you looked up.
MYBA’s guidance to captains puts 5 to 15 percent of the contracted charter fee in the appropriate range for excellent service. On the Riviera, the working half of that band is 10 to 15.
Our French Riviera charter cost guide sets the gratuity beside the fee, the APA and the tax.
How You Actually Pay It
2 routes work here: cash in euros, which is traditional and still the most common, or a transfer arranged through us before you board, which is the practical one once the sum gets large.
Cash sounds simple until you price it. A 10 percent gratuity on a EUR 150,000 week is EUR 15,000 in notes, and no cash machine in Antibes or Cannes produces that on the Friday of an August week.
Carrying it in has its own rules. Anyone entering or leaving the EU with EUR 10,000 or more in cash must declare it, France applies the same threshold to cash arriving from other EU countries, and the declaration asks you to state where the money came from and what it is for. Fail to declare and the fine runs to half the sum.
Tell us early if you plan to tip in cash and we will tell you what is realistic. If it is not, we set up the transfer: you instruct the funds before the charter, and they are released to the captain after you disembark. That also buys you a few days after the week to settle the figure.
Do not wire money to individual crew members’ personal accounts, and do not put it on a card. A card payment creates an accounting problem for the boat, and peer-to-peer apps routinely will not reach crew banking outside the country the app serves.
Who You Hand It To, and How It Splits
One amount, to the captain, on the last morning. He divides it in equal shares among everyone who worked the week.
Equal is the point. The engineer you spoke to twice carried the same week the chef did, and on a well-run boat the split does not follow rank. On larger yachts, handing it over with the purser present is a courtesy to both of them.
Some brokers will tell you never to split it. Our view is that it is your money. If one crew member made your week, give them something separately, keep the main amount as one envelope to the captain, and treat the extra as an extra.
What the Last Morning Looks Like
Disembarkation morning, usually over breakfast or on the passerelle as you leave.
It is a busier hour than guests expect. The crew are already stripping cabins for the next charter, your bags are on the dock, and a car is waiting. Hand the envelope over, say what you liked, and go.
The captain will not open it in front of you, so do not read the lack of a reaction as a verdict on your number.
Why the Riviera Pays Less Than the Caribbean
If your last charter was in the BVI or St Barts, the Riviera figure will look thin. It should.
A Caribbean all-inclusive rate has food, fuel and drinks folded into it, so a percentage there lands on a much bigger number. Here those costs sit in the APA, outside the figure you tip on. The tipping culture the crew work in differs too.
Same generosity, different arithmetic. Do not import the Caribbean percentage.
Broker insight
Tipping in the Med is 10 to 15 percent, and the Caribbean is 15 to 20 percent. It is the client's discretion either way, but that is the norm.
Chris de Kock
Charter Broker, Sales Broker, Active CYBA Member
If the Week Did Not Go Well
Say it on board, not in the envelope.
A quiet number well under what you planned tells the captain nothing. He cannot fix what he was never told, and the whole crew absorbs one person’s failure.
It also weakens the case afterward. When we take a complaint to the yacht’s central agent, what the guests actually said and did at the end of the week is part of what gets weighed. So call your broker while you are still aboard. Most of what goes wrong on a charter is fixable on day 3 and unfixable on day 7.
Broker insight
It is the client's money and it is their call. Every contract mentions a gratuity, and every one of them says it is discretionary. If something genuinely went wrong and a charterer wants to give less than the guideline, that is entirely their right. We only ask that they tell us first.
What We Recommend
Budget 12 percent of the base fee while you are building the total cost of the week, then decide the real figure on the last morning. A strong crew then has room above your budget, and a disappointing one does not blow it.
Tell us at quote stage whether you want the gratuity shown as a line in your breakdown or left out. We will do either, and we never fold an assumed percentage into a total without saying so.
If this is your first crewed week, our guide to how to charter a yacht on the French Riviera covers the rest of the process.
People also ask
Is the tip taken out of the APA?
No. The gratuity is separate money you decide at the end of the week, and the APA is a prepaid running-cost fund that is reconciled against receipts. Our French Riviera APA guide covers how the two sit side by side.
Do I still tip if the contract mentions a gratuity percentage?
It is a recommendation, not a charge. MYBA is explicit that a charterer is under no obligation and that a gratuity must never be requested when the final account is settled. If one has appeared on your invoice as a due amount, tell us.
What currency should I bring?
Euros. Riviera crews are paid and banked in euros, and dollars leave them changing a large cash sum in a French bank. If euros in cash are not practical, use the transfer route.
Do I tip the captain separately?
No. One amount to the captain covers the whole crew, himself included, and he takes an equal share. Tipping him separately on top cuts against the equal split he is about to make.