Fr customs duty for residents.

DeeGee

DeeGee

Well-Known Member
Joined
11 Feb 2003
Messages
1,663
Location
North Brittany.
Visit site
Have just settled matters with French Customs, so can give you the benefit of my experience.

Customs consider boat to have become liable for duty (droit) from the time one becomes resident. In order to avoid the onerous French requirements for French flagging, I decided to stay UK registered (you can register your boat in any EU member country). However, one becomes liable for the duty at the same rate as levied on French citizens. The duty paid 'buys' you a passport for your boat.

The duty is calculated on age of boat (after some age xx, no duty), tonnage** and engine details, capacity bore stroke. For my 1997 36ft 28hp, the duty is 286€ or about £200/ann.

** there is a bone of contention here... UK registry uses some weird formula to determine the 'registered tonnage'. For my boat, the RT is 10.88. The displacement is about 8. Guess which one the French decided to use?

I was lucky not to be fined for not registering the boat ages ago. But the two guys who dealt with me felt I was a gentleman !!!! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Thanks for the info....isn't it about time you came back to your natural habitat amongst the mud & salt of the East Coast? You wouldn't have to pay then! Hope life is treating you well.... Tony (ex Dancing Maid)
 
I allowed them a civilised look over my boat. They didnt even look under the cushions. "No thank you, we are on duty" - like an old episode of some English movie, didnt put the 'sir' in the middle like an OE cop.
 
Forgive my stupidity, but is that £200/ann what I think it means, ie per annum? I know mooring charges are a hell of a lot cheaper over there, but £200 every year, and for what?
 
They must be having a 'Boat Passport for non French Residents' drive.

I got my boat from Bordeaux to La Rochelle at the beginning of the week -

on Thursday I was on board worrying about my 'halyard' when a RIB full of customs arrived and 'interviewed' all the boats on the visitors pontoon. They interviewed me - questions about engine serial numbers - port of registry - and all the info that is not recorded on a SSR certificate and used their mobile phones a lot then went.

They returned 10 minutes later and asked for my 'Boat Passport' - 'never heard of it brother' I replied... 'I am going to write a report about this' said the CCOfficer. Got me to sign it etc then the only sour note crept in - He would not fine me now for not having one but if he 'controlled' my papers again in a month or so he would!

Like a good little Anglais I trotted across the road to the Customs Office and supplied details for a 'boat passport' which is indeed cost ed on a range of statistics - age of boat - power of engine LOA and draught and my stated tonnage.... there were no papers to back up my statements except the LOA on the SSR. The total cost to me for a year is to be 80euro but as the proportion from now to the end of the year would be 16 euro it will be issued FOC for the rest of this year.... this is based on 10m x 4.4m 6 tons and 28hp engine that is changed to some other formulae... Sort of light dues I suppose - feel fairly OK about it considering how cheap the moorings are...

If you permanently keep your boat in France and are a French Resident you must obtain a 'boat passport' just as all French boat owners must. If you are not a resident I get the impression you do not need one even if you keep the boat permanently in French waters...............
 
yes, £200/annum - but with marina at about £600, it still ain't so bad! Just customs duty, a way of raising money, like we have duty on wine! For nowt, of course !
 
[ QUOTE ]
They must be having a 'Boat Passport for non French Residents' drive.
...................


[/ QUOTE ]
No no, you miss the point. This is about becoming French Resident. I am making the point that a) it is best to be UK registered, and b) there is a duty to pay, which is about £200, in the particular case of my boat. IF you have a sufficiently old boat, there is no duty at all. It is not because we are non-French citizens (citizenship is nothing to do with 'normally resident'), as the duty is the same for the French citizen (article XX of the community regs about free movement in EU, which amounts to saying you should NEVER have to pay more tax for anything than a resident of the country in which you find yourself).

I only posted this for anyone who might be thinking of doing the same as us, and upping stix to live in France. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
Now I am totally confused - I am a French resident - The Boat passport tax is something all French citizens have to pay who own a boat - in fact a sort of 'wealth' tax. The only surprise for me was that the French customs feel that it is the 'residency' of the owner that decides if it is applicable to a boat and not the registration or nationality of the owner.

As someone posted, at the prices here - even somewhere like La Rochelle it still makes running a boat seem very cheap compared to UK prices....& I still think the French customs have decided to 'look out' for foreign nationals avoiding this tax...

Enjoy the pleasures of being a french resident - they are many and varied and mainly much better value than the UK equivalents.................
 
Just spent a pleasurable hour or so (sat night) reading your stories on your web site, well done!!
Stu
 
Well confused or not, we seem to be on the same wavelength. If I register my boat in UK, and used that to escape paying a tax which all French citizens have to pay, it would be against Article whatever. So it has to be a property of the person. If UK citizens normally resident in France were not taxed the same as French citizens, then it would still be unfair on the French. So we have to cough up just like any other person living in France, citizen or resident.

I asked the Customs guys how they picked up on me, and one said, like cheap UK TV "we do not reveal our sources...", the other said "we go to the marinas and check on any boats which have been there for some time, then we look to see if they have a French address...". Maybe, if I had berthed my boat in someone else's name, who is normally resident in UK, they would have had no French resident to pick up on!!

Anyway, apart from the slight shock, I am not griping. What I wanted to do was to let people know this duty was payable. As the customs guy pointed out, ignorance of the law is not a defence!! He said that we would normally be flying our yellow flag, and would have been asked by customs where we live. I showed him Reed's Almanac, where it says that as citizens of the EU we do NOT have to fly a yellow flag, NOR do we have to report to customs. This ghasted his flabber a bit, but, hey who can fight City Hall.

I just LOVE living in France, there are a few down-sides, but it is turning out to be even more quality of life than I expected. Not all my life-plans have turned out so well !! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif How long have you lived in France ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top