French Ports of Entry

[LittleSister]

Roberto & Sea Devil both link to the official list, which is dated March 2018. (I very much doubt it has changed much.)

Here are the coastal ports of entry from that list, but presented in geographic order for your convenience. (Refineries, inland waterways ports, and French 'overseas' territories excluded.)

CHANNEL
Dunkerque
Calais
Boulogne-sur-Mer
Le Tréport
Dieppe
Fécamp
Le Havre
Honfleur
Rouen
Caen Ouistreham
Cherbourg
Saint-Malo
Saint-Brieuc Le Légué

ATLANTIC
Brest
Concarneau Douarnenez
Lorient
Saint-Nazaire Montoir
Nantes Atlantique
Les Sables d'Olonnes
La Rochelle Pallice
Rochefort Tonnay-Charente
Bordeaux
Bayonne

MEDITERRANEAN
Port Vendres
Port-la-Nouvelle
Sète
Fos Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône
Port-de-Bouc
Marseille
Toulon La Seyne
Cannes
Nice port
Monaco
Ajaccio
Bastia port
Porto-Vecchio

 

[st599]

Cherbourg (Chantereyne) Marina isn’t on the list!

That will be VERY inconvenient.

Cherbourg is a Port of Entry, but the customs office is over the other side of the main basin or at the ferry port.

 

[Roberto]

The "two letters" of home port one sees on French crafts are indication of "Quartier Maritime", that is they depend on the Affaires Maritimes (Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, etc) bureau one has chosen, and not from Douanes/Customs (ministry of Economy and Finance). One can well have SM Saint Malo on the hull and have a registration act delivered by Cannes Douanes.
In you see an unknown quartier maritime like "DF", it is "Douanes Françaises", they have their special registration; it is indeed written on the bow of the boat, whereas on private crafts it is on the transom.

As for international Ferry ports like Roscoff, I do not know the frequency of the connections but official "immigration points" can be established by simply sending a patrol for the period of disembarking, which is easy with the arrival of one large ship at a given time, but probably not enough to establish a fixed position to clear an unknown number of foreign yachts arriving at the most disparate times.

 

[bdh198]

So no more races to Deauvillle or Treguier. The Alderney to Dilette drunken barbie will be no more. JOG to St Vaast and others I’m sure.
That’s lots of revenue lost so I’m sure things will be tweaked a touch,

Places like St Vaast have been a race destination since decades before free movement in the EU existed. I’m sure the French will either very quickly expand their list of official ports of entry or come to special arrangements so that British yachts can still visit directly from the UK to some of these places.

 

[Seven Spades]

I am pretty sure you wil be able to enter anywhere and the marina office will double as customs and immigration. TheFrench are very pragmatic.

 

[neilf39]

That looks like the official list. But it doesn't seem to include Roscoff.

Nor Granville

 

[Robin]

In the 'old' days pre EU, Cherbourg marina office took the details IIRC and les douaniers locales used to get a tad peed off at multiple brit boats flying a yellow 'Q' because it meant they had to actually go check, OK on a nice sunny day, not so much in the rain/cold Our YC back then had a yellow burgee and we flew it from the spreaders which attracted a few gallic sniffs by a douarnier on his strolls. Technically in the much better days once we were in' the EU club one should fly 'Q' on arrival from the Channel Islands but they really got fed up with that interrupting their day. We used to stop by for an overnight on our way home rather than go direct which avoided the need to calL UK customs as we had then arrived from the EU and it was not required. ?

 

[st599]

In the 'old' days pre EU, Cherbourg marina office took the details IIRC and les douaniers locales used to get a tad peed off at multiple brit boats flying a yellow 'Q' because it meant they had to actually go check, OK on a nice sunny day, not so much in the rain/cold Our YC back then had a yellow burgee and we flew it from the spreaders which attracted a few gallic sniffs by a douarnier on his strolls. Technically in the much better days once we were in' the EU club one should fly 'Q' on arrival from the Channel Islands but they really got fed up with that interrupting their day. We used to stop by for an overnight on our way home rather than go direct which avoided the need to calL UK customs as we had then arrived from the EU and it was not required. ?

Presumably back then, there was no centralised EU computer system to share the data.

I am pretty sure you wil be able to enter anywhere and the marina office will double as customs and immigration. TheFrench are very pragmatic.

That's how Germany have set it up apparently. But until the Schengen database system is available at marinas and staff have been trained to enter the information, we're probably stuck.

 

[Robin]

I am reminded of a conversation with a delightful young French lady in Morgat who collected the 'dues' daily. We were gale bound there at the time and each time she asked 'where had we arrived from?' 'when? ' where do we go next? 'when?' After several days I said 'same answer as yesterday and day before - but tell me, what do you do with all this information you collect and studiously write down every day?' 'Nothing, she replied, it gets filed.'

 

[laika]

I am pretty sure you wil be able to enter anywhere and the marina office will double as customs and immigration. TheFrench are very pragmatic.

In one of the previous threads on this topic I mentioned that I mailed port chantereyne a couple of months ago to ask about procedure and they told me that at that point they had no indication as to whether there would be any alternative to a trip to the PAF in Rue Dom Pedro for checkin/checkout but that they would update their customers as soon as they had any info. Not seen any update yet but it's only the first working day of the year.

 

[Sea Devil]

I am pretty sure you wil be able to enter anywhere and the marina office will double as customs and immigration. The French are very pragmatic.

That's how Germany have set it up apparently. But until the Schengen database system is available at marinas and staff have been trained to enter the information, we're probably stuck.

That is exactly how it works in Spain, Portugal & Gibraltar - or 'worked' but now we are non EU there is the question of passport stamping and the passport number being entered into the EU system to update how many days the (UK) passport holder has remaining on their 90 day allowance... Or maybe the EU will allow marina staff to enter this.

Before Jan 1st. all Spanish marinas required a visiting boat to fill out a Douane form and at the end of each day these forms were collected by a Douane officer who then entered them into the file... I was impressed how the Spanish system followed me from Bayona to Barcelona and was shown this in Ceuta by a Douane friend.

 

[Solent Sailor]

CI boats have been crossing into many "secondary" French ports since time immemorial. Will this make things any different now? Can't see why because they haven't left the EU (they were never part of it!).

So if a UK vessel visits St Peter Port then crosses to Dielette, will there be a problem? Is it different for a Guernsey registered vessel?

Might cause a surge in Guernsey/Jersey vessel registrations if not....

 

[Badvisor]

A couple of the ports listed (Lezardrieux and St Quay) do not show the customs symbol and I do not believe they are ports of entry. I am also suspicious of others on the list.
I'd use Noonsite as a reliable resource as this is what other third country nationals have been using for many years. This lists the following channel ports (there are other Atlantic ports):

• Caen-Ouistreham,
• Calais,
• Cherbourg,
• Dieppe,
• Dunkirk,
• Le Havre,
• Roscoff,
• St Malo

Yes I've been looking at Noonsite, but that is a very short list! No Boulogne for instance.
But it is on the Douane site.

 

[Sea Devil]

So if a UK vessel visits St Peter Port then crosses to Dielette, will there be a problem? Is it different for a Guernsey registered vessel?

Might cause a surge in Guernsey/Jersey vessel registrations if not....

It's the flag of the vessel plus the crew passports that decide it. Non EU = have to clear in

 

[Topcat47]

Oh lord the sea is so wide and my boat is so small........

I've often been diverted around the Cherbourg peninsula when getting the tides wrong or just missing a gate due to the wind dropping or shifting. St Vaast was always my secondary port of refuge when I missed Cherbourg and got swept east. Ouistraham isn't small boat friendly and the "Marina" for want of a better word, is on the other side of the channel from the ferryport, or was on my last visit; not only that it's a good way further south. It'll make life really difficult for small boats like mine, adding up to 12 hours to a passage across.

I don't remember having to book in immediately upon arriving in France before we joined the EEC. Really we just booked in a Chantereyne when we eventually got there, often after a couple of Days in St Vaast. Les douaniers really hated visiting yachts flying the Q Flag as it meant they had to do something about them. Hopeful they'll have a similar approach to smaller yachts anyway; we don't all have 50'+ gin palaces.

 

[Sea Devil]

Ouistraham isn't small boat friendly and the "Marina" for want of a better word, is on the other side of the channel from the ferryport, or was on my last visit;

I think you are right - I have recently downsized from 43 to 33 and weather that would not be noticed in the 43 is impressive in the 33.. Size does matter after all!!

I think you are a little unfair about Ouistreham which I quite like - I was in there a few months ago and made this video about it -

 

[Stemar]

I think you are right - I have recently downsized from 43 to 33 and weather that would not be noticed in the 43 is impressive in the 33.. Size does matter after all!!

Now try my 24 footer

It's all new for everyone, including Immigration/customs on both sides of the Channel, so it'll take a while to settle down, but I can't imagine there won't be some way of dealing with someone who ends up in St Vaast because bad weather meant they're utterly knackered and down tide of Cherbourg. If the best they'll do is a fine, someone will eventually die as a result. I know the customs of the sea allow for using any port of refuge, but is there any sort of international law?

 

[Sea Devil]

Now try my 24 footer

It's all new for everyone, including Immigration/customs on both sides of the Channel, so it'll take a while to settle down, but I can't imagine there won't be some way of dealing with someone who ends up in St Vaast because bad weather meant they're utterly knackered and down tide of Cherbourg. If the best they'll do is a fine, someone will eventually die as a result. I know the customs of the sea allow for using any port of refuge, but is there any sort of international law?

My first channel crossing was in a 22ft Galion - my first boat... I was around 30 then and the fact it took 24 hours to get to Cherbourg and about the same coming back as the OB motor only had a 2 gallon tank, I took to be normal... in 1972
I am pretty sure that it is going ashore that is the legal frontier... If you end up in St Vaast for the reasons you stated I am certain you would be allowed to stay until the weather/tide worked for you but not allowed to go ashore... Or you could anchor outside.... I was there 3 months ago...

 

[Graham376]

That is exactly how it works in Spain, Portugal & Gibraltar - or 'worked' but now we are non EU there is the question of passport stamping and the passport number being entered into the EU system to update how many days the (UK) passport holder has remaining on their 90 day allowance... Or maybe the EU will allow marina staff to enter this.

Going back 15 or 16 years, on the west coast of Portugal we had to visit police office at marinas after booking in, hope they don't start that again.

 

[st599]

I don't remember having to book in immediately upon arriving in France before we joined the EEC. Really we just booked in a Chantereyne when we eventually got there, often after a couple of Days in St Vaast. Les douaniers really hated visiting yachts flying the Q Flag as it meant they had to do something about them. Hopeful they'll have a similar approach to smaller yachts anyway; we don't all have 50'+ gin palaces.

Pre 90 in 180 rules?

We have the opposite issue, most times we have crew come over on the ferry, who will definitely be checked in. Now we'll need to find the immigration in order to leave otherwise they'll be marked as overstays.