When you price a superyacht, the purchase is only the opening figure. The crew is the largest running cost you will carry year after year, and it is the one most buyers underestimate. Salaries, social charges, insurance, travel, training, uniforms and provisions together make up roughly 30 to 40 percent of the total annual budget, according to Foreland Marine. Before you fall in love with a hull, you need to understand the people who run it, because they decide whether your yacht is a pleasure or a liability.
Key Takeaways & The 5Ws
- Crew is the single largest running cost of a superyacht, typically 30 to 40 percent of the annual budget.
- Crew numbers scale steeply with size, from 2 to 8 on a small yacht to 30 to 50 or more above 100 metres.
- Captain pay runs from about 5,000 euros a month on small yachts to over 20,000 euros a month on 90 metre vessels.
- Rotational crewing protects your senior people but adds 40 to 60 percent to the crew cost.
- Owners pay the agency and the training, never the crew, under the Maritime Labour Convention.
- Who is this for?
- Buyers, owners, captains and anyone budgeting the true running cost of a superyacht.
- What is it?
- A breakdown of crew salaries, numbers, rotation, recruitment, training and tips.
- When does it matter most?
- Before you buy, when the crew number quietly sets your wage bill for the life of the yacht.
- Where does it apply?
- Across the global fleet, with figures drawn from Mediterranean and Caribbean norms.
- Why consider it?
- Crew is the cost that makes every other part of ownership work, so it pays to plan it.
How Many Crew Your Yacht Needs
Crew numbers climb steeply with length, and the jump is not linear. A yacht between 24 and 30 metres runs on 2 to 8 crew. A 30 to 60 metre yacht needs 8 to 20. Anything over 60 metres carries 20 or more, and above 100 metres you are staffing 30 to 50 people or more, as set out by YPI Crew. The reason is simple. A larger yacht has more engineering to maintain, more interior to service and more guests to look after, and each of those areas needs its own department. Every cabin you hand to guests is one you are not handing to crew, so the layout you choose at the design stage quietly sets your wage bill for the life of the boat.
What Captains and Crew Earn
A captain on a yacht under 30 metres earns roughly 5,000 to 6,000 euros a month. On a 90 to 99 metre vessel that figure rises to between 20,000 and 23,000 euros a month, according to the YPI Crew salary guide. The captain sits at the top of a pay structure that runs down through engineers, the chef, the chief stewardess and the deck team. Across a midsize yacht, individual salaries range from 40,000 euros to well over 150,000 euros a year depending on role and experience, as Fraser Yachts explains.
Put those salaries together and the totals are sobering. Fraser puts the crew bill for a 40 metre sailing yacht with 6 to 8 crew at roughly 400,000 to 600,000 euros a year. On a large superyacht the crew budget alone can pass 1 million euros annually. That is before you have bought a litre of fuel or booked a single berth, which is why experienced buyers treat the crew number as a core part of the purchase decision rather than an afterthought.
Why Rotation Adds So Much
If you want your senior crew to stay, you have to pay for their rest. Rotational crewing, where the key roles are doubled so each person can take structured leave, is now effectively standard on yachts above 130 feet. It raises the crew cost by 40 to 60 percent, according to Bespoke Crew, because you are paying two people to fill one chair across the year.
It feels expensive on paper, yet it is one of the clearest examples of a cost that protects your asset rather than draining it. A captain or chief engineer who burns out and leaves takes years of knowledge about your specific yacht with them. Replacing that knowledge is slow, and a poorly handed over engine room can cost far more than a second salary. Rotation buys you continuity, and continuity is what keeps a complex machine running safely.
What Recruitment Agencies Charge
You will almost certainly hire through a crew agency, and the cost structure is worth knowing before you start. Permanent placement fees usually run 8 to 10 percent of the crew member's annual salary, while temporary placements cost around 25 percent of the crew member's earnings for that engagement, as YachtBuyer sets out. One rule never changes. Under the Maritime Labour Convention, the agency charges the owner, never the seafarer, so any agency asking a candidate to pay is one to avoid.
A good agency earns its fee by filtering. The pool of people who hold the right certificates, references and visas for a given role is smaller than it looks, and a strong recruiter saves you from the far larger cost of a bad hire on a boat that cannot simply pull over.
What Training and Certification Cost
Every crew member on a yacht of 24 metres or more needs STCW Basic Safety Training, the legal minimum to work at sea. The course runs about five days, costs roughly 1,000 to 1,800 dollars and must be refreshed every five years, according to Flying Fish. Beyond that baseline sit the tickets your senior crew need to do their jobs, from officer of the watch certificates to engineering licences, and the cost of keeping all of it current sits in your annual budget. Many owners fund training for crew they want to keep, which doubles as a retention tool.
How Tipping Works on Charter
If you put your yacht into charter, tips become a real part of crew income and a real expectation for your guests. MYBA guidelines recommend 5 to 15 percent of the contracted charter fee, with the Caribbean and the United States trending higher at 15 to 20 percent and the Mediterranean lower at 5 to 10 percent, according to BOAT International. The tip is calculated on the charter fee itself, not on the separate provisioning allowance, so it pays to brief charter guests clearly to avoid awkwardness at the end of a trip.
How to Keep the Crew Bill Under Control
You cannot cut your way out of a crew budget without cutting safety, but you can manage it. Match the crew number to how you actually use the yacht rather than to the maximum the boat can hold. Invest in retention so you pay recruitment fees less often. Fund the training that keeps your best people, and treat rotation as insurance rather than waste. Crew is the cost that makes every other part of ownership work, and the owners who respect that tend to enjoy their yachts the most.
If you are building a full ownership budget, read our guide to the costs and expenses of running a yacht, see how the figures shift if you decide to charter the yacht, and browse more in the yachting section.
Stefanos Moschopoulos
Stefanos Moschopoulos founded The Luxury Playbook in Athens and has spent the better part of a decade following the auction calendar, the en primeur releases, and the watchmakers, gallerists, and shipyards the magazine covers. He writes the field guides and listicles that anchor the Connoisseur section — pieces built on Phillips and Christie's results, Liv-ex movements, and conversations with collectors he has met across Geneva, Bordeaux, Basel, and Monaco. His own collecting habits sit closer to watches and wine than art, and it shows in the level of detail in the magazine's coverage of those categories. Under his direction, The Luxury Playbook now publishes long-form field guides, market-defining year-end listicles, and the Voices interview series with the founders behind the houses and the brands.
