Why is Greece the best and cheapest place to purchase a boat? Well there are many reasons why you can purchase a boat in Greece at a lower price than from any other place in the world.
As we all know Greece has the biggest fleet of registered shipping in the world. This does not only apply to the large commercial shipping but to the smaller private and commercial boats used mainly for charter too.
For many years now the Greek government has been encouraging the building and the chartering of pleasure craft by giving many incentives to the owners of small boats used for commercial charter.
These incentives started about 25 years ago by subsidizing the yacht building industry and also subsidizing owners to the purchase of the boat. The other incentive is that commercial charter boats are Vat free, the charter income is only charged 4% Vat and it is completely tax free.
Having so many thousands of boat for charter and needing to replace them regularly as most charterers now a days demand newer boats up to 5-7 years old, the need comes to replace the fleet very regularly and sell the older ones.
Having not paid Vat initially on the purchase of the boat makes the boat already cheaper. Secondly most boats have earned a substantial amount of income and the owner’s investment recovered very soon, the boat is sold cheaper for the need to purchase another one newer for charter.
It makes you think sometimes that so many thousands of boats already for charter in Greece alone and an average of 200 – 300 new ones added every year and with those sold, will there be an end to the finding boat buyers? Surprising enough all boats that are to be sold are selling and new buyers are coming from all over the world as they have discovered that Greece is one of the cheapest places to purchase a boat.
Greece is also a very popular place when it comes to cruising. Many boat owners from all over the world cruise around Greece and usually fall in love with the place and decide to leave their boat permanently as they return every year for their holidays. When they decide to sell their boat that particular boat is also in Greece and this gives Greece a bigger range of boats and not only ex charter boats. Those private boats range from the small cruisers to the Mega Yachts. So the choice of boats is vast. A quick search on the internet checking most big broking firms will show that a lot of their boats for sale are lying in Greece.
The yacht broking industry in Greece has improved and has come to line with the rest of the world in offering quality and assurance to the sellers and buyers. They are knowledgeable and I can sincerely say that they are trustworthy too and this is proven by the number of boats sold every year by Greek yacht brokers.