The two questions that reach my desk most often about the Greek islands are not about islands at all. One is some version of "we are three or four couples, we want a crewed catamaran around the Greek islands next summer, we do not have a budget yet, who is reliable to get a quote from". The other is shorter: "a crewed yacht in the Greek islands for a week for six people, where do we book". This page answers both the way I would answer them at the desk, with the real numbers from the rate cards I hold and nothing that I would not put in a proposal.
Where do you book a crewed yacht charter in the Greek islands?
Through a charter broker, and the reason is structural rather than a sales line. The crewed yachts that cruise the Greek islands belong to private owners and are run by their managers; none of them is a company with a reservations desk that can show you the market. You have three ways in. You can write to one owner or operator and see one fleet. You can use a listing site and see a great many boats with nobody responsible for the week once you have paid. Or you can brief a broker, who holds the rate cards across the market, puts two or three real yachts in front of you with their dates, and writes the one contract that governs the week. A yacht charter in the Greek islands is booked the same way whether the yacht is a 15 metre catamaran or a 45 metre motor yacht: one yacht, one week, one crew, one agreement.
The broker is paid by the owner's side under the MYBA form of agreement, so the advice costs the charterer nothing above the rate card. That is the single fact that makes the arrangement work, and it is worth knowing before you compare anything else. How the week is arranged is a short read; the rest of this page is the detail.
Which companies are reliable to get a quote from?
I will not name other houses, so let me give you the test instead, because it is the test I would want applied to me. A reliable source of a quote for a crewed charter in Greece passes four independent checks. First, the broker is listed by a professional body you can look up yourself: the International Yacht Brokers Association publishes its Charter Active Members on iyba.org, and this house is one of them. Second, the contract is the MYBA Charter Agreement, the Mediterranean standard that fixes how the deposit, the APA, force majeure and disputes are handled. Third, there is a legal entity behind the signature that you can verify; ours is George Yachts Brokerage House LLC, registered in Wyoming, with the brokerage desk in Athens. Fourth, and this is the one most people skip, the written proposal separates the base fee from the yacht's own VAT rate, the APA and the gratuity line, per yacht, so that you can see what you are paying for before you decide. The four checks are laid out with the registers on the credentials page, and there is a longer piece on how to verify a charter broker if you want the method rather than the summary.
A quote that fails any one of these is not necessarily dishonest. It is simply not a quote you can compare with another, and comparison is the whole point of asking more than one house.
What does a crewed week in the Greek islands cost for six to eight guests?
One price per yacht per week, with the crew included, before expenses. For a party of six to eight, which is three or four couples or two families, the yachts that fit sit in the lower half of the Greek Charter Index, and the numbers below are the current rate cards, not averages.
A crewed sailing catamaran of 12 to 16 metres, eight to ten guests, runs EUR 17,000 to 22,000 a week net base. BABALU, a 2024 Lagoon 51 with four double cabins each with its own bathroom, eight guests and a crew of three, sits at EUR 17,000 to 22,000 on her card. The 16 to 19 metre catamarans run EUR 18,900 to 48,000, and the 20 to 22 metre class, which is where the foredeck jacuzzis and the fourth crew member appear, EUR 31,500 to 43,500. The whole class is on the crewed catamaran page.
A power catamaran, the same space without the mast and with sixteen knots in hand, starts at EUR 21,000 to 28,000 for 13 to 17 metres. EXPLORION, an Aquila 54 of 2023 with four cabins for eight guests and a crew of three, is the yacht I put in front of most three-couple groups who want to move between island groups without a long day at sea. The 20 to 22 metre power catamarans run EUR 33,000 to 69,000; ALENA, a Fountaine Pajot Power 67 with four cabins, is EUR 34,000 to 48,000. The class is on the power catamaran page.
A crewed motor yacht starts at EUR 17,500 to 28,000 for 18 to 21 metres and EUR 21,000 to 47,500 for 22 to 25 metres. SEA YA, an Azimut 66 refreshed in 2024 with three cabins for six and a crew of three, cruises at 24 knots and runs EUR 24,000 to 28,000; WHY NOT, a 23 metre Dominator with three cabins and a crew of four, EUR 30,000 to 35,000. From 26 to 31 metres the band is EUR 35,900 to 75,000, where ONE, a Pershing 90 with four cabins, sits at EUR 45,000 to 49,000. The motor yacht page carries the rest, and the weekly motor yacht rates are set out by size.
Every figure is per yacht per week. Nothing on a Greek crewed charter is priced by the number of guests, and if a quote you receive is, it is a different product.
What is in the quote, and what is added to it?
The base fee buys the yacht, her crew and her insurance for the week. Three lines sit on top of it, and a proper proposal shows all three before you sign.
The APA, the Advance Provisioning Allowance, is the running budget of the week, paid in advance and settled against receipts at the end: fuel, food, drink, berthing and port fees. On the yachts this house represents it runs 20 to 30 percent of the base on a sailing yacht, 25 to 35 percent on a catamaran and 30 to 40 percent on a motor yacht, because the number tracks fuel burn. Whatever is not spent comes back to you.
Greek charter VAT applies at the yacht's own certified rate, which on the current rate cards is 5.2, 6.5, 7.8 or 12 percent, with 13 percent as the statutory ceiling. Short hires and bareboat pay 24 percent, which is one of the reasons a crewed week is a different product. The rate belongs to the yacht, not to the broker, and it is written on the proposal next to her name.
The crew gratuity is customary at 10 to 15 percent of the base, calculated on the base alone, at your discretion at the end of the week.
Put together on a EUR 24,000 catamaran week: APA of EUR 6,000 to 8,400, VAT of EUR 1,248 to 2,880 depending on the yacht's rate, and a gratuity of EUR 2,400 to 3,600, which lands the all-in week between about EUR 33,600 and EUR 38,900, or roughly 1.4 to 1.6 times the base. On a motor yacht the multiple runs a little higher because the APA does. The cost calculator does this arithmetic for any yacht on the list.
When do you have to book for summer 2027?
Nine to fourteen months ahead for a peak week, which means that July and August 2027 are being booked this autumn and winter. June and late September need six to nine months; May and October still offer a real choice at three to four. The five and six cabin yachts go first, because there are fewer of them than any brochure suggests, so a party of ten or twelve should use the long end of every window. Booking early buys first choice of yacht and week rather than a discount; serious owners rarely mark down weeks that will sell at rate card anyway. The full reasoning, with the dated requests from my own desk, is in how far ahead to book for 2027.
How does the booking actually run, from the first email to the gangway?
It is shorter than most people expect. You send a brief: the month or the dates, who is coming, the islands you have in mind if any, and a budget zone if you have one. A written proposal comes back within twenty-four hours, usually the same day, with two or three real yachts, their cards, their dates and the all-in arithmetic above set out per yacht. You choose, or you ask for a different zone, and the yacht is held on her calendar while you decide.
Then the MYBA contract is drawn in your name and the yacht's: fifty percent of the charter fee on signing, and the balance with the VAT and the APA before embarkation on the date the contract names, which on my proposals is forty-five days out. A preference sheet follows, food and drink, allergies, children, birthdays, the pace you like, which the crew reads before you board; on this house's charters it lives in a private guest page we call The Cabin. What happens after you book walks through each step. Embarkation is on any day of the week you choose, there is no Saturday rule in Greece, and in Athens most of the yachts on the list leave from Alimos marina, about twenty-five minutes from the airport; the Ionian yachts board at Corfu or Lefkada.
Which Greek islands does a week reach, and from where?
Three cruising grounds carry almost every crewed week I write, and the first decision is which one, because they are in different seas. From Athens the Saronic begins eighteen nautical miles out at Aegina, with Poros at 25, Hydra at 35 and Spetses at 50, which is why the five-night Saronic week is the shortest programme on the list. The Cyclades, also from Athens, open at Kea 35 miles out and Kythnos 45, with Syros at 70, Mykonos at 90, Paros at 95 and Santorini at 130, which is a week with real distances and, in July and August, the Meltemi, the Aegean northerly that a good captain treats as a routing problem. The Ionian boards at Corfu or Lefkada and runs Corfu to Paxos 35 miles, Paxos to Lefkada 50, Lefkada to Ithaca 20 and Ithaca to Kefalonia 10, in green, calm water that suits families and anyone who would rather swim than sail.
Mykonos, Santorini and Corfu do not belong in the same week; the first two are a Cyclades week, the third an Ionian one. The best Greek islands for a crewed charter sorts them region by region, and yachting in Greece, explained is the longer orientation if this is your first week.
When is a crewed yacht charter in the Greek islands not the right booking?
If you hold a licence and want to sail the boat yourselves, you want a bareboat, which this house does not broker. If you want a day on the water rather than a week, that is a day charter at 24 percent VAT, a different market with different boats. If your party is larger than twelve, Greek law caps a charter yacht at twelve guests however large she is, so the honest answer is two yachts cruising together or a smaller party. If your heart is set on the Dodecanese, the Sporades or Crete, I will say so plainly: this house writes weeks in the Saronic, the Cyclades and the Ionian, and I would rather send you elsewhere than reposition a yacht across half the Aegean on your account. And if you are looking for a price that is set by the number of guests, the Greek crewed market does not work that way, and no honest quote will pretend otherwise.
What do you send to get a quote?
Five things, and none of them has to be final. The month or the dates. Who is coming: how many couples, any children and their ages. Catamaran or motor yacht, if you have a view; if not, say so and I will show one of each. The islands you are drawn to, or simply "somewhere quiet". And a budget zone, if you have one. Three or four couples writing "we are not sure of the budget yet" is the most common opening line I read, and it is a perfectly good one: the reply sets out three zones, from a 15 metre catamaran at EUR 17,000 to a 25 metre motor yacht at EUR 45,000, with the all-in week next to each, and you tell me which one reads like your family.
American guests will find the dollar side, the contract under US company law and the flight logistics on the page for American clients, and the fixed-price version of the week on the all-inclusive page. If you would rather be matched than brief, the yacht finder asks six questions and I answer the rest personally.
