Corfu is where Greece leans closest to Italy, in geography and in temperament. The old town keeps its Venetian manners, the water south of it turns the particular green the Ionian is known for, and every spring the enquiries arrive at my desk with the same question wearing different clothes: what would a week from Corfu actually cost us?
I answered this for Athens recently, and the complete cost breakdown covers the whole country. Corfu deserves its own answer, because one line on the invoice behaves differently here than anywhere else in Greece, and it is the line nobody explains until it has already been paid.
How much does a yacht charter from Corfu cost?
A fully crewed week runs from 17,000 euro to 235,000 euro for the yacht and her crew, before VAT and the running float. Most families land between 22,000 and 60,000 euro all in. Those are real numbers from the yachts I place, kept current in the Greek Charter Index, not a range copied from a brochure.
Broken down by what people actually book: a crewed sailing catamaran opens the market at 17,000 euro base, the tier S/CAT Summer Star sits in at 17,000 to 22,000. Power catamarans run 21,000 to 90,000 by size, with the ten guest tier around 34,000 to 48,000. Crewed motor yachts start at 17,500 and climb to 235,000 for the largest hulls, and crewed sailing monohulls run 24,000 to 55,000.
Why does the same yacht cost more from Corfu than from Athens?
Because of where the yacht sleeps in winter. Athens holds the largest concentration of crewed yachts in Greece, and a yacht that begins and ends her week there never bills you for travelling. Book that same Athens-based yacht for a Corfu start and she has to come to you, roughly two days of steaming each way, and that delivery arrives on the contract as a repositioning fee of a few thousand euro, or hides inside a heavier provisioning allowance on a one way itinerary.
The cure is simple and almost nobody applies it: ask where the yacht is based before you compare prices. An Ionian-based yacht starts your Corfu week clean. When two offers look alike and one is quietly three thousand euro heavier, the difference is usually geography, not greed.
What are the four numbers on a Corfu charter invoice?
The base fee covers the yacht, her crew, insurance and standard equipment. The APA, typically 25 to 40 percent of the base, is your running float for fuel, food, moorings and port fees, accounted to the receipt and refunded where unspent. Greek VAT applies to the base fee at the yacht's certified rate, 5.2 to 12 percent in practice under the statutory 13 percent ceiling for weekly crewed charters. And the crew gratuity, customarily 10 to 15 percent, is calculated on the base fee alone, never on the total.
Here is the part that favours you in the Ionian: the sea itself keeps the APA gentle. The legs between Corfu, Paxos, Antipaxos and Lefkada are short, the water is the calmest in Greece, and a fuel line that can run to hundreds of euro a day among the Cyclades often stays modest here. The same yacht, the same appetite, a lighter float.
What do real Corfu weeks come to, all in?
Work with 1.25 to 1.5 times the base, before the gratuity, and you will not be surprised. A crewed sailing catamaran at 17,000 base lands near 21,300 to 24,000 all in for a private, crewed, fed week. A ten guest power catamaran in the class of P/CAT ALENA, 34,000 to 48,000 base, lands near 42,500 to 67,200 depending on season and appetite. A crewed motor yacht in the class of M/Y NAYLA at 39,500 base lands near 53,300 to 60,000, the heavier multiplier belonging to the engines, though the Ionian forgives even those more than open water does.
When is Corfu the right place to start?
When the Ionian is the point. Corfu's airport receives seasonal direct flights from most of Europe, the first evening in the old town is the grandest opening act in western Greece, and the sail south reads like a novel: the anchorages of Corfu first, then Paxos, then the channel bays down to Lefkada. Calm water makes it the kindest sea in Greece for first-timers and young children. Americans usually connect through Athens or a European hub, and the American's guide walks that journey door to deck.
When is Corfu the wrong place to start?
Honestly: when the picture in your head is a whitewashed Cycladic postcard, because that is a different sea, and the Cyclades against Ionian comparison deserves reading before any deposit. When the specific yacht you love is Athens-based and the delivery would erase what the Ionian saves you. And when your dates sit in the first half of August and flexibility matters more than geography, because the Ionian's popularity with families means her best yachts book out first.
What is the cheapest honest week from Corfu?
A crewed sailing catamaran for eight in late June or September: 17,000 base, about 21,300 to 22,100 all in before the gratuity, the shoulder weeks pricing 15 to 25 percent below peak for the same yacht and the same sea. Spend the difference on one long lunch in Fiskardo and an extra night at anchor somewhere the anchorage guides mark as worth oversleeping in.
One last note for two people rather than eight: the Ionian at those prices is also where the honeymoon week makes its quietest, strongest case. The same arithmetic, halved appetite, doubled privacy.
Send me your dates and party size and you will have the real options with the base fee, the certified VAT rate, the APA and the gratuity range set out separately, in writing, before anything is signed. That is how a Corfu week should begin: with the numbers already honest.
