Buying a yacht in Turkey

The building coast

Turkey builds an extraordinary number of yachts — wooden gulets in the traditional yards around Bodrum and Içmeler, and steel, aluminium and composite vessels at a scale that puts the country among the world’s largest producers by volume.

The quality range is wide and the top of it is genuinely good. Several Turkish yards build to full class and MCA compliance, deliver internationally, and produce work that stands comparison with northern European builders at a materially lower price. The bottom of the range is what you would expect from any market with low barriers to entry.

For a buyer the implication is that the yard matters far more than the country. A Turkish-built yacht from an established, class-certified builder is a sound purchase; one from an unknown yard with no class involvement is a survey problem waiting to be discovered. The two are not distinguishable from photographs.

The related advantage is refit. Turkish yard labour is among the cheapest competent labour in the Mediterranean, and the joinery and metalwork skills are real. Owners bring boats here from across the region for interior work and paint, and the arithmetic usually justifies the delivery passage.

What a wooden hull commits you to

This is the section we would most like prospective gulet owners to read, because the romance of a wooden boat and the maintenance schedule of one are separate subjects.

A traditionally built wooden vessel is a living structure. She works in a seaway, she dries out if left ashore, her fastenings and caulking need attention, and she requires an annual programme that does not scale down if you use her less. A composite hull neglected for a season is a dirty boat; a wooden hull neglected for a season is a project.

What the annual cycle actually contains

• Haul-out and hull inspection every year, without exception, with caulking and fastenings checked properly rather than glanced at.
• Brightwork. The varnish that makes these boats beautiful is the single largest recurring labour line, and it is annual.
• Continuous small repair. Planks, frames and deck seams are maintained rather than replaced, and the work never quite stops.
• She must stay wet or be properly stored. A wooden hull left ashore in a Turkish summer without care will open up.

In Turkey all of this is affordable, because the yards that build these boats are the yards that maintain them and the labour is reasonably priced. Take the same vessel to the Côte d’Azur and the annual figure changes beyond recognition. This is the strongest single argument for keeping a gulet where she was built.

Flag, VAT and the free zones

Turkey is not a member of the European Union and is outside the EU VAT area, which is the fact that shapes everything about ownership structuring here.

A yacht kept and used in Turkey under Turkish flag sits in the Turkish tax system, with Turkish VAT applying to the purchase. For a vessel that will stay in Turkish waters this is generally the simplest arrangement and the running costs are low enough that it is usually the right one.

Turkey operates free zones used for yacht construction, storage and export, and a vessel built for a foreign owner and exported is treated differently from one sold domestically. If you are commissioning a new build here for use elsewhere, that structure is central to the transaction and should be set up by advisers at the outset.

The European point applies with full force. A Turkish-flagged, non-EU-VAT-paid yacht taken into European Union waters for anything beyond temporary admission triggers an import and a VAT charge on her value. Owners intending a Greek or Italian season need this worked out before purchase, not after the first cruise.

Keeping her here

The running-cost case for Turkey is strong and it is the main reason foreign owners base boats here.

Berthing is inexpensive and, unusually for the Mediterranean, genuinely available — the marina building of the last two decades has kept ahead of demand at most sizes. Yard rates are low, the trades are skilled, and crew salaries are well below the western Mediterranean. The season runs seven months, longer than Croatia or the northern Adriatic.

Against that, set two things. Parts for European and American equipment take longer to arrive and cost more when they do. And resale is regional: a boat sold in Turkey sells largely to buyers who want a boat in Turkey, which is a smaller pool than the Mediterranean-wide market a Palma-based yacht addresses.

For an owner who will genuinely use the boat on this coast, the trade is a good one. For someone buying with an eye on resale in three years, it is worth thinking about harder.

How a purchase runs

Conventional in outline, with two emphases specific to this market.

1. Appoint a surveyor who knows wooden construction if you are buying a gulet. A standard GRP-oriented survey will not tell you what you need to know about fastenings, frames or caulking, and the surveyors who genuinely know these hulls are here rather than in northern Europe.
2. Establish the export and VAT position first. Whether the yacht stays in Turkey or leaves changes the structure entirely, and it is far cheaper to decide before the transaction than to unwind afterwards.

For new build, contract stage payments against independently verified milestones and retain a proportion until after sea trials. This is ordinary practice in any building market; it matters here in proportion to how far you are from the yard.

Thinking about the exit

Turkey is cheap to buy in and cheap to own in. What decides whether that was a good trade is what happens in five years.

A composite production yacht from a recognised international builder sells out of Turkey to the whole Mediterranean, because a buyer anywhere can move her and knows what she is. A Turkish-built vessel from a good yard sells well regionally and more slowly further west. A wooden gulet sells almost exclusively to someone who wants a gulet in Turkey, which is a small and specific pool.

None of those is wrong. They are different liquidity profiles, and the discount you will accept at the exit belongs in the purchase price rather than in a later surprise. The regret we see most often is an owner who bought the most characterful boat on the coast and then needed a quick sale.

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