Aussie owner Italian flag

[chris taylor]

Hi everyone, Thinking of buying a yacht in Italy as the same model in Australia is about $100k cheaper. Have a few questions which are hard to find answers. Firstly I have read that the owner must register the boat in the country of his nationality? I was of thinking of trying to keep the Italian flag & maybe re-registering her when we got to Australia after maybe cruising for 4 years. Maybe never bring her back to Australia so what would be the complications when selling? Can anyone help me or maybe point me towards a agency who specializes in this? Cheers Chris Taylor

[boatman61]

No can do.. unless your a dual national..
Any way.. I thought nothing was due till the boat is physically imported.. not when registered.

[daletournier]

As an Australian you don't have to register in your own country. Open ports like Langkawi can be used. This can be organised without you or the boat being in the country.
What Boatie says is true, you can Australian reg the boat but no duty or gst are due until you return with the boat to Australia.

[TonyBe]

As boatman61 says, you either have to be resident in Italy or have am Italian company that actually owns the boat on your behalf in order to have an Italian registration.

When you purchase the boat the dealer/seller will need to de-register it from the Italian Registry.

You are not required to register a yacht in your country of nationality. You can register it in any country that you are legally entitled to based on your nationality or residence. With some registries you don't need to be resident in the country or a national.

As boatman61 also said, no duty is payable until you actually enter Australia with the yacht - when I think it's both import duty and GST that you have to pay.

[gabilo]

You can register in Malta as a foreign national, using a Maltese company to act as a representative .
Has the advantage that the boat will remain Im the EU and if VAT is already paid you can leave the boat there in the EU as long as you want.... I am going this route presently, if you have questions you can PM me.... whole process costs around 2000 Euro

[Polux]

Originally Posted by chris taylor

Hi everyone, Thinking of buying a yacht in Italy as the same model in Australia is about $100k cheaper. Have a few questions which are hard to find answers. Firstly I have read that the owner must register the boat in the country of his nationality? I was of thinking of trying to keep the Italian flag & maybe re-registering her when we got to Australia after maybe cruising for 4 years. Maybe never bring her back to Australia so what would be the complications when selling? Can anyone help me or maybe point me towards a agency who specializes in this? Cheers Chris Taylor

I am not sure you can't, i mean, I am not an Italian and I have an Italian flagged boat (for 5 years). I an A EU citizen but what I read here, regarding a Swiss, that is not a EU citizen, tells me you can:

"L'ESPERTO RISPONDE
Un cittadino svizzero, armatore di una barca battente bandiera svizzera che deve entrare nelle nostre acque territoriali, per quanto tempo può restare come "ospite"? Se intende trasferire permanentemente la barca in Italia, quali sono le procedure e i documenti daprodurre?
Le unità di bandiera extracomunitaria sono ancora assoggettate alle limitazioni imposte dalla Convenzione di Ginevra del 1956 come successivamente modificata. In particolare,per le unità extra CE (come nel caso delle unità svizzere) è fissato in 18 mesi il terminemassimo di permanenza nelle acque comunitarie prima di incorrere nell'obbligo dell'importazione definitiva (la materia è disciplinata dal regolamento CE n. 993/2001 dellaCommissione del 4 maggio 2001, modificativo del precedente regolamento 2454/93).

Per utilizzare permanentemente la barca in acque comunitarie, il proprietario deve provvedere alla sua iscrizione nei registri italiani, dapprima regolarizzando l'importazione presso un qualsiasi ufficio doganale marittimo, assolvendo i tributi previsti con bolletta doganale dell'importo del 20% del valore stimato dell'unità più un dazio fisso ricavabile dal tariffario in vigore. Successivamente, presentando richiesta di iscrizione presso un ufficio marittimo (Capitaneria di Porto o Ufficio Circondariale Marittimo) otterrà l'iscrizione che ne sancirà l'avvenuta nazionalizzazione.
...

a procedimento di marcatura da parte di uno degli enti tecnici autorizzati.
A norma dell'art. 1 lett. c) della legge 172/2003 gli stranieri che intendano iscrivere unità da diporto nei registri italiani, se non hanno domicilio in Italia, devono eleggerlo presso l'autorità consolare delle Stato cui appartengono o presso un proprio rappresentante che abbia domicilio in Italia, cui le autorità marittime possono rivolgersi in caso dicomunicazioni relative all'unità iscritta."
http://www.navegnacervia.it/public/2...%20nautica.pdf

So if yo have someone that represents you that lives in Italy there is no problem. Normally that role is done by an agency.

I dealt with them. They are good and speak English:
Agenzia nautica a Lignano Sabbiadoro, consulenze sul diporto, patenti nautiche, prodotti e servizi per la nautica - L'agenzia nautica Wind Service di Lignano garantisce servizi unici al cliente.
Ask them.

If you buy a boat in Italia you will not have to pay those 20% that refers to IVA because it is already been paid by the previous owner and the Yacht will be VAT paid. Anyway you have to check that, I mean if the VAT has been paid or not even if almost all have it paid because they were bought by leasing.

[Timreyn]

We bought a European registered boat that was VAT paid. We are Americans but wanted to keep the boat in the Med and wanted to preserve the VAT paid status in case we wanted to re sell it. We registered our boat with a Dutch flag. I found the company in the Netherlands on the internet and they handled everything. It required setting up a UK llc company that we "sold the boat to" . This was all very easy to do and was fairly inexpensive. If you want more info message me. To be honest we now have no intentions of ever selling our boat so the reason to do it has gone away. Good news is we can keep our boat in the Med forever, bad news is we have to pay VAT on every bit of equipment we buy. A 25% premium on items and shipping!

[NevisDog]

Watch out for the cost of deregistering from the Italian flag. I am told this costs several thousand dollars in Italy (just a few dollars in other countries) and also involves several agents working on your behalf. After nearly 12 months, the PO has still not been able to deregister, so we are unable to register the yacht in our names and head overseas until this is done.

That's our experience anyway - not sure how hard PO has tried.

[Tbonem17]

I'm not 100% sure but I'm reasonably certain that you can get out of paying import duty into Australia if the boat was built in a country Australia has a free trade agreement with. ie. The US. GST is worked out at 10% of the purchase price plus freight or cost of sailing the boat to Australia. Depending on how long you own the boat before importing the purchase price can be lowered due to age.
It's depressing buying in Australia to be sure. Anything here is virtually double the price and 10 years older. Having to import and pay the taxes is still a bargain compared to our local prices.
Good luck boat hunting.

[dive_yeti]

You can easily register your boat in Malaysia on the tax free island of Langkawi. You need not to go there, your boat does not to be there, you do not need to have Malay citizenship and you do not need to have a Malay residence. Cost is as low as a nice dinner plus a good bottle of wine.
If you are interested send me a message on skype and I will set you up with the right people. BTW I had been living in Malaysia for 18 years.

[Factor]

Originally Posted by daletournier

As an Australian you don't have to register in your own country. Open ports like Langkawi can be used. This can be organised without you or the boat being in the country.
What Boatie says is true, you can Australian reg the boat but no duty or gst are due until you return with the boat to Australia.

Are you sure about that:
FROM AMSA

If you intend to take an Australian owned vessel overseas, then it must be Australian registered. It is an offence for an Australian-owned vessel to sail to a foreign port unless it is registered on the Australian general shipping register.

and

If you intend sailing your recreational vessel overseas from:

an Australian port to a foreign port
a foreign port to a foreign port
a foreign port to an Australian port
You must register your vessel on the Australian general shipping register before you leave.

Recreational vessels on international voyages are also required to comply with certain marine orders

.
I strongly suggest contacting AMSA and getting in writing what your status will be.

[beneteau-500]

As an Australian i have had not problem in sailing my yacht into oz in 2014/15 when it was British registered / flagged and I sold it at end of 2015 had no problem sailing it toNZ and my canados 50 is Italian registered

[Dave22q]

On this site I hear many schemes to dodge taxes but never see a volunteer to pay your fines if it all blows up. Believe it or not, many taxing authorities are not staffed by stupid people.

[NevisDog]

I've spoken to many Kiwi sailors who register their yachts offshore, mainly to avoid the stringent, invasive (big brother) survey requirements each time we head overseas. Never heard of anyone being arrested for this - it's just common practice here.

Cook Islands is the usual offshore country of registry but when we enquired I was told any commonwealth citizen (Ozzie, NZ, etc) is welcome to register in the British offshore jurisdictions - IoM, Jersey, etc, etc - which seem much cheaper, and with much more reasonable conditions imposed.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by beneteau-500

As an Australian i have had not problem in sailing my yacht into oz in 2014/15 when it was British registered / flagged and I sold it at end of 2015 had no problem sailing it toNZ and my canados 50 is Italian registered

I did the same.... as an Australian citizen I kept my UK registered yacht in Australia for 9 years. However I did have to pay duty etc on first arrival... but Customs couldn't give a monkey's what flag she was under.

I believe it is the same deal with an NZ citizen arriving in NZ with a foreign flag yacht.

Easy fix.... keep her O/S ....