Excessive Fees Private Vessels

I had to create a new thread to inquire about this possible issue:

I jumped on to Noonsite to check current cruising fees for private vessels and stumbled upon this:

“Fees in the BVI are reported to change with
some officials in some ports charging private
yachts extra and excessive fees. If you
question a fee being charged contact the
Ports Authority and keep all receipts.”

Has anyone heard about this?

I certainly do not want to be blindsided with extra/excessive based on the whim of a C&I agent. And then have to waste time attempting to resolve this issue.

My first POE will most likely be Spanishtown as we are sailing from Sint Maarten.

15 years ago I cleared in at Spanish town from SXM. I was charged around 600 dollars to check in and could not get receipts for all the ancillary charges I paid cash for. A request for a full receipt was not well received.

@d_fish - I have never had a good experience in Spanish Town. Take a look at 2020-02-17 Blog entry where it took me 3 hours to clear back in there. The fees for that entry were $120, but usually the charges are a lot less than that as I have my annual temporary import paid. The important thing is to ensure that you and your boat are private and not remotely a charter boat. As that blog entry showed, another boat in line which was a charter boat but the owners were aboard and sailing privately was charged $1100!

It is my understanding we must clear close to where we make landfall which will be Spanishtown given where we are sailing from. We could head to Road Town as we will most likely arrive very early due to sailing overnight passage.

My concern after reading this nonsense is our vessel is private only and never been or will be chartered, HOWEVER it is owned by an LLC that we personally own and I have documentation proving that. However I don’t trust the C&I to necessarily understand why our vessel it registered this way.

We only intend on staying 10-14 days, our daughter & grandchildren for 6-7 of those days. If we end up viewed as a commercial vessel upon entry that makes the whole trip exhorbitantly expensive coupled with all the rest of the fees, moorings, service charges, exit fees & private water taxi 🏴‍☠️etc, not to mention how I would feel - violated. Meeting our family in the USVI is beginning to look like a better option.

I think that many boats are registered to LLCs, that shouldn't be cause for worry. I've cleared in at Road Town when coming from St. Martin before and it is particularly inconvenient, there is no dinghy dock for you to use. You could clear in on JVD, and if asked state that when you were going between Prickly Pear and Neckar you realized it was too early for Spanish Town and that you just continued on to JVD since that was your destination. I used to use Gun Creek to clear in, but I am given to understand that they are not open yet (after Irma).

The downhill run from St. Martin is a lot better than working upwind from the BVI, but you will have the wind and waves almost right behind you so it will be a rolly ride. I often end up tacking downwind to minimize roll and that adds a lot of miles to the passage.

We had a boat for 5 years that was owned by a two owner LLC. We carried our Articles of Organization that listed the two owners. The boat was a former Moorings Beneteau 40. We were very careful to say "This is a private vessel owned by our LLC. It has NEVER been in charter." Never a problem in the BVIs. In Sint Maarten a different boat with the same name as our boat's former name owed Simpson Bay bridge fees; they tried to get us to pay that. We did not pay.

We recommend checking in at West End. Road Town is a major challenge to do ferry traffic through C&I. If you cut between Norman Island and St. John, there you are. Gun Creek will not reopen. Too bad, never a wait!

Cheers, RickG

Good luck Debbie. At all C&I places in the BVI they always used a random number generator to 'calculate' the fees. Of course my knowledge is now somewhat dated but I'll bet things haven't changed for the better. Hope you and Fraser are keeping well.

Perhaps go to USVI and when family aboard, go to USVI. My preferred going from STT is to JVD or West End.

Is there an issue with bringing a charter boat in to the BVI as an owner as compared to a private non-charter boat? Ours is US flagged and based in BVIs. Pre-covid, we went to and from USVIs without much hassle, or cost, as far as I recall. Sounds like the rules, or their random application have changed.

It is random application and interpretation, I believe. As linked above, the people being charged $1100 were evidently the owners of the boat (same names as on the ownership papers), yet the BVI still classified this as a "charter" type entry because there were others aboard who had different names (friends of the owners) and charged accordingly. I think that had only the owners been aboard in that case it would have gone through as a private trip. I think that, in Spanishtown at that time, they were looking for any reason at all to charge fees. The French owners were not aggressive or impolite, at least until they'd been presented the bill!

Perhaps go to USVI !!

Most long term sailors in the Caribbean are totally avoiding the BVI's altogether. Too many made up fees, unfriendly C/I officers, etc. etc.
I talked with the tourism representatives at the Annapolis Boat Show, last month about the many issues and problems in da islands.
The tourism people seemed oblivious to what was going on with the cruising community avoiding their islands. They explained that charter boats are what they like to see, regardless of what real sailors feel.
Unfortunately that is the attitude throughout the BVI's.

This makes me very sad . Watching this thread closely as we will be trying to enter e private boat from USVI in April. Love the BVI but not loving hearing about all of this attitude !

@Maria_and_Steve - unfortunately the overseas tourism representative jobs are effectively sinecure and looking at the surnames of those folks you might see a correlation to those currently wishing to keep the status quo. And those same families are earning from the cruise ships and charter companies and cruisers don't rank. Unfortunately, a bigger proportion of islanders don't profit from cruise ships but need income from cruisers and private visitors; but they don't have much of a say. Impolite and incompetent C&I/other officials are just a side-effect of the BVI's unemployment policy and a remnant of the "good old days" when IBC and offshore banking guaranteed a good income stream for the country.

I depart for a couple of months of sailing the Caribbean next week. I'll be in St. Martin shortly, and think I'll sail to the USVI while skipping the BVI completely. The reception at C&I that I expect to get is keeping me from planning on visiting, unless Mal happens to be there when I come past, in which case I might drop by and re-visit the BVI. It is unfortunate that despite the beauty of the islands and the friendliness of the majority the cruising community tends to avoid the BVI (at least until after the obligatory first visit).

Arndt, and Kim, if you havent already, talk to Tony and Melody (just went thru BVIs a few months ago) and Dirk and Sandy (will be going through). Arndt when would you be passing through? Ill be there for Thanksgiving!

We just spent 10 days in USVI, Vieques and Culebra on Sweet Spot. A Leopard 48 owned by a partnership and in charter with the Moorings. I am one of the owners.

Here is a quick summary of our experience.

1. Clear out of Roadtown.
It happened to be most convenient….but as others say it’s not the usual first choice.
Everything is now done on Sail clear…. Easily completed over Internet in advance. If no Internet there are terminals available.
Check in with customs with your Sail Clear number.(emailed to you)
Unfortunately for some reason the Sail Clear number was cross linked with another boat !! Had to delete the original departure notification and generate a new on on the terminal.

Then had to wait for customs to be available.
Customs prints all forms, ….then off to cashier. $15 charge.
Then to immigration ….unfortunately my timing to avoid ferry arrival was thrown off by the sailclear issue.
Total time 1 hour. Customs was friendly.

2. Clear in at Cruz Bay.
Since we had 4 Uk citizens on board we didn’t use ROAM …not sure if it’s available here.

We arrived at customs at 5.40 …customs closes at 6. We were given a hard time by the 3 agents for late arrival. (Should be there by 5.30)
Cleared in by 5.50 Officers wanted to leave asap. 10 minutes total.

3. Clear in at Culebra.
Called customs ….asked to fill in Roam. I didn’t realize you could do this for UK citizens as well
Purchased Dtop online.
Initially they wanted us to go to Fajardo !! but asked to go to airport in Culebra.
Short walk (15 minutes) to airport. Customs was very friendly….didn’t understand why we were there !! After a few phone calls…..realized he just needed to check UK citizen passports. 10 minutes total.

4. Clear in at Sopers Hole.
Friendly immigration officer entered some boat details.
Then to customs with Sail Clear number.
Told them it was my boat … taking it to Moorings. Had BVI cruising permit showing it was a BVI based boat.
I was asked if I had a tender …and did I tow it or on Davits. Since I towed it the customs official wanted me to generate a sailclear notice !! After showing her the dinghy and getting a second opinion….no need for Sailclear.


Next to Cashier to pay $3, then to port authority to pay $48 port fees…..a $1 a ft .
Finally immigration … told the officer we were all leaving the next day. No need to fill in forms….just tell airline/ferry you lost the departure slip !!

30 minutes total.


Cheers

Bob

Sounds like an improvement over the paper system. We will be giving this a try soon.

Cheers, RickG

We cleared into Great Harbour, BVI from USVI on Nov 18th for a 1 week visit on our private vessel registered under an LLC.

Fees included:
- Customs & Immigrations - $24
- Environmental Tax- $10pp X 6 crew = $60
- Port charge - $1/ft X 49ft = $49 (charged whether you are anchored or moored during your clearance)
- No cruising tax (unlike daily fee of $4pp or $16pp for BVI or non-BVI registered charter vessels)

Make sure to use Sail-Clear to submit your vessel manifest in advance of arrival. You'll still need to fill out the paper Immigration Form - one for each crewmember. I was unable to purchase additional blank forms from either Great Harbour or West End as they said no extras to sell.

At C&I (at least in West End or Great Harbour) you'll visit 4 windows - Immigration (present passports and Immigration Forms), Customs (provide your SailClear arrival notification ID. They'll calculate your fee and Environmental tax and provide you with stamped paper copy of the Sail-Clear info), Treasury (pay the Customs fee and Environmental tax), Port Authority (pay the port charge).

Note that the Immigration Form has a bottom section for depature info - the date should be your planned departure date and the port is your next port of call (after you depart the BVI). Make sure you also fill out the back of the from with your Customs declaration.

On departure from West End I was charged a $4 Customs fee. No departure tax was charged. Again, use Sail-Clear to submit your departure notification in advance. I went to 3 windows - Customs, Treasury, then Immigration.

They missed the $0.25 for the form, I always get charged that and it seems superfluous considering all the other fees.

No departure tax for your boat as all aboard are "Crew" and not "Passengers".