Virgin Islands Bareboat Charter: BVI, USVI and What It Really Takes

Bareboat means you are the captain. No crew, no chef, and nobody to pick up the mooring while you hold the boat into the wind. The Virgin Islands are the most forgiving place in the world to try it — short hops, deep water, and line-of-sight navigation — and they are also where people most often overestimate what they can handle on a week they booked a year in advance. Below is what the operators actually require, what it costs, and how to tell which side of that line you are on.

Short answer: bareboat means you skipper the yacht yourself, with no crew aboard. Neither the BVI nor the USVI requires a sailing licence — the charter operator decides, and typically wants five days or 100 miles as skipper on a comparable boat. Expect $3,300 to $15,000 a week depending on season and boat, plus $1,200 to $2,000 in permits, moorings and fuel. A professional skipper adds about $330 a night.

Written by Adrian Sneed, Caribbean charter broker, and reviewed by Hansel Sneed, who founded Sneed Tropical Yacht Charters in 1992.

Hansel and Adrian Sneed — your enquiry goes straight to them, not a call centre. We place bareboat, skippered and crewed weeks, so we have no stake in which one you pick.

What does bareboat mean on a Virgin Islands charter?

Bareboat means you charter the yacht alone and skipper it yourself — no captain, no chef, nobody else aboard. Neither the British nor the US Virgin Islands requires a sailing licence to do it, but the charter operator will assess your experience before confirming. Weekly rates start near $3,300, and adding a professional skipper costs about $330 a night.

A bareboat charter hands you the yacht and the responsibility. The base gives you a boat briefing and a chart briefing, and after that you provision, you navigate, you anchor, you cook, and you are liable for the boat. Nobody else is aboard.

There is a middle rung most people miss. A skippered bareboat puts a professional captain aboard to handle the sailing while the rest of the week stays self-catered. It runs roughly $330 a night plus the skipper’s provisions, and it costs you a cabin or a saloon berth. A crewed charter is a different product again: captain and chef as a minimum, all-inclusive pricing, and nothing on the boat is your job.

Most people who ask us about bareboating the Virgin Islands end up on one of those three, and not always the one they started on.

Can you skipper it? What the sailing resume has to show

No government licence is required in either territory. The operator decides instead, on a sailing resume. Sunsail publishes the standard as five days or 100 miles as skipper on an equivalent size yacht, and The Moorings applies a comparable test. Catamarans need twin-screw experience specifically. If the resume falls short, the base puts a skipper aboard at your cost.

Neither the British nor the US Virgin Islands requires a government sailing licence to charter a bareboat. That surprises people, and it should not reassure them. The decision has simply been handed to the charter operator, and the operator is the one carrying the insurance.

The major fleets ask for a sailing resume before they confirm the booking. Sunsail publishes the standard for Caribbean destinations as five days or 100 miles as skipper on an equivalent size yacht (Sunsail qualifications), and The Moorings applies a comparable test. Bases also want that experience to be reasonably recent and on a boat close in size to the one you are chartering. For a catamaran they want twin-screw experience specifically, because docking two engines is a different skill from docking one engine and a rudder.

What they are really checking is narrower than the mileage suggests: can you set an anchor and trust it, pick up a mooring under load, dock in a crosswind, and read a chart well enough to stay off the reef at the entrance to Trellis Bay.

BVI or USVI: where should the week start?

Start in the BVI if it is your first bareboat week — short line-of-sight hops, a mooring ball almost everywhere, and the largest charter fleet in the world. Start in the USVI if you want fewer boats and can be aboard the same afternoon you land, and will accept longer open-water legs. Crossing from the USVI into the BVI is now restricted.

Both territories are good bareboat ground. They are not interchangeable, and the choice comes down to fleet, flights and paperwork rather than scenery.

For a first bareboat week, the BVI is the easier place to make mistakes. Short hops, sheltered water, and a mooring ball at the end of almost every one of them. The USVI rewards a crew that already knows what it is doing and wants fewer boats around.

How does the June 2025 BVI licence change affect your charter?

It only affects boats based outside the BVI. Since 1 June 2025 a foreign-based vessel under 115 feet pays $7,500 a year on a restricted licence or $24,000 unrestricted, plus $1,200 for every cruise, and is capped at seven BVI charters a year. Many USVI-based boats no longer enter BVI waters at all. A BVI-based boat is unaffected.

In June 2025 the BVI overhauled commercial licensing for foreign-based charter yachts. A foreign-based vessel under 115 feet now pays $7,500 a year on a restricted licence or $24,000 unrestricted, and $1,200 on top for every cruise. Foreign-based vessels are capped at seven charters a year, cannot stay more than sixty continuous days without further permits, and any foreign-based bareboat over sixty feet must be under the command of a licensed captain. Summary of the amended Charter Acts, O’Neal Webster.

Going the other way is simpler. A BVI-based bareboat can usually visit the USVI, but you clear out of the BVI and into the US at a designated port of entry, and back again. Do not skip it for an overnight. Charter contracts prohibit it, several fleets fit trackers, and if the boat is detained the person who signed the contract carries the loss — including any delay to the next charter.

Want one week across both territories? Tell us your dates and we will send only the boats licensed to do it →

How much does a Virgin Islands bareboat charter cost?

A bareboat week runs from about $3,300 in low season to $15,000 in high season, depending on the boat and the month. Adding a skipper costs around $330 a night on top. The same boat fully crewed is roughly double the bareboat rate. Full breakdown by boat type and territory below.

Those low-season figures are not typos. August through October is materially cheaper and genuinely quieter, and it is also hurricane season, which is a conversation about cancellation terms and insurance rather than about the weather on any given week.

The comparison people avoid: a 46-foot catamaran bareboat in March for eight people lands near $12,000–$15,000 before fees. The same boat crewed is roughly double. Split eight ways, the gap is a few hundred dollars a head against a week in which nobody provisions, nobody cooks, nobody washes up, and nobody has to dock.

What fees are not included in a bareboat charter rate?

Budget roughly $1,200 to $2,000 on top of the charter rate for a crew of six. The main items are the BVI cruising permit at $6 per person per day, a $10 environmental levy, a National Parks Trust permit, overnight moorings, customs clearance, a $20 departure tax and the damage waiver. Every one is itemised below.

None of the following is optional, and most operators bill them separately or collect them at the base.

Budget roughly $1,200 to $2,000 on top for a crew of six once permits, moorings, fuel and the waiver are counted. It rarely comes in under that, and no reputable operator will pretend otherwise.

Should you charter a monohull or a catamaran?

Take a catamaran if the group includes non-sailors. It does not heel, the cockpit and saloon sit on one level, the draft is shallow, and the cabins are split between two hulls. Take a monohull for a lower rate, better upwind sailing, and one engine and a rudder rather than the twin screws most bases want separate experience for.

Most Virgin Islands bareboats are catamarans now, and for good reason. They do not heel, the cockpit and saloon sit on one level, the draft is shallow enough for the anchorages you actually want, and the cabins are split between two hulls — which matters more than anyone admits when four couples share a boat for a week.

Monohulls are cheaper, point better upwind, and give you one engine and a rudder instead of two engines and a lot of windage. If your resume is built on monohull sailing and you have never handled twin screws, the honest options are to charter a monohull or to book the checkout skipper and spend the first morning learning to dock the cat properly.

What does a week bareboating the BVI actually look like?

The standard first week runs Road Town to Norman Island, Cooper Island, Virgin Gorda and North Sound, then back by Marina Cay, Jost Van Dyke and Soper’s Hole. Nothing on it is more than about three hours, and one day has no passage at all. The loop has barely changed in thirty years, for good reason.

Nothing on that list is more than about three hours, and one day has no passage at all. That is deliberate.

First bareboat weeks go wrong when the itinerary requires being somewhere by a particular time, because that is when crews leave a mooring they should have stayed on. Build in the layover day and you will use it.

When should you not bareboat the Virgin Islands?

When the skipper is the only competent sailor aboard and everyone else expects a holiday rather than a watch system. Also when your last comparable trip was more than five years ago, when small children or anyone unsteady on deck is coming, or when you want both territories without carrying the clearance risk yourself. Usually the fix is a skipper, not a full crew.

We place bareboat, skippered and crewed weeks, so we have no stake in which one you pick. These are the patterns where bareboat weeks tend to disappoint:

• The skipper is the only competent person aboard, and everyone else expects a holiday rather than a watch system.
• Your last comparable trip was more than five years ago, or was on a very different boat.
• Small children, or a multi-generational group where somebody cannot move around a deck easily.
• You want the BVI and the USVI in the same week without carrying the clearance risk yourself.
• The point of the trip is a holiday for the person who would be doing all the sailing.

In most of those cases the fix is not a crewed charter, it is a skipper. At around $330 a night a professional aboard removes the docking, the anchoring and the weather calls while keeping the boat, the budget and the informality of a bareboat week. Going fully crewed is the right answer when you also want the cooking and the provisioning to stop being your problem.

Virgin Islands bareboat FAQs

Keep planning

Bareboat is one way to sail these islands. For the destinations themselves — where you go, what it costs crewed, and what each territory is like — read the British Virgin Islands and US Virgin Islands guides, or the Virgin Islands overview which compares all three territories side by side. If you are still weighing the format, how to charter a yacht and what a charter costs cover the rest.

Last updated 2 September 2026. Government fees verified against the BVI cruising permit schedule, the Environmental and Tourism Levy notice and the US National Park Service fee page for Virgin Islands National Park. Licensing changes from a legal summary of the amended BVI Charter Acts. Charter rates are 2026/27 operator rate cards.