REGISTRATION OF PLEASURE YACHTS UNDER THE MALTA FLAG

Registration of Yachts under the Malta Flag is a simple and straight forward operation which may be conveniently divided into two stages:

• Stage 1 - Incorporation of a Maltese company
• Stage 2 - Registration of the Yacht in the name of the Maltese company

The above two stages are explained hereunder

STAGE 1 - Incorporation of a Maltese Onshore company
The reason for incorporating a Maltese company is for the purpose of registering the yacht in the name of a Maltese body.

Under Maltese law a company must have at least two shareholders and at least one director. One or any of the shareholders could also be directors of the company.

The yacht owner has a choice of two types of companies depending on whether he wishes to disclose his identity or not and these are as follows:

Onshore Holding Company (the owner appears as share holder)
Onshore Holding Nominee (the owner appoints nominees as apparent shareholders)

STAGE 2 Yacht Registration under the Malta Flag
Upon incorporation of the company we will proceed to effect the yachts registration. This is done in two stages:

• Provisional Registration
  During this six month period the yacht may navigate freely with a provisional certificate of registration This gives the owner sufficient time to obtain cancellation of the previous registration and to prepare the necessary documentation. A point to mention is that at this stage the bill of sale to the Maltese company is not needed hence the owner as a trial period may utilize this period. Another could further extend these two periods of three months each. Should the owner decide to go ahead with permanent registration and providing all the necessary documents have been obtained we may proceed to register the yacht permanently.

• Permanent Registration
  Upon receipt of all the necessary documents, including a bill of sale to the holding company a permanent registration certificate is issued.

At no stage in the operation do transfer taxes apply.

THE COST OF MALTESE FLAG REGISTRATION

The cost of registration depends on the type of company that the owner wishes to incorporate i.e. an onshore company (owner appears as share holder) or an onshore nominee (owner appoints licensed nominees as apparent share holders)

The initial registration costs are incurred only once for setting up and first year's operation. During the ongoing process the annual costs only apply.