BOAT-COMPARATOR Guide

License-free boating on Lake Maggiore: the Borromean Islands

Up to 40 hp without a licence on the Italian side, just 6 kW on the Swiss side: rules, winds, departure bases and budget for reaching the Borromean Islands.

Stretching some 65 km across Piedmont, Lombardy and the Swiss canton of Ticino, Lake Maggiore is the only large pre-Alpine lake shared between Italy and Switzerland — and that is exactly what makes license-free rental slightly more subtle here than on its neighbours. The good news first: on the Italian side, the rule is the same generous one as on Lake Como and Lake Garda, and the Borromean Islands sit just a few minutes' cruising from Stresa.

One lake, two countries, two sets of rules

Navigation on Lake Maggiore is governed by an Italo-Swiss convention signed in 1992, which harmonises buoyage and right-of-way rules across the whole lake. Licensing, however, remains a national matter: each shore applies its own law. In Italy, you can helm without a licence up to 40.8 hp (30 kW); in Switzerland, a licence becomes compulsory as soon as the engine exceeds 6 kW, roughly 8 hp. The very same boat can therefore be "license-free" on one side of the border and not on the other — a case unique among the big lakes covered in our guide to license-free boat rental.

The Italian rule: up to 40.8 hp without a patente nautica

Italian law requires no patente nautica to drive a natante — a craft under 10 metres — whose engine does not exceed 30 kW (40.8 hp), on inland waters as well as at sea within 6 nautical miles of the coast. On Lake Maggiore, that translates into a wide choice of open boats and small motor launches of 5 to 7 metres, powered just under the 40 hp mark and rentable with nothing more than an ID document. Operators most often ask for renters to be 18 or over and run a hands-on briefing before departure. It is the most permissive rule in Europe for a beginner — in France, the license-free ceiling stays at 6 hp, as our guide to lakes Annecy, Geneva and Bourget explains.

On the Swiss side, the bar drops to 6 kW

On the Ticino part of the lake — about a fifth of its surface, around Locarno and Ascona — Swiss rules apply: above 6 kW of engine power, you need a boating licence (category A for motor). License-free rentals do exist there, but they are limited to 8 hp craft, enough for a gentle outing to the Brissago Islands and their botanical park, not for covering the lake end to end. The practical consequence is worth spelling out: a 40 hp boat rented license-free in Stresa may not be helmed without a licence in Swiss waters. Check the authorised cruising area in your contract — it most often stops at the border, north of Cannobio.

Where to start from: Stresa, Baveno, Verbania

The Piedmont shore concentrates most of the license-free offer, closest to the islands. Stresa is the obvious base: the three Borromean Islands sit literally opposite, less than a quarter of an hour away by boat. Baveno, just to the north, offers the same waters with slightly less crowded pontoons. Verbania (Intra and Pallanza), facing the Borromean gulf, lets you combine the islands with the villa-lined shore and the gardens of Villa Taranto. Further north, Cannobio is the last Italian stop before Switzerland; on the Lombard shore, Angera and Laveno open up the southern, wider and quieter part of the lake.

The Borromean Islands: the perfect day-trip target

Isola Bella, with its baroque palace and terraced gardens rising straight out of the water, is the lake's postcard image; Isola dei Pescatori (also called Isola Superiore), the only one inhabited year-round, lines up its fishing-village lanes and waterside restaurants; Isola Madre, the largest, shelters a botanical garden where peacocks and subtropical vegetation thrive on the lake's microclimate. With a rental boat you circle them at your own pace — a luxury compared with ferry timetables. Be careful on the approach, though: the main landing stages are reserved for the scheduled boats, which keep right of way; follow your operator's mooring instructions, and note that the passage between the San Giovanni islet and the Pallanza shore is closed to motor navigation.

Tramontana in the morning, inverna in the afternoon

Lake Maggiore lives to the rhythm of two remarkably regular thermal breezes: the tramontana, flowing down from the mountains towards the plain in the morning, then the inverna, blowing back up from the south in the afternoon. This alternating regime, present all year round, delights the sailing crowd of Verbania and Ascona — but it also means that water which is glassy at 10 am can carry a noticeable chop by 3 pm, especially in the wide section south of the Borromean gulf. With a small, loaded license-free boat, plan the most exposed crossing for the morning and keep the afternoon for the sheltered waters around the islands.

Shores, swimmers and protected areas: the local rules

As on every lake, the shoreline strip is the most regulated zone. Close to the banks, speed must be cut to manoeuvring pace — on the Swiss side, the inner riparian zone extends 150 metres — and bathing areas marked with yellow buoys are strictly off-limits to boats. Waterskiing and towed tubes are banned within 150 metres of shores and islands on the Piedmont side, and throughout the 300-metre coastal band on the Swiss side outside authorised corridors. Keep your distance, too, from the nature reserves of the Piedmont shore (Fondotoce, the Dormelletto reed beds), which are precious nesting grounds. On board, lifejackets for every passenger and a ring buoy with floating line are part of the mandatory equipment — the operator must provide them.

Season, budget, and surprisingly healthy water

The rental season runs roughly from April to October, with a clear peak in July-August around Stresa. Budget-wise, expect most often a few dozen euros per hour for a small open boat, and in the region of EUR 150 to 400 per day for a license-free boat close to 40 hp in high season, fuel on top — comparable to Lake Como, a notch below Lake Garda. The water itself has come a long way: limnological research documents Lake Maggiore's return to an oligotrophic state — nutrient-poor, hence clear, water — after the eutrophication of the 1960s-1980s (Salmaso & Mosello, Limnological research in the deep southern subalpine lakes: synthesis, directions and perspectives, Advances in Oceanography and Limnology, 2010, see the study on Google Scholar). The lake is also warming at depth, a sign of climate change measured in its waters as early as the 1990s (Ambrosetti & Barbanti, Deep water warming in lakes: an indicator of climatic change, Journal of Limnology, 1999, see the study on Google Scholar) — enough to stretch the swimming season a little, much as on the dammed lakes of the southern French Alps covered in our guide to Serre-Ponçon and Sainte-Croix. To compare the Lake Maggiore offer at a glance, Boat-Comparator queries Boataround, SamBoat and Click&Boat live: on a lake where the same boat may be listed on several platforms, the price gap is worth checking.

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