BOAT-COMPARATOR Guide

No-Licence Boat, RIB, Sailboat, Yacht: Which Type Rents for the Most?

Our July 2026 nightly readings (over 20,000 offers by type) give the real hierarchy: yacht €3,218/day median, catamaran €891, sailboat €395, no-licence boat €238.

Everyone can guess a yacht costs more than a no-licence boat. But how many times more, exactly? And where do catamarans, motorboats and RIBs sit in between? Our July 2026 nightly readings answer with real figures, measured on the offers of the major platforms in up to 178 destinations depending on the type.

The price hierarchy, measured

Readings from 4 to 23 July 2026, prices for a one-day rental roughly 30 days ahead. For each type: median of the per-destination recorded medians.

Three lessons from these figures

1. The yacht gap is a chasm. A €3,218 median for yachts — 3.6 times the catamaran and 13.5 times the no-licence boat. No surprise: the category carries a skipper or crew, heavy engines and large hulls — you are not paying for the same product, you are paying for a full service. The 136 destinations where yachts appear also skew Mediterranean and high-end, which pushes the category's median up further.

2. The motorboat is the real mass market. With 9,394 offers observed — more than every other type combined except sailboats — the motorboat massively dominates platform supply, present in 178 of 183 destinations. Its €590 median actually spans the whole spectrum, from small open boats to big cabin cruisers.

3. The sailboat remains the offshore bargain. At a €395 daily median, a sailboat costs less than a powerful RIB, for incomparably more carrying capacity and range. The trade-off is paid in skills (or a skipper) rather than euros. It is also the type with one of the widest footprints in our data — 176 destinations — because a sailboat fleet exists everywhere from Brittany to the Aegean, whereas no-licence boats cluster in sheltered bays and lakes.

By the day or by the week: mind the conversion

Our readings cover the price of a one-day rental. Yet sailboats and catamarans are mostly rented by the week, at a weekly rate that almost always works out cheaper than seven separate days; RIBs and no-licence boats, conversely, live off day and half-day rentals. Comparing types on the daily median alone therefore slightly flatters the "weekly" boats. For the full ranges, extra costs included (skipper, fuel, deposit), our guide to how much a boat rental costs covers the whole question.

What the median does not say

These medians compare offers that differ by nature: a yacht is often rented crewed in Mediterranean high season, a no-licence boat by the hour on sheltered waters. They measure the market as displayed, not a "like-for-like price". Academic work on charter points the same way: the SWOT study of the Balearic sector highlights a highly segmented offer, where service level and seasonality weigh more on price than the boat itself (Payeras, Jacob, García, Alemany, Alcover & Martínez-Ribes, The Yachting Charter Tourism SWOT, Tourismos, 2011, see the study on Google Scholar).

Going further

The geography of prices (Portofino at €2,800, Sète at €200) is detailed in our per-destination analysis of the readings, and the statistics page republishes these medians every night with fresh data. For your own case, a Boat-Comparator search on your dates compares platforms live — often a 10 to 25% spread for the same boat type.

Source: Boat-Comparator nightly readings, 4-23 July 2026. Per-type figures: 1,962 destination×type readings, 20,790 offers observed in total. The same boat can appear in several successive readings.

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Also worth reading

• How much does it cost to rent a boat in 2026? Real prices
• License-Free Boat Rental in France: Rules, Prices & Where to Book
• Renting with or without a skipper: how to choose