A secretary put a date on the water on 19 September. 「粵艇南下」 — Guangdong-registered yachts sailing into Hong Kong waters — is expected to start as early as October, Mable Chan (陳美寶), the Secretary for Transport and Logistics, said at a press conference on the first Five-Year Plan and the 2026 Policy Address. Her office would announce the details in due course, she said. She did not say the paperwork was finished, because it was not.
At the same briefing Chan put the sequence plainly. The Marine Department 「快將」 — will soon — sign two work arrangements with the Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration (the mainland's maritime regulator for the province): one covering 港艇北上, Hong Kong yachts sailing north, and one covering 粵艇南下, Guangdong yachts sailing south. The Policy Address, delivered three days earlier on 16 September, uses the same tense in paragraph 354: the Marine Department "will soon sign an MoU with the Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration for the implementation of southbound travel for yachts from Guangdong."
That is the sentence to hold on to, because the wire copy did not. A Hong Kong news agency reported on 19 September that the Marine Department and the Guangdong administration "已經簽署" — had already signed — both arrangements. The desk read the secretary's own transcript, published by the Government's press release service the same afternoon, and it says the opposite. This is the difference between a scheme that is running and a scheme that is announced, and for anyone thinking about moving a hull across the boundary in October it is the only difference that matters.
The direction that is already running
Northbound is not a promise. The Policy Address records that from May, Hong Kong and Macao yachts may navigate in nine cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, with the requirement for a guarantee exempted and under temporary ship nationality registration, and that the first northbound voyage of yachts from Hong Kong set sail in June 2026. Guangdong did its half in writing: on 16 June 2026 the Guangdong and Shenzhen maritime safety administrations jointly issued provisions on the certification of Hong Kong and Macao yacht drivers in Guangdong waters, effective from issue and valid five years. Under them, a Hong Kong or Macao operator joining the individual yacht travel scheme in the designated waters needs no mainland licence conversion — but must complete at least two hours of online study and a 30-minute online assessment, objective questions, 90 marks to pass, with the resulting certificate valid five years. Holders of a Hong Kong Pleasure Vessel Operator Grade 1 certificate need the study only; Grade 2 holders sit an additional practical assessment.
What changes at the anchorage, not the berth
The three measures that do the work on the Hong Kong side were launched on 29 June 2026, and the Marine Department's own bulletin, Hong Kong Maritime News No. 95, sets them out. The one with the clearest effect on an arriving skipper is the third: visiting yachts no longer have to reserve a berth at a privately operated yacht club or marina before arrival. Instead the department has designated anchorage areas where they may lie.
Those areas are not a press-release abstraction. They were established by Marine Department Notice No. 119/2026, dated 25 June 2026 and signed by the Director of Marine, S.F. Wong, with the boundary coordinates given to three decimal places. Five locations, effective 29 June 2026: Tai Tam Bay, Stanley Bay, Three Fathoms Cove at Sai Kung, Repulse Bay, and Tai O — the last in two separate boxes, one north and one south of the town. Each sits next to ordinary navigation waters and near the bays small boats already use.
Two conditions attach. A visiting yacht using a designated anchorage must carry an Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponder and a Very High Frequency (VHF) radio, keep the AIS running at all times and maintain a continuous listening watch on the designated channel. The department's second measure built the system that watches them: a yacht monitoring system that calculates berthing numbers and distribution from each vessel's actual size, draught and anchorage occupancy, and tracks the yachts in real time.
The first measure is the one that takes the longest to satisfy. Visiting-yacht operators must pass a local knowledge examination on Hong Kong waters, covering main fairways, prohibited anchoring areas, speed restricted zones, bridge clearances and ferry routes. To let them sit it before arrival, the Marine Department has authorised mainland institutions to run the examination and approved seven mainland training institutions to deliver accredited courses. The first batch of examinations and courses was held on the mainland. On 19 September Chan said 「已有數十名內地船長完成課程和考核」 — dozens of mainland skippers have completed the course and assessment. Dozens is the government's own word. No precise figure has been published.
The rest of the arrival is administratively ordinary. A pre-arrival notification goes to the Vessel Traffic Centre not less than 24 hours before entering Hong Kong waters. An application for permission to navigate can be filed through the Electronic Business System within 30 days of arrival, is generally processed in three working days, and runs for up to 30 days at a time before it needs renewing. Arrival must be reported at a District Marine Office within 24 hours. Third-party risk insurance of not less than HK$5,000,000 is required. A yacht that stays more than 182 days out of 365 must be licensed locally.
The bill for arriving, at published rates
Every figure below is a published rate. The Marine Department's fees page carries a revision date of 1 February 2026; its Class IV licence table is dated 2 January 2007 and was last revised on 23 April 2007, and is the schedule still in force. Nothing here is an estimate.
| Charge | Published rate | Schedule, and its date |
|---|---|---|
| Permission to navigate Hong Kong waters, per month, chargeable area 20–40 m² | HK$112 | Marine Department fee annex, page revised 1 Feb 2026 |
| Permission to navigate, 40–100 m² — the department charges HK$112 plus HK$112 for each 20 m² above 40 | HK$112 + HK$112 per 20 m² | same |
| Permit to remain, single trip of up to 7 days, vessel under 400 m² | HK$820 | Marine Department fee annex |
| Permit to remain, up to 10 occasions in one month, under 400 m² | HK$4,100 | same |
| Arrival clearance | HK$58 | Marine Department visiting-yacht notes |
| Port clearance on departure, valid 72 hours | HK$58 | same |
| Light dues, vessel not in river trade, per 100 tons or part, each entry | HK$43 | Marine Department fees page, revised 1 Feb 2026 |
| Class IV pleasure-vessel operating licence, per year, 60–80 m² | HK$4,020 | Marine Department licence table, revised 23 Apr 2007 |
| Pleasure Vessel Operator Grade 2 competency examination, Parts A and B | HK$1,255 | Marine Department competency fee schedule |
| Pleasure Vessel Operator certificate, without examination | HK$660 | Marine Department certificate fee schedule |
| Pleasure Vessel Operator certificate, on passing an examination run by an authorised or recognised organisation | HK$220 | same |
The last three rows are the crew slot, and the last one is the point. A mainland skipper who satisfies the knowledge requirement through an authorised organisation pays HK$220 for the certificate — a third of the HK$660 charged for the certificate without examination, and under a fifth of the HK$1,255 full examination fee. The authorisation is what converts the examination from a trip to Hong Kong into a line item.
"Chargeable area" is not the hull's length. The department defines it as length overall multiplied by extreme breadth, in square metres, rounded up. A 15-metre hull with a 4.5-metre beam bills as 68 m², which puts it in the 40–100 m² band for the navigation permission and the 60–80 m² band for the annual licence. Multiply the two published figures by the hull you are actually bringing; the schedule does the rest.
The berth you no longer have to book
The berth a Guangdong yacht used to have to reserve is also priced, and the two clubs that publish rates price it very differently — because they are not selling the same thing.
| Berth or mooring | Published rate | Rate card, and its date |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory private mooring fee, 11 m and under, Causeway Bay or Aberdeen typhoon shelter, per month | HK$670 | Cap. 313A 13th Schedule, published by the Marine Department, revised 1 Feb 2026 |
| Statutory private mooring fee, 11 m and under, elsewhere in Hong Kong waters, per month | HK$210 | same |
| Hebe Haven Yacht Club marina berth, 12 m, walk-on, per month | HK$10,670 | Club 2025 price list |
| Hebe Haven temporary berthing, non-member, per day | HK$49 per metre of length | same |
| Hebe Haven mooring, 11.01–14 m band, per month | HK$2,988 | same |
| Hebe Haven visitor mooring for a non-member, up to 14 m, per month | HK$9,689 | same |
| Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club monthly mooring, 8–11 m, Causeway Bay | HK$4,555 | Club marine fees as of 1 August 2026 |
| Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club overseas visiting yacht mooring, under 50 ft, per day — first day free | HK$260 | same |
Read the last two rows together and the arrangement's shape appears. The Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club's resident moorings are full, it says so on the same page, and the waiting list runs "around five years" — non-members cannot take one even temporarily. Its overseas visiting rate, by contrast, is HK$290 a day over 50 feet and free on the first day, which is a rate designed for a yacht that leaves.
What this means if your boat is already here
Nothing in the October announcement shortens a queue, and this desk has already set out what those queues cost and how deep they run (Hong Kong's berth queues: fourteen years of waiting, priced against the hull). The two things are separate markets and the separation is worth holding on to. A resident berth is a lease on a fixed piece of a club's water, allocated by a list that moves at the speed of a member leaving. The new anchorages are designated for visiting yachts, not for residents, and they are not allocated by any list — the relaxation is a place to lie, not a place in a queue.
For a Hong Kong reader the practical consequence is on the price side. A Guangdong yacht arriving for a week from October will pay the navigation permission, a single-trip permit to remain and clearance — HK$1,272 at the published rates above for a hull billing 68 m², less for a smaller one, and before any berth or fuel. That is the number to keep in view when a club quotes a monthly rate, and it is the number that will decide whether a visiting owner anchors at Repulse Bay or telephones a marina. It is also, for anyone weighing a club berth against a marina berth, a reminder of what the club is actually selling: a permanent place, not a place to stay.
What to watch
The next concrete step is the signature. The two Marine Department–Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration work arrangements had not been signed as of the secretary's 19 September remarks, and the details she promised have not been published; both will arrive through the Marine Department and the Transport and Logistics Bureau, not through an announcement from the clubs. So the checkpoint is a document, not a date: watch the Marine Department's notices page for a new numbered notice extending or amending Notice No. 119/2026, and watch the Transport and Logistics Bureau for the southbound details. Beyond it lies a longer calendar the Policy Address has already fixed — the department has committed to completing the recognition process for overseas short-term training courses in 2027, and the Airport Authority is to begin advance works on the "SKYTOPIA" yacht bay in 2027, with tenders invited in the first half of 2027 for the Aberdeen marina development and the yacht bay together. The water gets a published fee schedule before it gets a signed arrangement.
