The legitimate question often asked by owners and brokers is: why can’t the captain or crew arrange clearance formalities by themselves?
Well, they can, and it is not a big deal.
Below is our step-by-step guide on how you can clear into Montenegro without an agent:
For clearance purposes, you will need:
- Yacht Certificate of Registry
- Crew & guest list
- Captain’s COC (Yacht-Master)
- Captain’s Power of attorney (signed and stamped by owning company)
- Insurance
- List of tenders and jetskis with stated HP/KW and LOA
Once you arrive at the customs dock, you have to wait for your turn to be called to tie up to the customs dock.
Once the boat is safely moored, you need to go to the Harbor master office and create an account at the official Montenegrin yacht activities tracking system. You will need to scan and upload all your documents and add your crew list data into the system (names, birth dates, birth, passport numbers, place of issue, validation) for each crew and passenger onboard.
Once all is completed, you will be given an official Montenegrin crew list with a red sticker that represents your navigation permit (vignette). It will be signed and stamped by Harbor Master.
From there, you need to go to Police and scan passports for all crew and guests. They will place an entry stamp on the crew list.
If you have a crew that is subject to visa and don’t hold one, you need to apply for a shore pass.
Once police control is completed, you need to return to a yacht, make copies of the official crew list and COR, and deliver one to each authority representative.
With a valid vignette, you are buying the Blue paper for the yacht (tourist tax), in which again you need to scan all passports and finish the process with Tourism Organisation registration as well.
For very patient guests, owners, and over-staffed crew, this is totally doable.
And that is precisely why most captains use yacht agents, as they don’t have time to go through all this, particularly during the busy summer season. Having an appointed agent, you can get direct information on the best time of arrival as the harbor master’s working hours may vary, and you probably don’t want to spend the night at the customs dock 🙂
