What’s Included in a Turkish Gulet Charter: Board Packages, APA, and VAT Explained

A Turkish gulet rate already covers more than a standard Mediterranean charter fee: the yacht, the full crew, fuel for a set number of cruising hours a day, and mooring in Turkish waters. What sits on top is a per-person board package for food, 20% Turkish VAT, and the crew gratuity, and those are the lines this guide decodes, one by one.

• The base rate on most gulets bundles crew, fuel within a daily engine-hour allowance, and Turkish mooring fees.
• Food and drinks usually run through a board package priced per person per day, not through an APA.
• Turkish VAT is 20% of the charter fee and is always added on top of the base rate.
• The usual extras are alcohol, crew gratuity, and dinners ashore.

If you would rather not decode anything, that is fine too: every quote we send is already translated into one all-in number, so you compare real costs instead of quote structures. For what those numbers look like by yacht type and season, our Turkey yacht charter price guide is the place to start; this article explains the mechanics behind them.

The Anatomy of a Real Gulet Quote

At the TYBA charter show in Turkey, operators quote us across a saloon table the same way they quote everyone. One agent summed up his gulet in a single breath: the weekly rate, "plus 30% APA and 20% Turkish tax," with "4 hours running engines every day" included. That one sentence contains everything you need to understand about gulet pricing, so let us take it apart.

"30% APA." APA stands for advance provisioning allowance: money you pay up front, which the captain spends on the trip’s running costs and accounts for, with the unspent balance refunded after the charter. On a Mediterranean motor yacht it is standard. On a gulet it is the line we question first, because most gulets replace the APA with a board package, and the rate already includes the things an APA normally funds. When a gulet quote carries an APA anyway, we ask the operator what it is for, line by line, before anything else. More on that below.

"20% Turkish tax." That is Turkish VAT, charged at 20% of the charter fee since July 2023, added on top of the base rate and due with your final balance. You will still find charter blogs quoting 18%; that rate is 3 years out of date. The 20% is predictable and unavoidable, which is why we show it in the first quote rather than letting it surprise you at contract stage.

"4 hours running engines every day." Fuel for up to about 4 cruising hours a day is inside the rate. Cruise more than that and the extra fuel is billed under the terms of the agreement. Gulets can afford this convention because the Turkish coast is a short-hop cruising ground and gulet hulls spend their afternoons at anchor, not in transit. In practice we plan routes around 2 to 3 hours underway a day at most, so the allowance is rarely a constraint.

What the agent did not need to say, because it is standard on Turkish gulets: the crew, their food, and mooring inside Turkish waters were already in his weekly rate. That is the structural difference between a gulet quote and almost everything else in the Mediterranean.

Board Packages Decoded: Half Board, Full Board, All-Inclusive

Here is the single most common surprise we see on gulet quotes, and we want you to meet it here rather than on board: half board does not mean dinner every night. On the terms we see from Turkish operators, half board covers breakfast, lunch, and snacks every day, plus up to 2 dinners per week. The other 5 evenings you eat ashore.

We would not call that a catch. Evenings in the harbor restaurants of Bozburun, Gocek, or Fethiye are a genuine highlight of a Turkish charter, and many of our clients prefer that rhythm. But 5 restaurant dinners for a full group is real money, so it belongs in your budget from day 1, not as a discovery in week 1.

Here is how the 3 package levels usually compare:

One honest caveat: these labels are not standardized between Turkish operators. We have seen "full board" presented as if it were all-inclusive, and packages that quietly exclude more than they include. On recent quotes we have handled, a full-board menu ran around €70 per person per day with alcohol excluded, but the figure and the scope both move by yacht. That is exactly why we get the package scope in writing before you sign, not after.

APA on a Gulet: Different Rules Than the Rest of the Med

On a standard Mediterranean motor yacht, the model is simple: the base rate covers the yacht and crew, and everything else, fuel, food, drinks, port fees, runs through an APA of roughly 25 to 35% of the charter fee. The captain spends it, accounts for it, and refunds what is left. If you are weighing that model against a gulet, our gulet vs motor yacht comparison covers the whole decision.

A gulet works differently. Most have no APA at all, because the rate and the board package already cover what an APA normally funds. When a gulet quote does carry one, it should be small and clearly scoped: alcohol, water toys, or fees for legs outside Turkish waters.

The structure to be careful with is the double structure: a per-person board package, plus an APA, plus a separate fuel line, all on one quote. We have seen a gulet APA overrun by thousands of euros before the charter even began, precisely because a food package and an APA sat on the same quote with no agreed boundary between them, and fuel was billed separately on top of an allowance that should have covered it. Nothing about that charter was inevitable. It was a quoting problem, and quoting problems are preventable before contract.

So this is what we ask every Turkish operator for, as standard practice:

• An itemized quote before contract, so every euro has a name: rate, package, VAT, and anything the APA is meant to cover.
• A pre-agreed provisioning standard, so "food and drinks" means the same thing to you, to us, and to the cook.
• The APA report, during and after the charter. One operator told us no client had ever asked to see one. We ask every time, and a professional operator provides it without friction.
• Provisioning receipts on request, because provisioning is usually the largest APA expense and the one with the least visibility.

One more thing worth knowing: Turkish owners and operators do not all follow the standard Mediterranean contract conventions, and payment terms can differ from what charterers in Greece or France would expect. That is not a reason to avoid Turkey. It is a reason to treat the contract, not habit, as the source of your protections, which is exactly what we review before you sign.

Fuel and Engine Hours: How the 4-Hour Convention Works

The engine-hour allowance is one of the friendliest conventions in Turkish chartering, and one of the least explained. Fuel for around 4 cruising hours a day is typically built into a gulet’s rate, and in the quotes we see that holds even when the gulet also carries an APA.

4 hours is more than most weeks need. We plan Turkish routes around 2 to 3 hours underway a day at most, because you came for the bays, not the transit, and the Turquoise Coast rewards short hops. A morning run from one anchorage to the next, engines off by lunch, is the natural gulet rhythm.

2 things we still confirm on every quote:

• What the allowance covers. Main engines are standard; on some yachts, generator and air-conditioning hours are scoped separately. We confirm which meters count before you sign.
• What overage costs. Cruising beyond the included hours is billed as extra fuel at the rates set in the agreement. If your route needs longer legs, a one-way itinerary for example, we flag the fuel implication before you commit to the route, not after.

What Is Never in the Rate

Whatever the package, plan for these on top:

• Turkish VAT at 20% of the charter fee, due with the final balance, normally about 6 weeks before you step aboard.
• Crew gratuity, at your discretion. In Turkey the usual range is 5 to 15% of the charter fee, handed to the captain in cash at the end of the week and shared across the whole crew, cook and deckhands included.
• Alcohol and premium drinks, unless you have a genuine all-inclusive package with drinks named in it.
• Dinners ashore, which on a half-board week means most evenings.
• Personal spending and transfers, unless transfers are arranged as part of the charter.
• Anything outside Turkish waters. Adding Greek islands to a Turkish charter changes fees, taxes, and paperwork entirely, and deserves its own conversation before it goes on a route plan.

2 items sit in the gray zone, which is why we check them per yacht rather than promise a rule. The transit log, the vessel’s Turkish cruising document, is handled by the operator and normally covered within Turkish waters; we confirm it is inside the rate on every quote. Water toys vary the most: we have stood on gulets where the full water-sports garage was included in the price and only the seabobs were billed separately, and on others where every toy runs through the APA. The contract lists which applies, and we read it so you do not have to.

How a Gulet Quote Differs From a Greek or Standard Med Charter

The shortest version: a Mediterranean motor-yacht quote is a bare boat-and-crew rate that builds the actual trip through the APA, while a gulet quote is closer to all-in, with food as the visible variable.

• Base rate: a gulet bundles crew, daily engine hours, and Turkish mooring; a standard Med rate covers the yacht and crew only.
• Food: a gulet prices it per person through a board package; a Med charter provisions it through the APA at cost.
• Tax: Turkey adds 20% VAT on the charter fee; other Mediterranean countries apply their own VAT rules and rates.

Neither structure is cheaper by nature; they distribute the same trip differently, and which one suits you has more to do with group, style, and route than with the math. If you are still deciding between the 2 coasts, our guide to choosing between Turkey and Greece walks through it.

Our Advice Before You Sign

3 rules cover almost everything in this article. Get the board-package scope in writing, down to the drinks. Know what any APA on a gulet quote is for, and ask to see its report. And compare quotes all-in, charter fee plus VAT plus package or APA plus gratuity, because 2 quotes that look far apart at the headline rate are often close once the structures are translated.

That translation is our job. If you are holding a gulet quote now, or just have a week in mind, send it over: we will turn it into one all-in number, tell you what is missing from it, and show you how it compares against the gulets we charter in Turkey. If you are earlier in the process, our Blue Cruise guide explains the style of the trip itself.

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