What does APA mean in yacht charter?

APA stands for Advance Provisioning Allowance. On a crewed charter, the charter fee pays for the yacht and her crew. The APA is a separate advance from the charterer for the running costs the charter itself adds.

The charter agreement produced by MYBA, The Worldwide Yachting Association, and adopted by the American Yacht Charter Association, sets this out in Clause 8. The charter fee covers the yacht and her equipment, basic consumables for the engine room, deck, galley and cabins, laundry of the ship's linen, the crew's wages, uniforms and food, and the insurance of the yacht and crew. The charterer pays, at cost, for all other expenses. The APA is the advance paid towards them.

The wording quoted here comes from the 2009 revision of the agreement, which MYBA publishes on its website. The 2017 revision uses the same wording for these clauses. This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice. The charter agreement you sign sets the terms of your APA.

Clause 8 lists the other expenses the charterer pays. They include:

• Fuel for the main engines and generators, and for the tenders and water sports equipment
• Food and all drinks for the charter party
• Berthing dues and other harbour charges, including pilots' fees, local taxes, divers' fees, customs formalities and waste disposal
• Water and electricity taken from shore, and ships' agents' fees where they apply
• Shore transport, personal laundry, and the charter party's communications and internet use
• Special equipment hired or bought at the charterer's request

Is APA a fee, and how much is it?

No, it is not a fee. The APA is an advance against the charter's expenses. What isn't spent goes back to the charterer.

There is no fixed rate. The MYBA charter agreement has a line for the APA amount on its first page, beside the charter fee, and leaves the figure to each charter. The amount you pay is the one written into your agreement.

Special requests, excursions and other costs that are not usually part of the yacht's running costs may have to be paid on top of the APA, either in advance through the broker or to the captain on boarding.

Under MYBA terms, the charterer pays the APA into the broker's clients' account. The broker passes it to the stakeholder, if the broker is not also the stakeholder, and the stakeholder holds it in a designated account. Before embarkation, the stakeholder sends the APA by bank transfer to the captain, or to the owner to pass on to the captain. Transfer charges are for the charterer's account, and exchange rates, where they apply, cannot be guaranteed.

How does the captain manage the APA?

The APA is the charterer's money in the captain's care. Under the MYBA agreement, the owner makes sure the captain spends it with due diligence, and the captain tells the charterer, at intervals, how it is being spent. If the balance runs low for the current spending, the charterer pays the captain enough to keep it in credit.

The 2017 revision of the agreement measures that spending 'as supported by receipts'. So receipts matter during the charter, not only at the end.

Whether the captain or a purser keeps the book, a simple daily routine keeps it ready to present:

• Log every spend on the day: date, supplier, amount, currency, how it was paid (card, cash or transfer) and what it was for.
• Keep the receipt with the entry. A photo taken at the till is easier to find later than a paper slip.
• Keep a running balance: APA received, plus any top-ups, minus spending to date.
• Keep charter spending apart from the yacht's own running costs. Crew food, for example, is part of the charter fee under MYBA terms, not the APA.
• Tell the charterer early if the balance will not last. Under the MYBA agreement, cheques and credit cards are not normally accepted for these payments, so the charterer should have enough funds available or deposit more with the broker.

How is APA reconciled, and what happens to unused APA?

Before the charter party disembarks, the MYBA agreement asks the captain to present a detailed account of expenditure, with as many supporting receipts as possible. The charterer then pays any shortfall, or the captain repays what is left.

One simple way to close the account:

• Close the book: every expense entered, each with its receipt, or a note where there is none.
• Tie each entry to the money that paid it: card payments and transfers to their statement lines, and cash to the cash counted on board.
• Where a payment was made in another currency, use the amount actually charged, as the statement shows it.
• Add it up: APA received, plus top-ups, minus expenses, equals the balance to repay or the shortfall to collect.
• Present the account to the charterer, settle the balance, and keep a copy for the owner's records.

How are receipts matched to card payments?

A card payment already leaves a record of the amount and the date. What tends to go missing is the paper receipt. SeaPay's apps join the two.

SeaPay ReceiptKeeper is an iPhone app for captains and crew. Snap a receipt and seapay.network reads the supplier, date, total, VAT and lines with Anthropic's Claude, only after you agree. Check anything it couldn't read. The receipt is filed with your company, picture attached, and matched to the card payment it belongs to, even at sea.

If your role may see the company's bank, the ReceiptKeeper home shows how many card payments still have no receipt, straight from SeaPay Paymaster. Tap one, snap its receipt, and it is matched to that exact payment.

No signal? Snap anyway. Receipts wait on your iPhone and go by themselves when you're back in range. ReceiptKeeper is coming to the App Store, for iPhone with iOS 17 or later. It needs a seapay.network account from the company you work for, and it is free.

SeaPay Paymaster is yacht bookkeeping software for operators, on Mac and Windows. Receipts crew send with ReceiptKeeper arrive read and matched to the card payment they belong to. Every entry is matched to its paper and filed under a category your accountant recognises. Invoices and receipts are attached only on an exact match, and bank rows are kept exactly as the bank sent them.

Paymaster's signed bank and VAT statements carry a signed QR code anyone can check in the browser, and each line has a QR code that opens its invoice or receipt. Paymaster can also publish a company's view to its owners and accountants, who read it in SeaPay Controller: read-only, with receipts and QR codes included.

SeaPay's services for superyachts and megayachts also list APA and financial dashboards, per charter and per vessel.

Prepaid cards for yacht crew

Companies with a SeaPay® Business account can order pre-paid cards for their crew, loaded from the SeaPay® account, and SeaPay® Visa Business cards issued by Cornèr Banca SA, Lugano. A SeaPay® card can be used in other currencies; the amount is converted into the card's currency. The card tariffs list the fees, including foreign-currency processing.

SeaPay® is not a financial institution. All financial services are provided by PRIVAT 3 MONEY Ltd., registered in England & Wales under company number 11700691, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as an Electronic Money Institution (FRN 900989). Cards are issued by SatchelPay UAB under licence by Mastercard International. SeaPay® Visa cards are issued by Cornèr Banca SA, Via Canova 16, 6901 Lugano, Switzerland. Payment processing is managed by Seapay Payments Ltd. Electronic money is not a bank deposit and is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

Sources

Last reviewed 13 October 2026 · SeaPay