The obligation to pay second-class ship tax, from 100 to 200 euroshave about 100,000 owners of small and medium-sized recreational boatsin accordance with the provisions of article 12 of Law 27/1975.

In order to certify and pay the tax, each boat owner must have submitted a class B ship tax declaration in a special TAXISnet electronic application.

The tax, once confirmed, must be paid in two installments, or in one lump sum by the end of September.

The submission of these declarations should have been made by the liable owners until 26/07/24, based on article 17 of Law 27/1975, as amended last year in March by Article 46 of Law 5036/2023.

Given, however, that many of the boat owners were not aware of this obligation, and missed the deadline by decision of the AADE commander G. Pitsili and the Deputy Minister of National Economy and Finance Chr. Dima the deadline for these statements was extended until September 26.

The obligation to pay this tax is provided for in article 12 of Law 25/1975 as amended by Law 4646/2019. According to the article, all small and medium-sized marine vessels and ships, whether commercial or private – with the exception only of fishing vessels and tugboats whose operating time in marine transport services does not exceed 50% of their total operating time – must pay every year a second-class ship tax, which amounts to 100 euros if the length of the vessel does not exceed 7 meters and to 200 euros if the length exceeds 7 meters and reaches up to 12 meters.

This obligation also applies to taxpayers who own private recreational boats (simple boats, inflatables, speedboats, etc.). The certification of the tax until 2022 was expected to be done by AADE based on data that it had at its disposal.

However, this procedure did not ensure the collection of the tax from all debtors, as AADE was not able to locate them. From March 2023, with article 46 of Law 5036/2023, a new procedure for tax certification was established, according to which all owners of pleasure boats and all other ship owners – natural persons or companies – registered under on the first of January of each year in the relevant log book or log book/ Small Vessel Registration Book (BEMS), they must submit electronically a second class ship tax declaration to the tax authority responsible for the ship, for each previous year so that by submitting the declaration it becomes immediate determination (certification) of the tax.

The same obligation to submit a second-class ship tax declaration has the charterers or chartering companies of a ship under bare charter, as well as the lessees or leasing companies of a ship under financial leasing.