Port de Saint-Tropez

• Location: Saint-Tropez, Var, on the south side of the Gulf of Saint-Tropez
• Capacity: 734 berths across two basins, with around 100 kept for visitors
• Maximum lengths by quay: Jean Lescudier basin up to 25m, Old Port from 25m to 50m, Estienne d'Orves mole up to 90m
• Maximum draught on the Estienne d'Orves mole: 4 metres
• Pricing basis: overall length multiplied by overall beam multiplied by a rate per square metre that varies by quay and season
• 2026 daily rate, very high season 10 July to 20 August: EUR 9.24 per square metre in the Old Port and EUR 7.29 on the Estienne d'Orves mole, VAT included
• 2026 daily rate, low season: EUR 1.59 per square metre in the Old Port and EUR 0.91 on the Estienne d'Orves mole
• Included: Rates include water and electricity but not the electrical adapter or the tourist tax
• Booking: vessels over 18 metres book through Magelan eResa and confirm with a deposit of 50 per cent of the stay
• Contracts: a winter contract from 15 October to 1 April and a summer contract from 1 May to the start of Les Voiles
• Regatta week: Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez runs from 26 September to 4 October 2026
• Airports: La Mole about 15km for private aviation, Nice around 110km by road

A fishing harbour that never stopped being one

Saint-Tropez sits on the south shore of its own gulf, facing north across the water towards Sainte-Maxime. The port is small, old and awkwardly shaped, which is exactly why it works. Yachts lie stern-to along the quays with their passerelles landing a few metres from the cafe tables, and the town wraps around the water in a single curve of ochre buildings. Nothing about the layout was designed for a 70 metre motor yacht, and owners come precisely for the effect of putting one there.

The harbour holds 734 berths across two basins with around a hundred kept for visitors. Three quays matter to a large yacht. The Jean Lescudier basin takes up to 25 metres, the Old Port from 25 to 50, and the Mole d'Estienne d'Orves, the outer breakwater, up to 90 metres with a maximum draught of four metres. That draught limit is the number that decides whether a given hull can come at all.

The approach and the summer traffic

The Gulf of Saint-Tropez is a wide, deep bay entered from the east with no navigational difficulty, and the port office works VHF channel 09 and is open around the clock in summer. What makes the arrival demanding is other people. In July and August the gulf is thick with tenders, day boats and charter craft, and the harbour entrance is a bottleneck. Berthing on the town quay is done stern-to onto a lazy line in front of an audience.

The prevailing hazard is the mistral, the cold northwesterly that funnels down the Rhone valley and blows hard across this coast for three days at a stretch. It arrives with clear skies and catches people out. The port includes a diver's intervention in some of its rates, laying up to two mooring lines a day on the Old Port quays in high season, which is a measure of how much attention the mooring arrangements need.

Four thousand euros a night for fifty metres in August, and the harbour still runs out of room.

What it costs, precisely

Saint-Tropez prices by area, taking overall length multiplied by overall beam, and applies a rate per square metre that changes by quay and by four seasons. On the 2026 tariff the very high season runs from 10 July to 20 August. In that window the Old Port is EUR 9.24 per square metre per day including VAT and the Estienne d'Orves mole is EUR 7.29. A 50 metre yacht with a nine metre beam covers 450 square metres, which is EUR 4,158 a night on the town quay.

The same yacht in low season, from 1 November to 1 April, pays EUR 1.59 per square metre in the Old Port, or EUR 715 a night. Rates include water and electricity and exclude the electrical adapter and the tourist tax. Reservations for vessels over 18 metres go through the Magelan eResa system and are confirmed on payment of a deposit equal to half the stay. Everything is payable on arrival and cheques are not accepted.

Getting a berth at all

Berths at Saint-Tropez are rented from the municipal port and nothing is sold. There are two contract seasons, a winter contract from 15 October to 1 April and a summer contract from 1 May to the start of Les Voiles, plus daily passage rates for everyone else. Requests are made online and the port operates two systems, Navily for boats under 18 metres and Magelan eResa above that.

In practice the harbour runs close to full from late June to the end of August and the good positions go to yachts the port already knows. An owner who wants the town quay in the first fortnight of August should be talking to the port office in the winter. Owners who leave it late end up anchored off Pampelonne and tendering in, which many of them do by choice.

Services, and what has to happen elsewhere

The port runs a fuel station and the rates for berths include water and power at the pontoon. Provisioning, laundry, florists and every kind of concierge service are within a few hundred metres, because the town's economy is built on servicing yachts and the people on them for four months a year. The port has been certified as a clean harbour active in biodiversity and joined the SEA Index as an institutional member in 2024, with artificial fish nurseries installed around the basin.

There is no yard capability here worth the name. Anything beyond a diver and an engineer means moving the boat, and the regional centre for serious refit work is La Ciotat, a comfortable day's run west along the coast, with Marseille beyond it. Golfe-Juan and Antibes are closer for technical support. Owners running a Saint-Tropez season keep their yard periods for the winter and somewhere else.

Privacy, which does not exist here

There is no discreet berth in Saint-Tropez. The Old Port quays put a yacht's aft deck within conversational distance of the pavement, and from May to September a continuous crowd walks past photographing the boats. Crew set up ropes and boards and spend a good part of their day asking people not to step aboard. The Estienne d'Orves mole is marginally more removed from the cafes and still fully visible.

Owners who choose Saint-Tropez have decided that visibility is a feature. The ones who have not tend to anchor off Pampelonne or in the lee of the Cap and use the tender, which gives them the town at dinner and privacy at breakfast. That is the standard compromise on this coast and it explains why the anchorage is often busier than the port.

Ashore, and the coast around it

The town is genuinely beautiful out of season and genuinely overwhelmed in August, when the population multiplies and the road in from the autoroute can take two hours. La Mole airport, around 15 kilometres west, handles business aviation and is the helicopter hub for the gulf, and Nice is roughly 110 kilometres by road at about an hour and a half in normal traffic. Most guests arrive by helicopter or by tender from a bigger airport.

The peninsula holds the beach clubs at Pampelonne, the hill village of Ramatuelle, and vineyards that produce most of the rose the town drinks. By sea the Iles d'Hyeres and Porquerolles are half a day west, Cannes and the Lerins islands are an easy morning east, and Corsica is an overnight passage. For a family week the mix of beach, town and short passages is as good as the Mediterranean offers.

Season, timing and the honest downside

The port's own calendar sets the rhythm. Low season runs from 1 November to 1 April, mid season covers April and the second half of September, high season starts on 30 April, and the very high season is 10 July to 20 August. Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez, the classic and maxi regatta that closes the Mediterranean season, runs from 26 September to 4 October in 2026 and fills the harbour with a fleet of over 300 sailing yachts. The Giraglia in June is the other fixed point.

The downsides are cost, crowding and the four metre draught limit that quietly excludes a slice of the modern fleet. August in Saint-Tropez is not restful, the prices are among the highest anywhere per square metre of water, and an owner is buying a stage and not a refuge. The compensation is that no other harbour in the world puts a large yacht so close to so much of what its owner came for.

Who it is for: The owner who wants to be in the middle of the French Riviera season and treats being looked at as part of what he is paying for.