Port Pierre Canto (Cannes)

Location

La Croisette, Cannes, the eastern of the two Cannes yacht harbours, at the foot of Pointe Croisette facing the Iles de Lerins, at 43 32.5 N 007 01.8 E on the city's own ports leaflet, entrance marked by a green occulting light with a white sector on the south jetty and a red occulting light on the west jetty

Operator

Ville de Cannes, through the municipal Regie du Port Canto, with tariffs fixed by town council deliberation, the 2026 schedule voted on 18 December 2025

Berths

553 across 10.6 hectares on the city's own port and works pages; the French encyclopedic record and the tourist office say about 530, trade directories 598 to 600

Vessel range

the city quotes up to 90 m; the 2026 tariff's top band is category R, 80 m and over, on a berth width above 14 m

Beam and draught

berth widths run from 2.70 m at category A to over 14 m at category R, and charted depths are 2 m to 7 m; the city states a maximum draught of 7 m and publishes no alongside depth by berth or category

Entrance and speed

entrance 110 m wide, 3 knots inside the port

VHF

channel 9 for access and security, channel 23 for the weather bulletin

Shore power

the 2026 tariff lists outlet rentals from 16 A to 600 A, at EUR 2.80 a day for 16 A up to EUR 127.30 a day for 600 A

Metered fluids 2026

electricity EUR 0.53 per kWh and water EUR 3.60 per cubic metre, both included in the berth fee up to category I.1, 21.99 m, at a flat 4 per cent of the fee

Fuel

station on site since 2017, self-service 06:00 to 22:00 all year, staffed 08:30 to 19:30 mid-June to mid-September. No pump price is published

Waste and environment

free pump-out for vessels up to 25 m, sorted waste collection, Pavillon Bleu since 2008 and AFNOR Ports Propres certified since 2019

Tenure

rental only. Port Canto sells no leasehold and no purchasable berth, only transient, seasonal and long-term rental

Next door

the Vieux Port de Cannes, run since 2022 by Marina du Vieux-Port de Cannes SAS, shareholders IGY Marinas and Fayat, on a 30-year concession, 727 berths and tariff bands to 134.99 m on a 24 m berth width

Airports

Nice Cote d'Azur about 30 km and 30 to 45 minutes by the A8, Cannes-Mandelieu about 5 km west and France's second business aviation airport, Nice to Cannes about 7 minutes by helicopter

Event surcharge

berthing during events organised inside the port is the daily rate increased by 50 per cent, written into the 2026 municipal tariff

Fixed dates 2026

Yachting Festival 8 to 13 September, Regates Royales 19 to 26 September, Film Festival 12 to 23 May, MIPIM 9 to 13 March, Cannes Lions 22 to 26 June, MIPCOM 12 to 15 October

The second port of Cannes, and how it got there

Port Canto sits at the eastern end of the Croisette, at the foot of Pointe Croisette, looking out across the bay towards the Iles de Lerins. It was inaugurated on 19 July 1965 after eighteen months of construction and was named Port Pierre-Canto in September 1966, with Prince Rainier III of Monaco and Princess Grace standing as godparents. The reason it exists at all is one man: Pierre Canto, a local administrator, proposed the project in 1958, obtained a fifty-year state concession for his company by ministerial decree on 13 March 1964, and paid for the whole thing himself at a construction cost of eight million francs. It was the first privately built port in France, and it was run as one for five decades rather than four: fifty years from the 1964 decree lands on 2014, which is exactly the date the city's own works page gives for the start of municipal management.

It is not private any more. The port passed to the Ville de Cannes and is today operated as a municipal regie, named in the city's own tariff documents as the Regie du Port Canto and, in one clause, as the regie of the second port of Cannes. The city's own port pages give the site as 553 mooring positions across 10.6 hectares. The French encyclopedic record and the Cannes tourist office both say about 530, and trade directories say 598 or 600, so the count you are quoted depends entirely on who you ask. What has not moved is the water: charted depths of 2 to 7 metres, an entrance 110 metres wide, and a 3 knot speed limit once you are inside. Marinetek supplied heavy-duty concrete pontoons with hardwood decking in 2015, built in Latvia and designed so the basin could later be reconfigured for larger yachts.

Who runs Port Canto, who runs the Vieux Port, and why the difference shows up on your invoice

The two Cannes ports are now governed in completely different ways, and an owner comparing them is comparing a public tariff with a concession tariff. Port Canto is the city's. Its rates sit in the Ville de Cannes Recueil des tarifs under the Budget annexe des ports communaux, they are fixed by a town council deliberation, and the 2026 schedule was voted on 18 December 2025. That means every band, every surcharge and every parking card is a public document you can read before you call the harbour office. The Vieux Port is a concession: in February 2022 the city awarded a 30-year contract to Marina du Vieux-Port de Cannes SAS, whose shareholders are IGY Marinas and the French construction group Fayat, ending 56 years of management by the CCI Nice Cote d'Azur. IGY gives the Vieux Port 727 berths, and the concession carries an investment programme of EUR 56.2 million excluding tax running to the start of 2027.

One correction worth making, because it comes up constantly in conversation about Cannes. SEMEC, the Societe d'Economie Mixte pour les Evenements Cannois, does not run either port. SEMEC is the city's events and tourism arm under a public service delegation: it operates the Palais des Festivals et des Congres and the tourist office, and it is why the Cannes calendar is what it is. The Yachting Festival itself is organised by RX France, not by SEMEC and not by either harbour. So when a broker tells you the city controls Cannes berthing, that is half right. The city controls Port Canto directly and sets the Vieux Port's framework as the granting authority, but the day-to-day pricing, the reservation rules and the event tariff at the Vieux Port are the concessionaire's, and they are not the same rules.

Port Canto publishes its rates to the cent, and one of those cents is the line that says a berth during an event inside the port costs the daily rate plus 50 per cent.

Which yacht goes where, and the price inversion nobody expects

The simple division is this. Port Canto's 2026 tariff runs from category A, up to 7.49 metres on a 2.70 metre berth width, to category R, 80 metres and over on a berth wider than 14 metres. The city advertises a 90 metre maximum. The Vieux Port's schedule goes far past that: its yachting bands stop at 64.99 metres, and its superyachting bands run through Z03 at 71.99 metres to Z12 at 134.99 metres on a 24 metre berth width. If your beam is over 14 metres, and on a modern 60 metre displacement hull it very often is, Port Canto's categories do not have a slot for you and the Vieux Port does. That single dimension, not length, is what actually sorts the fleet between the two harbours.

Then comes the part that surprises people. Port Canto is the smaller, second port, and it is the more expensive one per night at the top of its range. A yacht in the 50.00 to 59.99 metre band pays EUR 976.70 a day at Port Canto in the May to September season on the 2026 municipal tariff. At the Vieux Port, a yacht up to 53.99 metres pays a base rate of EUR 570.00 a day in the 15 April to 14 October season on the concessionaire's 2025 schedule. Those are different tariff years and different band edges, so treat the gap as an order of magnitude rather than a clean comparison, but the direction is not in doubt: the municipal port is not the cheap option. What it does have is a different character. Port Canto has always been the sailing, brokerage and tender side of Cannes, which is exactly the role the Yachting Festival gives it every September, and it is quieter and greener ashore than the working quays of the old harbour.

What a berth costs at Port Canto, in full

The 2026 municipal tariff, all figures inclusive of French VAT at 20 per cent and including a 4 per cent eco-participation, prices the season as May to September and the off season as October to April. Daily rates in season: EUR 23.10 up to 7.49 metres, EUR 69.70 in the 14.00 to 15.99 metre band, EUR 170.70 at 24.00 to 25.99 metres, EUR 346.90 at 30.00 to 34.99 metres, EUR 531.80 at 35.00 to 39.99 metres, EUR 749.30 at 40.00 to 49.99 metres, EUR 976.70 at 50.00 to 59.99 metres, EUR 1,218.70 at 60.00 to 69.99 metres, EUR 1,485.80 at 70.00 to 79.99 metres and EUR 1,774.00 at 80 metres and over. Off-season rates run roughly half of that: EUR 375.00, EUR 488.60, EUR 621.20, EUR 776.80 and EUR 955.70 in the same top five bands. A week is charged as six days and a month as twenty-four days, so a long stay is priced automatically rather than negotiated. Multihulls pay 1.7 times the rate for their length category.

The annual mooring agreement, reserved for holders of a convention annuelle d'amarrage under article R.5314-31 of the French Transport Code, is where the real money is: EUR 10,695.40 a year at 14.00 to 15.99 metres, EUR 30,681.40 at 24.00 to 25.99 metres, EUR 71,296.40 at 30.00 to 34.99 metres, EUR 142,319.60 at 40.00 to 49.99 metres, EUR 185,717.80 at 50.00 to 59.99 metres, EUR 233,611.70 at 60.00 to 69.99 metres, EUR 287,818.70 at 70.00 to 79.99 metres and EUR 347,907.60 at 80 metres and over. Annual and multi-month contracts are payable either in full in advance or by direct debit, and two consecutive failed debits make the whole balance due at once. There is a condition attached that catches owners who treat a berth as storage: an annual holder is under an obligation to take the boat out, and if that has not been complied with by the end of the second year the port applies a penalty of 15 per cent of the annual fee for the category. The professional discount is worth knowing about too, at 30 per cent off stay rates for marine-trade businesses holding a mooring contract in the municipal ports, and a vessel of recognised heritage interest gets 50 per cent off stay rates.

The works, at both ports, 2024 to 2027

Port Canto's own programme is unglamorous and structural. Phase one, remodelling the west quay with a proper circulation and pedestrian route, planters, renewed networks and new lighting, began in November 2024. Phase two is the one that matters to a boat: reinforcing the south and west dikes, installing protective armour and raising the crest wall to limit wave overtopping, with the project-management consultation set for February 2025. The city's stated reason is plain enough, which is to give the installations optimal protection against the sea and better shelter for moored vessels. In other words the port authority itself considers the existing breakwaters marginal, and is spending money accordingly. Neither the budget nor a completion date for phase two has been published.

Next door the Vieux Port is being rebuilt on a much larger scale under the concession, with works from early 2024 and a services hub due by 1 January 2027. The Laubeuf car park becomes a three-level semi-buried structure of 414 spaces, up from 312, with a 4,500 square metre public garden over the top; the fishermen's village opened on the Esplanade Pantiero; the careening area and the technical zone including the fuel station are being relocated and modernised; and the Albert-Edouard jetty is being extended to take nine additional large units, with a crew house alongside. Reported figures for the jetty extension include a length of around 250 metres, an added hectare of water and berths for units up to 75 metres. Yotters could not verify those three numbers from a second independent source and would not plan a season on them yet. What is beyond dispute is the effect on the show, because the Vieux Port could not host everything it used to while this was going on.

The Yachting Festival, and what it does to availability and price

The Cannes Yachting Festival runs from 8 to 13 September 2026, its 49th edition, organised by RX France, with more than 680 exhibitors, over 700 boats from 5 to 50 metres and around 150 world premieres, split between the two ports with a free shuttle boat every ten to fifteen minutes on an eight minute crossing. Since 2024 Port Canto has carried far more of the show than it used to, because the Vieux Port works took reception areas out of service. Two zones moved across for the 2024 edition: a Mega Yachts Area with 1,500 square metres of structures ashore and in-water space for around fifteen units, announced at the time for boats up to 55 metres, and a Small Boats Area with 1,700 square metres ashore for motorboats of 8 to 12 metres. Those are the 2024 figures and they have not held. RX France's own description of the 2026 show gives Port Canto a Sailing Area, billed as the largest in-water sailing exhibition in the world, a Power Boat Marina for motorboats up to 12 metres, and a Brokers and Toys area for brokerage yachts from 25 metres, laid out as a loop of about 2.5 kilometres, and names no Mega Yachts Area at Canto at all; the Vieux Port keeps the new powerboats, with the large yachts on Quai Max Laubeuf. Read the plan for the year you are going rather than the 2024 announcement. The practical consequence for an owner is simple: for roughly a fortnight, counting build-up and breakdown, the port is the show and there is no ordinary berthing in it.

The price consequence is written into the tariff rather than negotiated. Port Canto's 2026 schedule states that berthing fees during events organised inside the port are the daily rates increased by 50 per cent. So the 50.00 to 59.99 metre band goes from EUR 976.70 to EUR 1,465.05 a day. The Vieux Port handles the same problem with a separate and far steeper instrument, the Quai d'Honneur tariff, applied to yachts attending international events and allocated by a formal candidature procedure covering the Albert-Edouard jetty north and south, the maritime station, and the Pantiero, Large and Saint-Pierre quays. On the concessionaire's 2025 schedule the Quai d'Honneur rate is EUR 654 a day up to 28.99 metres, EUR 2,073 up to 53.99 metres and EUR 10,354 up to 134.99 metres. Against a EUR 570 base rate at 53.99 metres, that is roughly three and a half times normal. The Vieux Port also charges double the Quai d'Honneur rate to a yacht that has been notified to vacate a berth and does not, and doubles the season rate for any unauthorised berth. Book a September berth in Cannes in the spring, or accept that you are anchoring off.

The wind, the swell and the two breakwaters

The Bay of Cannes is a half-basin with a 7.5 kilometre opening oriented northwest to southeast. It is deep quickly, with a maximum around 100 metres and the 100 metre contour only about 600 metres offshore, but the stretch between the Lerins islands and Pointe Croisette never exceeds 5 metres, which is why the island channel is a local-knowledge passage rather than a shortcut. The dominant winds are southeast and north. The only quantified figures Yotters could find for them come from a coastal-morphology study of the Golfe de la Napoule, and they are long-term mean speeds at the scale of the bay rather than gust, gale or storm figures: means of about 3 to 9 knots, at their lowest in October and their highest in March and April. The same study describes the spring and autumn southeasterlies as strong winds that rarely exceed 8 metres per second, which is 15.5 knots, Beaufort 4. That is a ceiling on a long-term mean, not weather an owner plans around, and it should not be read as a gale figure. What the study does say without a number is that those spring and autumn southeasterlies drive the large swells and the coastal sediment transport along this shore. Swell reaches the coast on south to southwest and west to southwest winds when they are strong, and the libeccio hits the gulf briefly and hard, capable of a marked rise in sea level and violent storms on the shoreline.

Port Canto's protection is two breakwaters doing two different jobs, and the city names them explicitly: the west dike shields the port from the mistral, the south dike from the offshore swell. That is the whole of it, and it is why the port is described in cruising coverage as the more exposed of the two Cannes harbours, with chop on the pontoons once the wind is over about 15 knots, while the Vieux Port sits better protected behind Pointe Croisette and the Lerins. Neither port is a Tivat or a Porto Cervo where the water simply does not move. Port Canto is a Riviera harbour on an open bay with a modest fetch to the south and southeast, and the honest way to plan it is to expect a working, occasionally uncomfortable berth in a spring or autumn southeasterly rather than a millpond. The current dike reinforcement, armour and raised crest wall, is a direct admission that overtopping happens.

Getting there, and clearing in

Nice Cote d'Azur is the long-haul gateway, about 30 kilometres away and 30 to 45 minutes on the A8 in normal traffic, and the fixed taxi fare quoted for 2026 is EUR 85 one way for a sedan, subject to change at night and on weekends and public holidays, with a van at about EUR 110 and a premium van at about EUR 130. Private transfer operators advertise all-inclusive fixed rates from about EUR 80 with tolls, luggage and meet-and-greet. For a private aircraft the answer is Cannes-Mandelieu, about 5 kilometres west of the town, which is France's second business aviation airport and processes passengers very quickly. By helicopter Nice to Cannes is about seven minutes, landing at the Cannes heliport on Quai du Large. Yotters could not confirm a current published fare for that leg from any operator, so ask for a quotation rather than budgeting from the round numbers that circulate. Cannes also has a mainline station on the coastal line, which is genuinely useful for crew and for guests coming from Nice, Antibes or Monaco.

Formalities depend entirely on where you came from. Cannes is in France, so inside the EU customs union and the Schengen area, and a yacht arriving from Italy or Spain has nothing to do. A yacht arriving from outside Schengen, which on this coast usually means Montenegro, Turkey, Tunisia or the United Kingdom, has to enter either at a designated border crossing point or at one of the 53 marinas authorised under the marina protocol introduced by French customs in 2024. The pre-arrival form must go to the marina at least 24 hours before arrival, or on departure from the previous non-Schengen port if the passage is shorter than that, and the captain and crew present passports, ship's papers and the entry or exit border-control declaration to the Police aux Frontieres and, where required, to the Douane. Yotters could not confirm from a primary source whether Port Canto itself is on the marina-protocol list, so confirm that with the harbour office rather than assume it, and call VHF channel 9 for access and security in any case. Channel 23 carries the weather bulletin.

What is ashore, and the gaps

Port Canto rebuilt its public realm before it rebuilt its dikes. The Espace Grand Large, a planted central square inaugurated in May 2021, carries three international brands, and the port is now a walkable place rather than a car park with pontoons attached. Baoli is the anchor, a restaurant, the open-air Cloud Nine rooftop and a late-night club in one address that has been the Cannes dinner-into-night venue for more than twenty years, with a Maitre Restaurateur award and a Mediterranean and Asian menu under executive chef Remi Solaz. Le Cercle des Marins sits beside it, Mediterranean and seasonal, with a terrace looking straight down the port. Harry's Bar opened at the port in June 2021. Beyond the gate you are on the Croisette with the Palm Beach at your back and the hotel dining rooms of the Carlton, Martinez and Majestic within a walk or a very short taxi. The port carries the Pavillon Bleu label continuously since 2008 and AFNOR Ports Propres certification since 2019, renewed annually.

The gaps are real and worth naming. There is no yard, no travel lift and no careening area at Port Canto; the Cannes careening area is at the Vieux Port and is itself being relocated under the concession works, so a haul-out is a movement rather than a walk. There is a fuel station on site, self-service from 06:00 to 22:00 all year and staffed 08:30 to 19:30 from mid-June to mid-September, but no pump price is published anywhere by the city. And there is nothing to buy: Port Canto sells no leasehold and no purchasable berth of any kind, only transient, seasonal and long-term rental, which removes the entire Riviera berth-resale market from the equation here. That is a fair trade if you want a published price and no capital at risk. It is the wrong port if you were hoping to secure a permanent position in Cannes the way an owner does at Antibes or Porto Cervo.

Для кого: An owner of a 30 to 70 metre yacht with a beam under about 14 metres who wants a Croisette address at a published, auditable municipal price and does not need a yard, a permanent position or a berth he can one day sell.