Nautical charters are also included in the law for the valorization of marine resources.

Attorney Giuseppe Marino *

* managing associate Gianni & Origoni

The law approved by the Chamber of Deputies on April 29, 2026, introduces a set of significantly innovative contractual provisions into the Recreational Boating Code: charter with the appointment of a captain, pre-arranged itinerary charter, and a reformed regulation of occasional charters, with simultaneous changes to operating expenses and the fight against re-flagging. This paper examines the relevant and operational aspects, focusing in particular on the impact on international charter contract practice and the systemic issues the reform leaves unresolved.

Blue economyLaw for the valorization of marine resources "passed"

The law for the valorization of the sea resource – approved with 149 votes in favor, 32 against and 63 abstentions by the Chamber of Deputies on 29 April 2026, with the first signature of the Minister for Civil Protection and Sea Policies Nello Musumeci – represents the most significant legislative intervention on the pleasure boating since 2005, the year of promulgation of the Recreational Boating Code ("CND"). The provision adds to the recent law on scuba diving (law 26 January 2026, n. 9), confirming the legislator's attention to the challenges and opportunities of Blue Economy.

The law, divided into 37 articles and 7 Chapters, aims to enhance the sea resource through measures that affect the governance maritime, marine spaces, recreational and commercial navigation, shipbuilding, underwater tourism, fishing, research and the environment. Chapter IV, dedicated to recreational boating, introduces changes and intervenes on some of the gaps most debated aspects of the recreational boating system, providing an explicit regulatory basis for situations already widely practiced in the international market.

The opportunity should be exploited in its long-term perspective: the practice of charter nautical has historically developed according to Anglo-Saxon negotiation models – in particular the form MYBA Charter Agreement – largely unknown to the Italian legislator; the law recently approved by Parliament has the merit of bringing at least some of these practices within the domestic legal system, reducing the risk of qualification uncertainty.

Lease with appointment of commander

The law introduces a new Article 42-bis into the Recreational Boating Code, which regulates the "lease with appointment of a captain" contract. The previous regulatory system did not allow a lessee—without the necessary operating license—to operate a vessel by appointing a trusted captain, while retaining the status of skipper. This structure, established in international practice under the name bareboat charter with skipper, was considered legally incompatible with the paradigm of nautical leasing, since art. 42 CND presupposes that the lessee acquires possession of the vessel and personally exercises navigation at his own responsibility.

With the new institution, the lessee – a natural person, within the maximum limit of twelve passengers excluding the captain – can appoint a professionally qualified captain to manage the unit, maintaining his own quality of conductor-owner and the liability arising from temporary detention. The appointed captain, while operating under the lessee's instructions, retains his own technical and nautical prerogatives, including assessments of navigational safety. In this sense, the reform does not alter the structural distinction between "commercial" orders and technical management, which has always been the cornerstone of the distinction between chartering and leasing.

The competitive scope of the reform is significant: the main competing European maritime systems have long admitted the skippered bareboat charter As a legal and established practice. The new regulation is expected to have an immediate impact on mid-range charter operations, where the charterer is often a client without the required boating license for independent operation.

Rental with agreed itinerary

The most systematically significant innovation in the rental sector is the "agreed-route rental" model, which complements paragraph 1 of Article 47 of the CND, adding to the fixed-term rental structure the option of structuring the lessor's obligation around a route previously agreed upon with the lessor.

In the traditional case, pleasure boat rental is defined exclusively by its temporal dimension: the lessor makes the vessel available "for a specific period to be spent for recreational purposes in marine areas or inland waters of his choice". The new provision allows, instead, to tie the lessor's performance to a pre-established itinerary, bringing the contractual structure closer to the model of thecharter itinerary widespread in international practice, particularly in the segment of private cruises on superyachts.

From the legal qualification point of view, the law for the valorisation of the sea resource maintains the distinction with the transport contract: A pre-arranged itinerary charter does not imply the assumption of a performance obligation in the transportation sense—the transfer of people or goods from one place to another—but rather the alignment of the vessel's availability to a predefined route, with the charterer retaining physical access to the vessel and technical control of the crew. The distinction is conceptually clear, but could be more uncertain in its application.

From this perspective, the structure of the contractual regulations—particularly the specification that the fee remunerates the availability of the unit, not the result of the transport—takes on a defensive significance that operators in the sector would do well not to underestimate. The experience of the forms MYBA, which clearly distinguish between charter fee (fee for the enjoyment of the unit) and APA – Advance Provisioning Allowance (variable travel costs advanced by the charterer and managed by the captain), offers a reference operating model for this contractual structure.

The reversal of the default regime for operating expenses

One of the most impactful changes introduced by the law for the enhancement of marine resources concerns the new wording of Article 49 of the CND regarding operating expenses. Under the previous regime, the provision of fuel, water, and lubricants was the responsibility of the charterer, unless otherwise agreed in the contract. This default regime is radically reversed by the recently approved provision: in fixed-term rentals – and in pre-arranged-itinerary rentals, unless otherwise agreed – these costs are now charged to the renter.

This reversal aligns Italian domestic law with international practice of the crewed charter, in which fuel costs are typically included in the lessor's management through the APA mechanism: the lessor advances a sum managed by the captain for variable voyage expenses (fuel, food, moorings, port fees), with final reporting and reimbursement in the event of a deficiency. The Italian legislator has therefore acknowledged this industry practice and made it the supplementary legal regime, reversing the position of the previous CND, which – on the contrary – included fuel among the variable costs borne by the lessor.

On a systematic level, this choice produces a discontinuity with respect to the regime of the Navigation Code, applicable to vessels exceeding twenty-four metres: art. 387 of the Navigation Code still places the costs of fuel, water and lubricants on the charterer in time charter Commercial. The misalignment between the two disciplines requires careful coordination of interpretation for large pleasure craft operating on the border between the CND and the Navigation Code, and in particular for international charter operations involving superyachts approaching or exceeding the twenty-four-meter threshold.

Occasional rental and the fight against re-flagging

The law just approved also intervenes on occasional rental (art. 49-bis CND): the units used for occasional rental must display in a clearly visible manner, on each bulwark, a mark bearing the words "occasional rental" (minimum dimensions: 100 × 20 centimetres). The provision pursues a traceability objective: make non-commercial rental units immediately recognizable to supervisory authorities, thus combating the fraudulent use of occasional rentals to disguise the systematic exercise of commercial activities.

On the side of the re-flagging, the new art. 26-ter CND is introduced, according to which vessels up to twenty-four metres flying a foreign flag, but owned by Italian citizens or legal persons with headquarters in Italy, must – when sailing or stationed in internal waters, in the territorial sea or in the Italian ecological protection zone – demonstrate their suitability for navigability through the certifications required by the flag State or, in its absence, by means of a certificate issued by a notified technical body with a five-year validity. For funds and companies that structure operations ownership of luxury vessels through foreign vehicles, the law requires a review of the contractual structures and asset use policies in Italian waters, with an immediate impact on the strategies flag shopping practiced up to now to avoid the administrative burdens of the Italian legal system.

A balance sheet

The law for the valorization of the sea resource has filled some of the gaps more evident in the system – introducing a regulatory basis for cases already widely practiced – and has aligned domestic law with international practice of the charter on some qualifying points. However, they remain, open systematic questions Notable changes include: the distinction between pre-arranged itinerary charter and organized package tours; coordination between the new default operating expenses regime and the provisions of the Code for vessels over twenty-four meters; and the division of liability in charters with the appointment of a captain in the event of unlawful conduct by the appointed captain.

It is hoped that the implementing decrees and ministerial circulars expected to be issued as part of the law's implementation will address these issues, in the knowledge that the competitiveness of the Italian charter system depends, to a significant extent, on the certainty of the regulatory framework and the predictability of its interpretation.