Yacht Chef Salary 2026: Up to €16,000 a Month, by Role
How much do yacht chefs make?
Most yacht chefs earn about €4,000–€10,000 a month in base salary, before charter tips. A sole chef on a yacht under 40m makes roughly €4,000–€7,000 (Superyacht Content, 2025). A head chef on a yacht over 80m starts at around €9,000 (Lighthouse Careers, 2026). The top figure in Quay Crew's 2024 head chef survey was €16,000 a month.
Updated October 2026. All figures are gross monthly base pay before tips unless stated, each credited to the guide it came from, with that guide's year.
On top of base pay you live aboard with your food covered, and on charter yachts you take a share of the tips. You earn it. In Superyacht Content's words, "most chefs work long hours without extended breaks, even on larger yachts."
If you want to know how to actually land the job (certs, CV, trial shifts), that's covered in our yacht chef jobs guide. This post is only about pay.
Yacht chef salary by role
- Sole chef: cooks for guests and crew alone, usually on boats up to about 60m.
- Head chef: runs a galley team on larger yachts.
- Sous (second) chef: the head chef's number two.
- Crew chef: feeds the crew so the head chef can focus on guests.
Montclair Chef's 2025 figures, published by Superyacht Content, are the clearest breakdown by role, freelance day rates included:
| Role | Monthly (2025) | Day rate, freelance (2025) |
|---|---|---|
| Sole chef, under 40m | €4,000–€7,000 | €230–€350 |
| Sole chef, 40–60m | €6,500–€9,500+ | €350–€650 |
| Head chef, over 60m | €7,500–€14,000+ | €500–€1,200 |
| Crew / second chef | €4,500–€7,000+ | €200–€275 (crew chef, 50–80m) |
Source: Superyacht Content, "Yacht Chef Salaries in 2025" (January 2025), citing Montclair Chef.
YPI Crew's chef guide (updated October 2024) gives wider bands: €3,500–€10,000 for head chefs and €3,000–€6,000 for sous chefs.
Yacht chef salary by yacht size
Lighthouse Careers' 2026 guide breaks superyacht chef salary down by length and includes the junior galley roles:
| Yacht length | Head / sole chef | Sous chef | Third chef |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 30m | €4,500–€6,000 | – | – |
| 30–40m | €5,000–€7,500 | – | – |
| 40–50m | €6,000–€9,000 | €4,000–€5,000 | – |
| 50–60m | €6,500–€9,000 | €4,500–€6,000 | – |
| 60–80m | €7,000–€9,000 | €5,000–€6,000 | – |
| 80–100m | €9,000+ | €6,000+ | €4,500–€5,500 |
| 100m+ | €10,000+ | €6,000+ | €4,500–€5,500 |
Source: Lighthouse Careers, Yacht Chef Salary 2026 (updated September 2026). Figures are before tips, bonuses and rotation uplifts. The agency also reports a €9,000/month median across nine of its own head chef placements.
The UKSA superyacht salary guide (January 2025) agrees on the mid-size boats. It lists chef/cook pay at €5,500–€6,500 on 45–50m, €6,000–€8,000 on 50–55m, €6,500–€8,500 on 55–60m, €7,000+ on 60–70m and €8,000+ on 70m and above.
What pushes a chef's pay up
Length still matters. In Quay Crew's 2024 survey of more than 100 head chefs, published by SuperyachtNews, pay and leave both rose with yacht size. But the survey found no strong link between years of experience and pay. What counts is whether the owner and charter guests like you and your food. Ninety per cent of the head chefs had professional culinary training and 63% had Michelin experience, so a fine-dining background is close to the baseline for the top jobs, not a premium on top of it.
Superyacht Content (2025) calls the old "pay by length" rule outdated. A sole chef on a 50m cooking for 12 guests and 12 crew can earn about €9,000 a month, the same as a head chef on an 80m with a sous and crew chef under them. What moves the number:
- Workload: guest and crew numbers, and how many charter weeks the boat books
- Usage: busy charter yachts usually pay more
- Remote cruising: provisioning far from good markets is harder, and the article argues those jobs deserve higher pay
- Package: extra leave or a rotation can be worth as much as a pay rise
Marché Forville in Cannes, a covered market a short walk from the Vieux Port where many yachts berth. Photo: Iswoar, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Head chefs also tend to see their pay go up while they stay on a boat. In the Quay Crew survey they were the heads of department most likely to get an annual raise, and at least 10% more of them received a 13th- or 14th-month bonus than captains did. Raises tended to peak around the three-year mark.
Private vs charter: how tips work
Charter chefs usually earn more in total because of tips. Private chefs don't get charter tips, but their schedules are often more predictable.
The MYBA guideline suggests a tip of 5–15% of the gross charter fee. Tips are worked out on the charter fee only, not on the APA (the advance guests pay for fuel, food and running costs). On most boats the tip is split equally across the crew, so the chef gets the same share as the junior deckhand. Dockwalk's worked example: a $300,000-a-week yacht with 15 crew, tipped at 10%, pays $2,000 per crew member for that week (Dockwalk, 2021). Ask the captain how tips are split before you sign, because not every boat does it the same way.
MiumMium, a US crew agency, estimates that tips can add $10,000–$30,000+ per season for charter chefs.
Mediterranean vs Caribbean and US pay
Med jobs are usually advertised in euros and US-based boats in dollars. MiumMium's guide quotes US chefs at $4,500–$7,000/month under 40m, $6,500–$9,000 at 40–60m and $8,000–$12,000 at 60m+, and says chefs in high-cost regions like the Med can expect higher base pay. The guide is undated, so treat it as a rough comparison only.
Where the two regions really differ is tips. According to YachtCharterFleet (2023), Med tips are generally worked out at the low end of the MYBA range, while US and Caribbean charters are "often calculated at the upper end of the scale". An American crew will expect no less than 15%.
Gustavia, St Barths, one of the Caribbean's busiest winter charter harbours. Photo: David Broad, CC BY 3.0.
Freelance and relief chef day rates
Freelance chefs covering a charter or someone's leave earn €230–€350 a day as a sole chef under 40m, rising to €500–€1,200 as a head chef over 60m (Superyacht Content, 2025). MiumMium puts US freelance work at $350–$700 a day. Our yacht crew day rates guide compares daywork pay across every department.
Rotation, leave and benefits
On a rotation, two chefs share one job and alternate time aboard, typically 2:2 or 3:3 months. How common it is depends on the size of the boat:
- Quay Crew (2024) found that over half of head chefs were on time-for-time rotation, rising above 80% on yachts over 80m. Rotation usually means lower pay in other departments, but not for head chefs.
- YPI Crew (2024) puts only 15% of head chefs and 29% of sous chefs on rotation.
- Superyacht Content (2025) says full rotations are "still rare", and that some captains offer 30–60 extra days of leave instead.
In practice, rotation is standard on big yachts and uncommon on smaller ones.
You live aboard, so your food and bunk are covered while you're on the boat, and paid leave grows with yacht size (Quay Crew). Flights and medical insurance vary, so check both in every offer.
Tax: depending on your nationality and residency, some of your pay may be tax-free. UK and EEA-resident seafarers may qualify for the Seafarers' Earnings Deduction, which needs an eligible period of at least 365 days, mostly spent outside the UK. Get proper tax advice on your own situation.
Quick answers
How much does a yacht chef make per month? Usually €4,000–€10,000 base. Head chefs on yachts over 80m earn €9,000+ (Lighthouse Careers, 2026), up to €16,000 at the top of Quay Crew's 2024 survey.
How much does a superyacht head chef make? €7,500–€14,000+ a month on yachts over 60m (Superyacht Content, 2025).
Do yacht chefs make more than captains? A few do. Quay Crew's 2024 survey found some head chefs earning more than their captains, usually because of their relationship with the owner.
How much do Below Deck chefs make? The show and its cast haven't published verified figures, so any number you see online is a guess.
Where to go from here
Use these yacht chef salary figures to check that an offer is in a fair range, and remember that every guide above says its ranges move with experience and what the boat needs. For the route into the galley, read how to get a yacht chef job. For every other department, start with our yacht jobs guide.
If you're a chef between boats, you can create a free crew profile on Radius, check in at your port, and let captains find you on the map.