Yacht Crew Day Rates 2026: Antibes, Palma, Fort Lauderdale
How much does a deckhand make a day?
In 2026, a green deckhand or stew doing daywork earns about €100–200 a day on the French Riviera and $150–250 a day in Fort Lauderdale. Experienced crew earn more than that, and engineers and chefs more again. Palma follows the wider Med, but nobody publishes a figure for Palma alone.
Search for yacht crew day rates and you mostly get forum threads from 2006 quoting €80. The figures below come from published crew guides and live daywork boards, and each source carries its date. After the table we cover the things that change what you actually take home: cash or bank transfer, lunch, travel, and how to ask about the rate without sounding green.
Yacht crew day rates by port and role
| Role | French Riviera (EUR) | Palma (EUR) | Fort Lauderdale (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Green deckhand / exterior | €100–200 | €100–150* | $150–250 (or $20–25/hr) |
| Experienced deckhand | €150–300 | €150–200* | $200–250 |
| Green stew / interior | €100–200 | €100–150* | $200–300 |
| Experienced stew | €150–300 | €150–200* | not published |
| Engineer / engine room | €200–400* | €200–400* | $160–250 (engine-room dayworker) |
| Chef / cook | €250–500* | €250–500* | $350–700 (US-wide freelance chefs) |
| Relief captain (superyacht) | not published | not published | not published |
* Mediterranean-wide figure. The source doesn't name this port.
How to read this. The Riviera and Med figures come from Yachtie Daywork's Mediterranean rates guide and Antibes guide. Both were published in December 2024 for the 2025/26 season, and we checked them against a real August 2026 posting. The Fort Lauderdale figures are rates advertised on DayWork123, a free crew bulletin board, between July and October 2026. Sources disagree in places. Yachtie Daywork's own pages put junior engineers at €200–250 in one place and €250–350 in another, and quote up to €700–900 for sole or chief engineer cover and €700–1,000 for a head chef. Treat those top figures as ceilings, not what you should expect. We couldn't verify a published superyacht relief captain day rate for any of the three ports, so those cells stay blank rather than guessed.
French Riviera: Antibes, Golfe-Juan, Monaco
Most Med daywork starts in Antibes. Yachtie Daywork's Antibes guide puts entry-level work (washdowns, deep cleans, basic jobs) at €150–200/day and experienced crew doing turnarounds and charter support at €200–300/day. Its Monaco guide gives the same bands.
The big-boat quay at Port Vauban, Antibes, where much of the Riviera's daywork starts. Photo: Abxbay, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Real postings fall in that range. In August 2026, a 47m in Golfe-Juan advertised exterior dayworkers at "200€ and lunch for the day". Lower rates still exist. The Seaworthy Stew's 2022 green-crew guide quoted €100–130 cash a day. If you have no yacht references yet, expect to start near the bottom of the range. A €200 day is a good day.
Palma de Mallorca
We couldn't find an agency, board or guide that publishes a day rate for Palma alone. The closest is YachtieCareers, which lists Palma alongside Antibes, Croatia and Florida as the best places for daywork, at €100–150/day. That's in line with the Med-wide guide's €100–150 for green crew and €150–200 for experienced.
The Port of Palma, Mallorca's main superyacht harbour. Photo: WestportWiki, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Palma's local paper has a warning worth knowing. Erica Lay, the Majorca Daily Bulletin's yachting agony aunt, puts it plainly: daywork is when you join a yacht in port for a few hours a day and then go home. If the boat leaves port with you on board, that's a temporary job. A temporary job should come with a contract that protects both sides. Without one, you can be left on a dock somewhere, possibly unpaid (Majorca Daily Bulletin, 2024).
Fort Lauderdale
Fort Lauderdale is the most transparent market, because captains post rates publicly. On DayWork123 between July and October 2026, deck and exterior daywork ran $150–250 a day, and $200 was by far the most common figure. Interior days were mostly $200, with a chief stew day at $275 and a stew day at $300. Engine-room cleaning paid $160–250, and plenty of jobs paid by the hour at $20–25.
A superyacht on the Intracoastal in Fort Lauderdale. Photo: Alistair Cunningham, CC BY 3.0.
Some Fort Lauderdale postings were open only to Americans or green-card holders. Check your own work status before you count on US daywork.
For chefs, MiumMium puts US freelance yacht chefs at $350–700 a day, highest in peak charter season. That's a US-wide figure, not a Fort Lauderdale one. A yacht captain's day rate is harder to pin down. The most specific Fort Lauderdale figure we found is a 2018 YachtForums thread quoting $350–400 a day, and $400 plus expenses. That rate is for smaller private boats, not superyacht relief, which is why the table leaves superyacht relief captain blank.
Do boat shows pay more?
Nobody publishes a boat-show premium. Yachtie Daywork says big events like the Monaco Grand Prix and the Cannes Film Festival command premium rates but gives no figure. In Fort Lauderdale, prep work in the weeks before FLIBS 2026 was advertised at the usual ~$200, and the show's dock-operations assistants at $20 an hour.
What a show really gives you is volume: several days in a row on the same boat, and a captain who now knows your face. Whether that's worth the cost of being there is a separate calculation, covered in is boat-show daywork worth it and our Monaco and Cannes daywork guides.
Cash, bank transfer and tax
In the Med, daywork is mostly paid in cash at the end of the day. Yachtie Daywork and The Seaworthy Stew both describe it that way. Some boats pay by bank transfer instead, so ask which before you start. In either case, declaring that income is your responsibility. Keep a simple log of the date, boat, hours and amount for each day. It helps at tax time, and it's your proof if a payment goes missing.
Lunch, travel and hours
- Lunch: Usually provided in the Med, but confirm. In Fort Lauderdale it varies. "Lunch included", "lunch not onboard" and "bring your own lunch" all appeared on the same board within weeks. Pack something anyway.
- Travel: For daywork, getting to the boat is on you. Deliveries are different. Yacrew notes that food and accommodation are included on deliveries, and the return airfare usually is too.
- Hours: Expect 8–10 hours. Many Fort Lauderdale posts specify 8–5. A much longer day is a fair reason to raise the rate.
How to ask for the day rate
- Ask before you start, never at the end. "What's the day rate, and is lunch included?" is a normal question. Captains expect it.
- Don't haggle as green crew. Standard daywork rates are fairly fixed. Dockwalk called asking for too much money "an obvious no-no" back in 2010, and it still is. Negotiate only for specialist skills, last-minute calls or unusually long days.
- Get it in writing. A WhatsApp message counts. Louise Cailbourdin of The Crew Network told Dockwalk that dayworkers should have an agreement covering dates, payment details and hours of work.
- If they ask you to sail, re-ask. At that point it's a temporary job, not day work, and the pay and contract should reflect that.
Getting the days in the first place
Knowing yacht crew day rates is the easy part. Getting enough days in a row is where most new crew struggle. Dockwalking still works (see our dockwalking guide and green crew daywork guide). Captains also search for dayworkers on Radius. A Radius crew profile is free for crew and dayworkers. Captains pay for the subscription, so you never pay to be found. List where you are and what you hold, and let the boat come to you.