Yacht Financing in Hong Kong: Who Lends and How Much You Can Borrow

If you want to borrow to buy a yacht in Hong Kong, publicly available information points to three main routes: (1) finance companies that offer vessel finance (the boat is the collateral, with a mortgage endorsement on the COO) → (2) private banks arranging facilities against your overall assets → (3) an unsecured personal instalment loan covering part of the price. None of the three has a Hong Kong-wide standard loan-to-value ratio, tenor or interest rate; every application is assessed individually. What you can work out in advance is how much the down payment is, how much each HK$1,000,000 borrowed costs per month, and how much cash you need up front. This article skips the abstractions and runs the numbers on three Sun Yachts boats in stock — the HK$4,530,000 2018 Leopard Powercat 43, the HK$7,800,000 2016 Absolute Navetta 52 and the HK$21,800,000 2020 Princess Y78 — one price band at a time.

> A reminder: this article is general information based on public sources and mathematical formulas. It is not financial advice and not an offer of credit. Loan-to-value, interest rate, tenor, fees and whether a loan is approved are all subject to the lender's latest terms and final approval.

A yacht is not a flat, and not every retail bank has a publicly advertised "yacht mortgage" product. Reviewing public information in October 2026, we found three broad approaches:

Sources: J.P. Morgan Private Bank Superyacht Financing, HSBC Personal Instalment Loan (accessed October 2026; product terms can change at any time — refer to the bank's latest announcements).

A local yacht dealer's web page also mentions that new boats financed through a finance company can borrow 70%–80% of the boat's value over 5–15 years (Asia Boating: Boat loans for Hong Kong and Asia). However, that page is undated and refers to new boats, so it should not be used directly as a loan-to-value figure for pre-owned boats — how much you can borrow on a pre-owned boat is assessed case by case by the lender, based on the boat's age, condition and your finances.

Choosing between the three comes down mainly to two things: how much you need to borrow and whether you are comfortable with a mortgage endorsement on the boat. An unsecured personal loan involves no mortgage endorsement on the COO but has a cap; if you need to borrow more than the personal loan cap, you will need to consider financing secured on the boat. Which route suits you depends on your own finances and the lenders' quotes.

Until a loan-to-value ratio is approved, the most practical approach is to test a few ratios and see whether your cash on hand is enough. All three boats below are Sun Yachts boats in stock, with asking prices read from our inventory data; the 50%, 60% and 70% ratios are purely illustrative calculations and do not mean any lender will approve those ratios.

Source: Sun Yachts inventory data (current asking prices, not transaction prices); loan-to-value ratios are calculation assumptions.

Three things stand out from the table:

• Even on the cheapest boat, borrowing 70% exceeds the personal instalment cap. Borrowing 70% on the Leopard 43 means $3,171,000, already above HSBC's $3,000,000 cap; and to borrow the full $3,000,000 on the "23 times monthly salary" rule, you would need a monthly salary of roughly $130,435. In other words, for boats above $4 million, an unsecured loan can cover only part of the price.
• The down payment is an illustration based on asking price; ask whether the ratio is applied to the transaction price or to a valuation. As we noted in the buyer's guide, vessel finance generally requires a surveyor's Condition & Valuation report; if the valuation comes in below the price you agreed, you may need to cover the difference yourself.
• At the Y78 price band, the down payment alone is a large sum. Even at 70% you first need $6.54 million, and terms at this level should be negotiated case by case with a private bank or finance company.

The monthly repayment uses the standard equal-instalment formula: monthly repayment = loan amount × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)^−n), where r = annual rate ÷ 12 and n = number of monthly repayments. The 3%, 5% and 7% in the table below are not market rates — they simply show how rate and tenor move the repayment; the rate you actually get depends on the lender's quote (for reference, HSBC's published promotional effective annual rate range for its personal instalment loan is 1.88%–31.71%, meaning the same product can be priced very differently for different people).

(Per HK$1,000,000 borrowed; figures rounded to the nearest dollar.)

Using it is simple: multiply the monthly repayment by the number of HK$1,000,000 blocks in your loan. For example, borrowing $3,000,000 over 7 years at 5% gives a monthly repayment of roughly $14,134 × 3 = $42,402.

Applying the formula to the three boats at 70% borrowed and an assumed annual rate of 5%:

(Assumed annual rate of 5%, not a quote from any lender; the 10-year tenor is illustrative only — whether a tenor that long is available must be checked with the lender.)

Note that the monthly repayment is only part of the cost of running a boat. Berthing, insurance, maintenance, fuel and crew still have to be paid every year and do not shrink because you borrowed — to work out the monthly cash flow you need, add the repayment to these fixed costs. For how each line breaks down, see our yacht ownership cost breakdown; whether you employ full-time crew is the biggest variable in how far costs spread.

Many people calculate only the down payment and forget the one-off costs around completion. Here are the main items (government fees and survey prices come with public sources):

Lenders may also charge arrangement fees and valuation fees, or require a specified beneficiary on the policy. No standard figures are published for these, so ask about each item before you apply and rely on the lender's quote. In addition, older pre-owned boats may find comprehensive cover harder to obtain or subject to extra requirements; if the lender requires comprehensive cover, whether you can get it will affect whether the mortgage can proceed, so raise it with an insurance broker at the boat-selection stage.

A loan secured on the boat results in a "mortgage or hire-purchase agreement" endorsement on the vessel's Certificate of Ownership (COO). That endorsement stays with the boat until you have repaid the loan and the lender issues release documents.

Many buyers don't think about the last row: a mortgaged boat can still be sold, but the mortgage must be discharged first. In practice, you need to agree with the lender on the sequence — using the buyer's funds to clear the mortgage and obtain the release documents — and write it into the sale contract. We cover this in the "Before You Sell" section and FAQ of our complete guide to selling a yacht. While you're at it, ask whether there is a penalty for early repayment, which will matter if you change boats later.

Every lender's terms differ, so don't compare quotes on interest rate alone. These eight questions each directly affect your total outlay:

Sources: COO mortgage endorsement fee per the Marine Department fee schedule; the repayment gap is from the formula calculation above.

Once you have a few quotes, plug each lender's rate and tenor into the monthly repayment formula above to compare repayments and total interest directly. If you'd like to know at the boat-selection stage which boats fit your budget, you can also ask us to match them against our current stock.