Towed in by Spain's rescue service: who now pays the bill

Anyone cruising the Balearics, the Canaries or the Spanish mainland coast should know a new rule. Order TRM/844/2026, published in the Spanish official gazette BOE on 8 August 2026, took effect on 1 September and replaces the tariff order of 2013. It sets the charges of Salvamento Marítimo, Spain's state maritime rescue agency. Saving human life at sea is expressly excluded from charging under Article 2. Other services requested by an owner are charged under Article 5, and under Article 6 accepting the service counts as accepting the tariff.

The invoice is hourly rate times time on task times a factor, which is 1 for leisure craft. Under Article 7 the clock runs from the moment the rescue unit leaves its base until it is back, and a job cancelled halfway is still billed to the return. For towing a vessel under 20 metres the hourly rate may not exceed 400 euros, and 1,120 euros between 20 and 30 metres. As a worked example, a rescue boat out for three hours base to base comes to 1,200 euros. The widely quoted 16,572 euros an hour is the helicopter rate, not a towing rate. Payment is due within 30 working days, after which default interest is added.

In insurance terms, the question is never who towed the boat but why. An engine that simply stops is, in most hull wordings, a mechanical breakdown, and mechanical breakdown is commonly listed as an exclusion. Where no insured loss is threatened, there is nothing for a tow to avert, and the cost of being towed in on a calm day falls on the owner. An optional machinery extension, where a policy offers one, usually pays for damage to the engine itself; read whether it says anything about towing, because the extension and the tow are separate questions.

It changes when the tow prevents an insured loss. A motor yacht drifting onto a rocky shore after a breakdown is about to strand, and stranding is an insured peril in many hull policies. Most wordings contain a sue and labour or mitigation clause that reimburses reasonable costs of averting or reducing an insured loss, often on top of the sum insured. The same applies when the engine failed because of an insured event, such as a rope round the propeller or a grounding. The first thing to check in the contract is therefore which perils are insured at all: some basic covers insure only storm, fire and theft, and then a stranding is not a claim.

Assistance extensions deserve a close read. Many pay only for help that the insurer or its assistance partner arranged or approved in advance, and a tow accepted before the call may fall outside the extension entirely. Look for the exact word tow or towing; if the wording speaks only of transport or storage of the boat at the place of the incident, ask before the season whether a tow into the nearest port counts. Crew rescue costs matter less in Spain, since rescuing people there costs nothing anyway.

The order draws one boundary itself. Under Article 2(d), salvage of property governed by the 1989 International Convention on Salvage and Spain's Maritime Navigation Act 14/2014 is outside the tariff. If a boat is already aground or taking on water, assistance can turn into salvage, and salvage is not priced by the hour. In the policy, look for a separate clause on salvage and wreck removal and read its condition: some wordings pay only when a state or public authority has ordered the salvage, and a tow the owner asked for is no such order.

Single engine motor boats and motor yachts are hit hardest, because there is no second means of propulsion. A sailing yacht can often reach a harbour under sail in a usable breeze, and the skipper should weigh that before calling for a tow. On a charter boat, the charter agreement says who pays for towing, and that is worth reading before casting off. Trailer boats on a summer trip to the Costa Brava fall under the same 20 metre limit as every other small craft.