The end of the boat without a licence: what changes on 1 October 2026
If you have ever searched for "rent a boat without a licence in Tenerife", you will have seen dozens of listings. A five metre motorboat, a couple of hours along the coast, no paperwork and no experience required. It is one of the best selling plans in the islands.
That product, exactly as it is sold today, stops being legal on 1 October 2026.
This is not a forum rumour or somebody's reading of the small print. It is in Royal Decree 1188/2025, published in the Spanish official gazette on 30 December 2025, and the date is written into its second final provision. Here is what changes, who it affects and what you need if you were planning to rent a boat this autumn.
What exactly changes on 1 October
Until now, the Spanish rules on recreational boating qualifications (Royal Decree 875/2014) allowed you to sail with no qualification at all in three cases, always in daylight and never more than two nautical miles from your departure port or beach:
motorboats up to 5 metres long with a maximum of 15 HP,
sailing boats up to 6 metres used for sport,
floating or beach craft.
That exemption still exists after 1 October. What changes is one new sentence: when those boats are rented out, the person renting has to hold the corresponding qualification.
Put simply: the five metre boat can still be used without a licence if it belongs to you or to a friend. If you rent it, it cannot.
The decree itself explains why. Its preamble says the change is justified "by the high number of incidents and accidents occurring in these activities".
Who this affects, and who it does not
It affects you if you are the visitor, or the resident, who was going to rent a motorboat and drive it yourself. That is precisely the case the rule closes.
It does not affect you if:
the boat is yours and you use it privately. The 5 metre and 15 HP exemption stays exactly as it was, with the same two mile and daylight limits.
you rent a boat with a skipper. The qualification is held by the person steering, not by you.
you join an organised trip, a catamaran, a whale watching outing or any activity run by a company with its own crew.
And one detail that gets lost in most headlines: jet skis were never exempt. They have always required a qualification, before and after this reform.
The smallest licence that does the job
You do not need the full PER skipper's licence. For this size of boat there is a much lighter option, the Licencia de Navegación, known locally as the "titulín".
What it allows, and what it costs in time:
What it covers: motorboats up to 6 metres and class C jet skis, in daylight, no more than two miles from a port, marina or place of shelter.
Training: two hours of theory and a minimum of four hours of practical training, the practical part done as a continuous sailing session.
Exam: there is none. You get the licence by completing the training.
Who issues it: the sailing and motorboating federations and registered recreational boating schools.
Age: 18, or 16 with written consent from a parent or guardian.
You will not find a price here, and that is deliberate: there is no state fee for this licence. Every school sets its own, so the only reliable number is the one the school you sign up with gives you.
What is happening in the Canaries right now
It is worth being honest about what we know and what we do not.
The decree is national and the date is the same across Spain. There is no separate Canarian rule and no transition period for the islands.
What we did check, as of this guide in September 2026, is that a good number of rental companies in Tenerife and Gran Canaria are still advertising their boats under the "no licence needed" banner, with no mention of the change. That is not necessarily bad faith: the reform was published in December and only applies almost ten months later.
The practical takeaway is simple. If you are booking a trip for October or November, ask in writing how they intend to handle it: whether they will ask for your qualification, put a skipper on board, or cancel. Then keep the reply.
If you would rather not take a course: the alternatives
Heading out on your own is not the only option, and often not the best one.
Renting with a skipper costs more per hour, but it removes the whole problem: the licence, the liability and the business of reading the afternoon forecast. On a coast where the wind changes after lunch, that is worth something.
Organised trips cover almost everything people actually want from a rented boat: coves you cannot reach by land, swimming in calm water and, off Tenerife and La Gomera, one of the best places in Europe to see resident whales and dolphins all year round. We cover it in the whale and dolphin watching guide.
And if the plan was really about moving between islands with your own vehicle, the ferry remains the sensible answer: we compare it in the car hire and ferry guide.
Before any day on the water, it is also worth reading what you should know about Atlantic currents in the Canaries. The rule changing on 1 October came from exactly there: from the accidents.
Sources
Royal Decree 1188/2025 of 26 December (BOE no. 314, 30 December 2025, BOE-A-2025-27010), second final provision.
Royal Decree 875/2014 of 10 October, regulating recreational boating qualifications, articles 10, 11 and 13.
Spanish Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Licencia de Navegación information page.
