End of Season on a Yacht: What to Check Before Your Contract Ends

Last updated: August 2026

“Season’s done — we’ve booked your flight for Sunday. We’ll settle the last bits once you’re off.”

It sounds normal. Everyone’s tired, the boat’s emptying out, and the last thing you want at the end of a long season is to make it awkward over a payslip. So most crew step off, get on the plane, and wait for “the last bits” to arrive.

Sometimes they do. Often they arrive short, late, or not at all — and by then you’re in another country, off the crew list, and much harder to sort out. This guide walks through what to check before you step off a seasonal contract: your final pay, your leave, who pays to get you home, and the documents to secure while you still can. It’s a checklist, not a warning — the crew who avoid problems are simply the ones who check before they leave, not after.

How to use this guide

“End of season” isn’t one thing. Three different situations get bundled under it, and they don’t all leave you owed the same thing:

Your fixed-term contract reaches its end date. The SEA was always going to finish now. This is the cleanest case — but “clean” doesn’t mean “nothing to check.”
You’re let go early. The season’s winding down and the boat no longer needs you, so you’re finished a few weeks before your contract said. That’s not the same as your contract ending — and it can change what you’re owed (more on that below).
You’re going on rotation or seasonal leave, not leaving. You’re expected back. Here the question is whether your leave and retainer are documented, not whether you’re being paid off.

Before anything else, get clear on which one you’re actually in — because it decides what “final pay” should even contain.

Your final pay: what should actually be in it

The end of a season is the single busiest, most rushed pay run of the year, which is exactly why things fall through it. Your last payment should generally account for:

Wages up to your actual last day — in your contract currency, at your contract rate.
Accrued but untaken leave, paid out (see the next section — this is the one most people miss).
Any notice pay, if you were let go before your contract’s end date and your SEA provides for notice.
Outstanding overtime, if your agreement provides for it and it hasn’t been paid.
Tips or gratuities owed to you but not yet distributed.
Reimbursements you’re still owed — flights you fronted, agreed expenses.

Under MLC 2006, wages are meant to be paid at no greater than monthly intervals (Standard A2.2). A final payment that quietly rolls over “until the accounts are done” isn’t a favour you’re granting — it’s worth pinning to a date, in writing, before you go.

Accrued leave: the number most crew leave behind

This is where money most often gets left on the boat.

If you didn’t take all your leave during the season, the untaken portion is generally paid out at the end of your contract. MLC 2006 sets a floor of 2.5 calendar days of paid leave per month of employment (Standard A2.4) — your flag state or your SEA may provide more, never less.

The trap is the phrase you’ll hear at the exit: “that’s already in your day rate” or “we counted the slow weeks as your leave.” Sometimes that’s genuinely true — if your SEA says so, transparently, with a calculation you can follow. Often it’s said at the end of the season precisely to avoid a separate payout. The test is simple: can anyone show you, in your signed SEA, the specific clause and the actual sum?

How leave is calculated — what counts, what your day rate is supposed to include, how transition weeks are treated — depends heavily on your SEA and your flag state. There’s no single answer that fits every boat, which is exactly why it’s worth putting an actual number to it before you accept the last payslip as final. Our guide on what counts as holiday pay for yacht crew walks through the calculation.

Getting home: repatriation at end of season

When your employment ends abroad, getting you home is generally the shipowner’s obligation and the shipowner’s cost — not a perk, and not something to be deducted from your final wages. This sits under MLC 2006, Regulation 2.5.

At end of season this usually goes smoothly. Where it gets murky is when you’re told to “book your own flight and claim it back later,” or when the cost quietly appears as a line on your final pay. You’re within your rights to ask — calmly, in writing — who is arranging your repatriation and to where. Naming the obligation is often enough to move it back where it belongs. More in our guide on repatriation rights.

“Let go” vs “end of contract” — why the wording matters

Here’s a distinction worth understanding before you sign anything on the way out.

If your fixed-term contract simply reached its end date, that’s one thing. If you were let go before that date, the reason and the wording recorded at the exit can affect your notice entitlement, your reference, and your position if a dispute comes up later.

This isn’t about arguing your way into a better label — it’s about not letting a rushed exit blur what actually happened. If you’re asked to sign a “mutual end of contract” or an “end-of-season settlement,” it’s reasonable to read it slowly and understand what it says before you sign. A settlement can acknowledge things, or waive things, that you didn’t intend. Our guides on being let go from a yacht and being pushed to resign cover this in more detail.

Before you step off: the documents to secure

Almost everything above is easier to resolve if you have your paperwork — and much harder once you’ve handed it back and left. Before you go, make sure you have your own copies of:

Your SEA (the signed version, plus any amendments).
Your discharge book — and never hand back the original.
Every payslip for the contract, saved somewhere that isn’t yacht email.
Your wage account or bank statements showing what actually landed.
Any written communication about pay, leave, notice, or your departure.

Save all of it to a personal cloud or drive, not a boat account you’ll lose access to the moment you’re off the crew list.

The pre-departure checklist

If you do nothing else, run this before your last day:

Confirm which situation you’re in — contract end, let go early, or rotation.
Get your final-pay figure in writing, with a date it will be paid.
Check accrued leave is paid out — and ask for the calculation if it isn’t.
Confirm who’s arranging and paying for your flight home.
Read anything you’re asked to sign, slowly, before you sign it.
Take your own copies of your SEA, discharge book, payslips and messages.
Store everything on a personal cloud before you step off.

What not to do

Don’t accept “we’ll settle after you’re gone” without a date. Vague is easy to forget once you’re not on board.
Don’t sign a settlement you don’t understand in the rush of the last day. You’re allowed to say you need to read it.
Don’t hand back your original discharge book or your only copies of anything.
Don’t let the flight home come out of your wages without asking who’s actually responsible for it.
Don’t post the details in a crew Facebook group while it’s live — even anonymised, situations get recognised in a small industry.

If the numbers don’t add up

Most end-of-season pay is sorted with a calm question and a paper trail. But if you run the checklist and something’s genuinely wrong — leave not paid out, a final payment that never lands, a “settlement” you were pushed to sign — the answer isn’t to argue harder on the dock. It’s to get your position documented before you leave.

That’s where a couple of free tools do the heavy lifting. Our Documentation Vault is a ready-made record system for keeping your contract, payslips and messages safe off the boat. And The First 14 Days After Missing Pay walks you through the calm, structured steps if a payment doesn’t arriv

If it turns out the shortfall is real and it’s more than a checklist can fix, our Pay & Leave Review (€249) takes your own documents and figures and turns them into a clear, structured breakdown of what you’re actually owed — before anything escalates to lawyers. It’s the check most crew wish they’d done before they got on the plane, not after.

In short

“End of season” covers three different situations — know which one you’re in.
Your final pay should include wages to your last day, accrued leave, and any notice or outstanding amounts.
Untaken leave is generally paid out at the end of a contract — MLC’s floor is 2.5 days per month worked.
Getting home is usually the owner’s cost, not yours.
Read anything you’re asked to sign, and take your own copies of everything before you step off.
If the numbers don’t add up, document your position first — it’s far harder to sort once you’ve left.

Related help

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