Mustique Yacht Charter | Conservation Fee and Visitor Area

Mustique is privately owned, about 1,400 acres, roughly twelve miles south of Bequia, run by the Mustique Company for the homeowners.

Around a hundred villas, one hotel, and no cruise ships, day-trip boats or public ferry.

For a charter yacht it is the most tightly controlled stop in the chain, and the one that most often gets planned wrong.

What There Is to Do on Mustique

Basil’s Bar on Britannia Bay, which is open to visiting yachts and is the main reason most groups want to stop.
The village at Lovell, with a small shop and the island’s working community.
The salt pond trail, a walk south from the anchorage that stays inside the visitor area.
Macaroni Beach, the island’s best known beach, which sits outside the visitor area and is not somewhere a yacht guest can simply walk to.

Everything below is the part worth reading before you commit a day to it.

There is no Mustique day pass. The island does not sell one, and it never has. What a visiting yacht pays is a conservation fee, and what it buys is three consecutive nights on a mooring or at anchor plus access to a defined part of the island.

That distinction matters, because almost every group arrives expecting to buy their way ashore for the day and roam. Mustique does not work like that, and the rules tightened after years of looser practice.

Quick answer

No day pass exists. The yacht pays a conservation fee covering three consecutive nights.
The fee goes by length. EC$200 up to 70 ft, EC$450 for 71 to 100 ft, EC$550 for 101 to 150 ft, EC$1,000 above 151 ft.
Britannia Bay is the only permitted anchorage, with 35 moorings for yachts up to 60 ft. Anything larger anchors where the harbourmaster directs.
Guests stay in the visitor area: the village, the shoreline south to the salt pond, the salt-pond trail and the beach south of the anchorage.
Three times a year that area is the whole island for you, unless you hold a Cotton House reservation.

The Fee Goes by Length and Covers Three Nights

One fee, by length, covering three consecutive nights.

Yacht length	Conservation fee, 3 nights
Up to 70 ft	EC$200
71 to 100 ft	EC$450
101 to 150 ft	EC$550
Over 151 ft	EC$1,000

Your captain settles it with the harbourmaster on arrival, so it reaches you through the APA rather than as something you pay at a desk. On a 100-foot yacht it is a rounding error against the week, which is why nobody mentions it until the question is asked.

Guests Stay Inside a Defined Visitor Area

Four places, and they are defined rather than suggested.

The village.
The shoreline running south to the salt pond.
The salt-pond trail.
The beach immediately south of the anchorage.

Basil's Bar is open to visiting yachts, and it is the reason most people want to stop here in the first place. Beyond the visitor area the island is private, and the villas and the interior are not open to people who arrived by boat.

If walking the island matters more than anchoring off it, the answer is a Cotton House reservation, not a bigger yacht.

Three Times a Year the Visitor Area Shrinks to Nothing

For roughly seven weeks a year, visiting yacht guests cannot leave the visitor area at all without a Cotton House booking:

About three weeks over Christmas and New Year.
About two weeks at Easter.
About two weeks in August.

Those are precisely the weeks most people want, so it is the first thing to settle. A festive charter that was built around a day on Mustique needs either the Cotton House or a different island, and finding that out in December is late.

One Night Costs You Three, So Decide Early

Mustique is twelve miles south of Bequia and about twenty from St Vincent, so on a week running south it falls on day two or three.

The fee buys three consecutive nights, which is more than most groups want here. One night is the common choice, and it still costs three.

Worth knowing in advance rather than at the harbourmaster’s office. It is a fair argument for either staying two nights and using the island properly, or skipping it and putting the time into the Tobago Cays.

Over Christmas, New Year and Easter the visitor area shrinks to almost nothing without a Cotton House reservation, so a festive week that promises Mustique ashore needs checking before it is sold.