yacht-tour.com
California · updated 2026-10-07

Yacht brokers in San Diego

San Diego has 76 yacht brokerages. The two biggest clusters are Shelter Island with 29 and Harbor Island with 18, together 62% of the city’s total.

Brokerages
76
Average rating
4.59
Google reviews
964
Rated 5.0
25
Illustration: a motor yacht moored at a San Diego marina at blue hour, with the downtown skyline and bridge lights behind it.

What the numbers say

  • 29 of the 76 are in Shelter Island alone. Add Harbor Island and two areas hold 47 of them.
  • 56 have Google reviews, 25 of them at a perfect 5.0. The remaining 20 have none at all, which usually means a one-broker operation rather than a bad one.
  • 12 have no website. On a market where buyers start on a phone, that is a real gap.
  • 75 list a phone number. Calling still works better than a contact form in this industry.

The 10 most reviewed

Ordered by number of Google reviews, which is the closest public proxy for how much business a brokerage actually does. Rating alone rewards a firm with three happy customers over one with ninety.

Every brokerage, by marina

All 76 of them, grouped by where they are based. Open the marina you care about.

Shelter Island29 brokerages
Harbor Island18 brokerages
San Diego11 brokerages
Downtown waterfront6 brokerages
Point Loma5 brokerages
National City4 brokerages
Coronado2 brokerages
Chula Vista1 brokerage

How many yacht brokers are in San Diego?

76, as of 2026-10-07. That counts firms Google categorises as a yacht broker or boat dealer in and around the city, after removing charter operators, boat rentals, marinas, insurance agents and chandleries.

The number is higher than most directories show. Yelp lists ten. The reason is that a large share of San Diego brokerages are one or two brokers working from a marina office, with few reviews and sometimes no website, so thin directories never pick them up.

Where are they based?

Almost all of them are on the water. Shelter Island holds 29 and Harbor Island holds 18. The rest are spread across Downtown waterfront, Point Loma, National City, Coronado, Chula Vista, with 11 elsewhere in San Diego.

That concentration is useful if you are selling. Several brokerages sit within a few hundred metres of each other, so you can meet three in an afternoon and compare how each one proposes to market the boat before you sign anything.

What does a yacht broker charge?

The convention across the US brokerage industry is 10% of the sale price, paid by the seller, and usually split when a second broker brings the buyer. Some firms negotiate below that on larger vessels. We have not surveyed the firms on this page individually, so treat 10% as the industry norm rather than a quote from any of them.

Do you need a broker to sell a boat?

No, and for a smaller trailerable boat a private sale usually nets more, because you keep the commission. The trade is that you handle the photography, the listing, the enquiries, the sea trials and the paperwork yourself.

A broker earns the commission on bigger or more complicated vessels: documented yachts, boats with liens, buyers in another state or country, and anything where a survey and an escrow process are involved. The rough line most people draw is somewhere around the point where a mistake costs more than the commission.

How this list was built

The Google Maps results for “yacht broker San Diego”, cleaned. We began with Google’s Business Listings API and dropped it: tested against the same city, it returned 29 brokerages where Maps found 77, and missed four firms that rank on the first page of Google for the query. A directory that omits the firms you can see ranking is worse than no directory.

Classification starts from Google’s own business category, then gets checked. Google is wrong often enough to matter: one firm it listed as a yacht broker in San Diego turned out to run sailing charters and lessons only, and it was removed. Others that look like repair yards or sailing schools do run a real brokerage alongside, and those stayed. We verified the entries with the most reviews by hand, because those are the ones people actually see.

Ratings, review counts, addresses and phone numbers are reported as Google held them on 2026-10-07. We did not phone anyone to confirm, and a business that has moved or closed since then will still appear until the next recount.

If anything here about your brokerage is wrong, email hello@yacht-tour.com and we will fix it the same day. That includes removing you entirely, with no reason needed.

Frequently asked questions

Is this list of San Diego yacht brokers complete?

It is the most complete list we know of. It merges Google's business listings with the Google Maps results for "yacht broker San Diego", because either source alone misses firms the other has. Nothing is excluded for commercial reasons. If a brokerage is missing, tell us and it goes in.

How did you decide what counts as a yacht broker?

We start from Google's own business category, then check it. A firm appears here because Google lists it as a yacht broker or boat dealer in this city, minus the obvious mismatches: rentals, insurance agents and chandleries. Google gets some wrong, so we verified the most visible entries by hand and removed the ones that turned out to be charter operators. If we have miscategorised you, say so and we will fix it.

How often is it updated?

The figures above were counted on 2026-10-07. Ratings and review counts move constantly, so treat them as accurate to that date rather than to this minute. We recount periodically and the date at the top changes with it.

How do I correct or remove my brokerage?

Email hello@yacht-tour.com and say what is wrong. Corrections are made the same day and we do not ask for anything in return. If you would rather not be listed at all, say so and you come off, no reason needed.

Do you work with these brokerages?

No. Nobody paid to be on this page and nobody can. We make listing films for brokers, so several firms here are people we would like to work with, which is exactly why the list has to be honest rather than flattering.

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