Cruising clearance
Home · Clearing In
Yacht customs and clearance for the South Pacific, step by step
We’re Steve and Meghan, two cruisers sailing around the world on Some Tuesday with our two pugs. These are the yacht customs and clearance guides, and the forms tool, we wish we’d had: the official rules, what actually happened to us, and the paperwork filled in for you. Your info stays on your own device.
Pick your country
Try the forms tool
Free for paid Captain’s Log subscribers and Tier 2 Patreon supporters. How that works
Clearing into a new country has been a slog almost everywhere we’ve been. Lots of paperwork, the same boat and passport details typed out over and over, extra hoops because the pugs are aboard, and online systems that fight you the whole way. A lot of the useful stuff isn’t written down anywhere. You hear it from another boat. So we’re putting it all in one place. Read the whole story
Heads up
This is best efforts, not a guarantee. Rules change, officials change, and two boats clearing into the same harbor the same week can have pretty different experiences. We do our best by combining three things: research (reading the official sites so you don’t have to), automation (a tool that fills in the forms for you), and personal experience (what actually happened to us, with dates). It’s all in one guide and one forms tool. It won’t make clearing in effortless, but it should make it a whole lot easier. If something’s different when you get there, tell us and we’ll fix it for the next boat.
What’s here
Country guides
A numbered checklist for each country. Step 1, Step 2, and so on, each one linked straight to the official site, with when to do it, what to have ready, and what it costs. Next to the official rules you get what actually happened when we did it. See the guides
The forms tool
Type your boat, crew and pets in once. The tool fills in the official forms for each country, right in your browser, ready for you to check, sign and send. Where a country uses an online portal, it gives you a printable answer sheet in the portal’s order, so you can copy your answers straight across. How the forms tool works
Your data stays with you
Everything you type into the forms tool stays on your phone, tablet or laptop. None of it gets uploaded to Some Tuesday or anywhere else. How we keep it that way
Countries so far
Next up: wherever Some Tuesday goes. Where are we now?
Always the current forms
We keep an eye on every form each country asks for, and we check them against the official sources at least once a week. Every form in the guides and the tool shows the date we last checked it. If a country changes a form, we update it.
Questions
Which countries have a yacht customs guide?
French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Tonga and Fiji. We cleared in at Taiohae, Aitutaki and Neiafu. We haven’t cleared in at Fiji yet.
Are the yacht customs guides free?
Yes. An Arrival Kit is US$19 and unlocks the forms tool and a PDF. The bundle of all four is US$64.60. Paid Captain’s Log subscribers and Tier 2 Patreon supporters get the kits free.
Pricing
- The country guides are free to read.
- An Arrival Kit unlocks the forms tool for that country and includes the Arrival Kit PDF (the checklist, contacts, fees and firsthand notes).
- Fiji US$19
- French Polynesia US$19
- Cook Islands US$19
- Tonga US$19
- South Pacific bundle (all four) US$64.60, which is 15% off
- Free for our crew: paid Captain’s Log (Substack) subscribers and Tier 2 Patreon supporters get the kits free. The member code is in a paid-subscribers-only Captain’s Log post and a Tier 2 Patreon post. How that works
See the kits
Join the Captain’s Log
Support us on Patreon
Why we built this
by Steve
Meghan and I live aboard Some Tuesday, our Lagoon 450S catamaran, with our two pugs, Mr. Pickles and Colonel Mustard. We left Los Angeles on December 3, 2025 to sail around the world over five years. So far the sailing has been the easy part.
Clearing in has been a slog in nearly every country. Each one has its own stack of paperwork, and a lot of it asks for the same boat details, passport numbers and crew lists you just wrote out for the last country. With dogs aboard it gets a lot more involved. French Polynesia’s online system was the hardest for us: clunky, confusing, and you can’t get around it. Then in Tahiti the official vet had to inspect the pugs in person, aboard the boat. So I picked her up in the dinghy and ran her out to Some Tuesday in the anchorage.
The thing is, most of what you really need to know isn’t on any government website. It spreads by word of mouth. Just the other day Jason from Big Dog texted me asking about the check-in procedures in Pangai. That’s how this stuff gets around: a text, a chat on the radio, a conversation at the bar.
My goal is to put it all in one place, easy to find, easy to use, and up to date. The official rules, linked straight to the source. What actually happened when we did it. And a forms tool that fills in the official paperwork for you, so you type your boat and crew details once instead of in every country.
We’re cruisers, and we built this for cruisers. It won’t make clearing in effortless, and your experience will be different from ours in places. But it should save you a lot of time and head-scratching. If you find something that’s changed, tell us, and we’ll fix it for the next boat.
See you out there.
Steve (and Meghan, Mr. Pickles and Colonel Mustard)
Where’s Some Tuesday now?
The honest fine print
Some Tuesday, LLC sells information and a do-it-yourself forms tool. We never file, submit, sign or send paperwork for anyone. We’re not a customs agent, yacht agent or lawyer, and nothing here is legal advice.
Everything here is best efforts. We combine research from the official sources, automation that fills in the forms for you, and our own experience. Rules change, officials change, and every boat’s experience in each country will be a little different, including from ours. Before you rely on anything here, check it against the official links and with the officials themselves. You’re responsible for checking, signing and submitting your own forms.