The Largest Yachts in the World

How this ranking is measured

This list ranks yachts by length overall (LOA), the measurement from the tip of the bow to the end of the stern, using the motor yacht and sailing yacht rankings maintained on Wikipedia as of October 2026. Builders, owners and trade publications sometimes publish slightly different figures because some count bowsprits, swim platforms or bulbous bows and some do not. Differences of a meter or two between sources are normal.

Length is the number the public cares about, but the industry often ranks big yachts by gross tonnage (GT), a measure of enclosed internal volume. A tall, beamy yacht with six decks can have more volume than a longer, slimmer one. That is why a yacht can be described as the largest by volume while sitting several places lower on a length list.

The ranking below also excludes vessels that are not private yachts. Cruise ships, naval vessels and research ships are left out. The 194.9-meter REV Ocean, built by VARD for Norwegian businessman Kjell Inge Rokke and still fitting out with delivery expected in late 2026, is longer than any yacht here, but it is designated a research and expedition vessel rather than a private yacht.

The 20 longest motor yachts

Year refers to the delivery year listed in the ranking. Two entries, El Mahrousa and Savarona, are historic state-owned vessels that remain on the list because they are still afloat and classed as yachts.

Azzam and the rest of the top five

Azzam was launched in April 2013 and delivered that September by Lurssen in Bremen, with exterior design by Nauta Yachts and interiors by Christophe Leoni. She was built for Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the late president of the United Arab Emirates. Her machinery is closer to a fast warship than a typical yacht, two diesel engines and two gas turbines producing a combined 47,000 horsepower through four water jets, and her top speed is reported at over 32 knots. For a 180-meter hull, that is extraordinary.

Fulk Al Salamah, built by T. Mariotti in Genoa and delivered in 2016, belongs to the Sultanate of Oman's royal fleet, which also includes Al Said at number seven. Both are often described as support or state vessels as much as private yachts.

Eclipse, delivered by Blohm + Voss in Hamburg in 2009 for Roman Abramovich, held the title of world's largest private yacht until Azzam arrived. Dubai, at 162 meters, began life as a project for a Brunei royal before being completed for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Blue, delivered by Lurssen in 2022, is the newest yacht in the top five and is owned by a member of Abu Dhabi's ruling family, according to the Wikipedia ranking.

Why one shipyard builds most of the giants

Look down the table and one name repeats. Lurssen, the family-owned German builder based near Bremen, built 12 of the top 20 and 15 of the top 25 motor yachts on the Wikipedia list. Blohm + Voss, now part of the Lurssen group, built three more, including Eclipse and Dubai. The reason is capacity and experience. A yacht over 130 meters needs covered construction halls large enough to hold the hull, naval-standard engineering staff, and a supply chain that can deliver custom propulsion, stabilizers and interiors to superyacht finish on a fixed schedule.

Only a handful of yards in Germany, the Netherlands and Italy have built yachts above 120 meters. Feadship and Oceanco in the Netherlands and Fincantieri in Italy compete at the top, but the largest Feadship and Oceanco motor yachts sit just below this table. Italian builders such as Benetti, which produces semi-custom models such as the Benetti Oasis 40M, operate mainly in the 30 to 110 meter range.

Size has diminishing returns. A yacht twice as long is far more than twice as expensive to build and run, and a hull over about 140 meters cannot fit into many of the marinas owners want to visit, so it spends much of its life at anchor. Many recent owners have chosen 80 to 120 meters with more volume and better access rather than chasing the length record.

The largest sailing yachts

Sailing yachts are a separate ranking because rig loads limit how big they can practically become. The three largest are all steel three-masted schooners delivered in the past decade, and two of them came from the same Dutch builder.

Sailing Yacht A, designed by Philippe Starck and built at German Naval Yards Kiel, uses three freestanding carbon masts. Koru, delivered by Oceanco in 2022, is the yacht widely reported to have been built for Jeff Bezos. Black Pearl, also an Oceanco build, uses a DynaRig, the rotating square-rig system first made famous on Maltese Falcon, whose hull was started by Perini Navi and which was completed in 2006.

The historic yachts still on the list

Two of the longest motor yachts are far older than the rest. El Mahrousa, built by Samuda Brothers in London and launched in 1865 for the Khedive of Egypt, is still owned by the Egyptian state and remains one of the oldest yachts afloat. Savarona, built by Blohm + Voss in 1931 and 136 meters long, was commissioned by Emily Roebling Cadwalader, an American heiress, and later became the Turkish presidential yacht. She sits at number 21 on the current list.

Prince Abdulaziz, built in Denmark in 1984 for the Saudi royal family, was for years the largest yacht in the world and is still in the top ten. The sailing barque Sea Cloud, built in 1931 for Marjorie Merriweather Post and her husband E. F. Hutton, now carries cruise passengers. These yachts show that the appetite for enormous private ships is nothing new; what has changed is the number of them.

Seizures, sanctions and yachts in limbo

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 put several of the world's largest yachts at the center of sanctions enforcement. Dilbar was detained in Germany, Scheherazade was impounded in Italy, and other yachts linked to sanctioned owners were frozen in European ports or sailed to jurisdictions that do not enforce Western sanctions.

The US case that drew the most attention involved Amadea, a 106-meter Lurssen delivered in 2017. US authorities seized her in Fiji in 2022 and brought her to San Diego. After forfeiture proceedings in which a federal judge rejected competing ownership claims, the US Marshals Service sold her at a sealed-bid auction in September 2025. A yacht of that size costs millions of dollars a year simply to keep crewed, insured and maintained, which was one reason the government pursued a sale.

Where Americans can see giant yachts

Most yachts on this list spend their summers in the Mediterranean and winters in the Caribbean or the Gulf, but South Florida is the main US hub. The superyacht docks at Pier Sixty-Six during the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show in late October, and the shipyards and marinas along the New River and in Riviera Beach, host a large share of the global fleet over the course of a year. Miami's Island Gardens area and the Palm Beach marinas also see regular visits.

In the Northeast, giant yachts appear in Newport, Rhode Island and along the Hudson in New York during the summer. Seeing one up close in a US port is still a matter of timing, because yachts this large rarely charter in US waters. The Passenger Vessel Services Act and US cabotage rules restrict foreign-built, foreign-flagged vessels from carrying paying passengers between US ports, so most large charter yachts work in the Bahamas and the Caribbean instead.

What it takes to run a yacht this size

Build prices for the largest yachts are almost never published, and estimates in the press vary widely, so this guide does not quote them. What industry professionals agree on is the scale of the operation. A 140-meter yacht carries a crew numbering in the dozens, often more than the number of guests, with separate deck, engineering, interior, galley and security teams. Some also carry helicopters, submarines, tenders large enough to be yachts themselves, and on-board medical staff.

A widely used rule of thumb in the superyacht industry puts annual running costs at roughly 10 percent of the build price, covering crew, fuel, insurance, maintenance, dockage and refit reserves. Big yachts also need periodic class surveys and shipyard refits that can take months, and only a few yards worldwide can haul or dry-dock a 150-meter hull.

Models mentioned in this guide

Benetti Oasis 40M

Superyachts, 134 ft

Used $16M to $25M

Westport 112

Superyachts, 112 ft

Used $3.2M to $9.5M

Sanlorenzo SD118

Superyachts, 117 ft

Used $11.5M to $17M

Sunseeker 100 Yacht

Superyachts, 98 ft

Used $10.5M to $15.5M

Princess X95

Superyachts, 95 ft

Used $9.5M to $14.5M

Azimut Grande 27 Metri

Superyachts, 88 ft

Used $4.6M to $9M