The lagoon is shared between Dutch Sint Maarten and French Saint-Martin, and it is not a clearance port in its own right. Tell us which entrance you intend to use, where you want to lie and what clearance you already hold, and we will look for a local agent who can take the coordination on.
Most confusion about the lagoon comes from treating it as one place with one procedure. It is one body of water under two jurisdictions, reached through two different bridges, with local reporting on the Dutch side that is separate from border clearance. Sorting out which of those touch your particular visit is the work.
Which bridge you intend to use and which side of the lagoon your berth is on are the two facts that set everything else. Give us the yacht's dimensions at the same time, because they decide whether an entrance is open to you at all.
Entering from the Dutch side and lying in Dutch waters is one case. Entering from the French side is another. Crossing between them inside the lagoon is a third. We set out what each involves rather than assuming one route for everyone.
Where a local agent is available and takes the work on, they handle the reporting that applies, liaise over the bridge transit and coordinate it with your marina. Bridge openings are operated by the bridge authority and are not ours to promise.
The documents are the ones your arrival already required. What the lagoon adds is a set of planning facts, because the yacht's dimensions and your intended berth decide which entrance and which jurisdiction you are dealing with.
Work through these in order. The answers to the first two change the rest, which is why there is no single lagoon procedure that fits every yacht.
The lagoon has two. The Simpson Bay Bridge enters from Dutch Sint Maarten and the Sandy Ground Bridge from French Saint-Martin. Both publish opening schedules, contact details and dimensions, and the French-side bridge is published with a narrower width and a different schedule. Whether either is operable and suitable on your dates, for your yacht, has to be confirmed at the time; neither can be assumed.
Part of the lagoon is Dutch and part is French. The side your marina or anchorage is on is a separate question from the side you entered through, and it is the one that governs what applies while you are lying there.
A yacht arriving from abroad, a yacht already cleared into Dutch Sint Maarten, and a yacht already cleared into French Saint-Martin are in three different positions on entering the lagoon. Tell us which you are and where the papers came from, rather than starting the procedure over.
The Simpson Bay Lagoon Authority Corporation operates on the Dutch side, with a collection office at the police station just west of the Simpson Bay Bridge, and it collects mooring and related charges. St. Maarten Marine Trades Association guidance describes clearing in with that office as required for vessels entering Simpson Bay and the lagoon. This is local reporting to a Dutch-side body and is separate from Immigration and Customs.
If you are transiting, published guidance is to contact the bridge operator on VHF channel 12 before approaching the Simpson Bay Bridge, giving vessel name, direction and intended marina. Openings run to a published schedule set by the bridge authority. A yacht already inside the lagoon that is not passing through is not making this movement at all.
Leaving means another bridge movement and, where you are clearing out of the country, outward border formalities on the applicable side. Settle any charges still outstanding with the authorities and operators involved. Tell your agent the departure date as early as the arrival date, because the timing of a transit is not something that can be arranged at short notice.
The Simpson Bay Lagoon lies across the boundary between Dutch Sint Maarten and French Saint-Martin. It is a body of water with marinas in two countries, not a single official clearance location with one procedure. Border clearance happens under whichever country's rules apply to your arrival and your berth, and the lagoon's own requirements sit on top of that rather than in place of it.
The Simpson Bay Bridge enters from the Dutch side and the Sandy Ground Bridge from the French side. Both have published opening schedules, published contact details and published dimensions, and the French-side bridge is published as the narrower of the two. Published information is not a guarantee of current operability, and neither bridge is necessarily suitable for a given yacht. Confirm the schedule, the dimensions against your own, and the current status of the bridge you intend to use before you rely on it.
The Simpson Bay Lagoon Authority Corporation operates on the Dutch side, with a collection office at the police station just west of the Simpson Bay Bridge, and collects mooring and related charges. St. Maarten Marine Trades Association guidance describes clearing in with that office as required for vessels entering Simpson Bay and the Simpson Bay Lagoon. Port St. Maarten's own material describes the authority and its role in fee collection without setting out that scope, so the exact reach of the requirement is not settled between the published sources. Treat it as applying and confirm the detail locally.
Border clearance with Immigration and Customs, reporting to the lagoon authority, arranging a berth with a marina, and passing through a bridge are four distinct matters with four different counterparties. Settling one does not settle another, and a charge raised by one of them is not duplicated by the others. What you owe at the end of a stay is whatever remains outstanding across the parties actually involved.
Both. The boundary runs through it. The Simpson Bay Bridge enters from the Dutch side and the Sandy Ground Bridge from the French side, and marinas lie in each country's waters. Which rules apply to you depends on the entrance you use and where your berth is, not on the lagoon as a whole.
Not as a universal rule. If you are arriving from abroad into Dutch Sint Maarten waters, Dutch-side Immigration and Customs applies to that arrival. If your route takes you in from the French side, French formalities are the relevant ones. And a yacht already cleared into one of the two countries is in a different position again. Tell us your entrance and your existing clearance and the applicable route follows from that.
The Sandy Ground Bridge is the French-side entrance to the lagoon and has a published schedule, published contact details and published dimensions, which are narrower than those published for the Simpson Bay Bridge. Whether it is operating on your dates and whether it suits your yacht are questions to confirm at the time rather than assume from a published table.
No. Openings run to a schedule operated by the bridge authority, and vessels contact the bridge operator directly on VHF channel 12 before approaching. An agent can help you plan around the published schedule and coordinate with your marina, but the opening itself is not something we or an agent control or can guarantee.
Only yachts actually entering or leaving the lagoon. A yacht lying in Simpson Bay outside the bridge, or clearing at Great Bay, is not making that movement. If you have no reason to be inside the lagoon, the bridges and the lagoon authority are not part of your visit.
Departure does not automatically create a second set of charges. What you settle on leaving is whatever is still outstanding with the parties actually involved: the lagoon authority, your marina, and the authorities handling any outward clearance. Ask each of them for their current position rather than budgeting for a duplicate of what you paid on the way in.
Use this page for Simpson Bay Lagoon arrival, departure and St. Maarten yacht-paperwork assistance.