The Small Electric Boat Report: 197 Models Under 28 Feet (2026)
The European small electric boat market, counted one by one: 197 verified models under 8.53 m from 92 builders — prices, power, and how many fit each country's license-free band.
Updated 24 October 2026. Every figure is computed from the live Nauteria catalogue — verified builders only, models in current production, nothing estimated. The whole-market reference set is on the statistics page; this report reads the small-boat half on its own.
Small electric boats — day boats, sloops, tenders and runabouts under 8.53 m (28 ft) — are where electric boating actually happens: they are the majority of the market, the affordable end of it, and the segment the license-free rules were written around. Here is what the verified numbers say.
The market at a glance
- 197 small electric and hybrid-electric production models are on the European market, from 92 verified builders in 21 countries — 193 pure electric, 4 hybrid
- The median small electric boat is 6.5 m long, carries a 21 kWh battery and a 12 kW motor, seats 8, and starts at €51,600
- By size: 25 models under 5 m, 69 between 5 and 6.5 m, 103 between 6.5 m and the 8.53 m line
- Independent juries have issued 74 verified award results to 44 models in this segment — 21 of them wins
What a small electric boat costs
Of the 87 models whose builders publish a starting price (44% of the segment):
- 12 models start under €20,000 — the entry tier, from €9,890
- 31 start between €20,000 and €50,000
- 23 between €50,000 and €100,000
- 21 above €100,000, up to €336,000
The median published starting price is €51,600. More than half the segment publishes no price at all — "price on request" reaches well below yacht territory.
How many can be driven without a license?
This is the question small-boat buyers actually ask, and joining this catalogue to the official national rules answers it with numbers. Of the 129 models whose builders publish a motor-power figure, this many sit inside each country's license-free band:
| Country | License-free up to | Models within it | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | 4.5 kW | 32 of 129 | 25% |
| Switzerland | 6 kW | 50 of 129 | 39% |
| Germany | 7.5 kW (electric) | 50 of 129 | 39% |
| Poland | 10 kW | 63 of 129 | 49% |
| Hungary | 14.7 kW | 69 of 129 | 53% |
| Greece | 18.4 kW (25 hp) | 72 of 129 | 56% |
| Estonia | 25 kW | 76 of 129 | 59% |
| Italy | 30 kW | 81 of 129 | 63% |
Each threshold carries its own national conditions — distance from shore, operator age, boat size — and four countries (Sweden, Finland, the United Kingdom at sea, Ireland) require no operator license for ordinary leisure boats at any of these powers. The Netherlands and Belgium use a different test entirely: no power limit, license-free when the boat cannot exceed 20 km/h — a test speed-limited electric boats pass by design. The full country-by-country rules, each read from the official source, are in the license-free boating guide.
Note what the most common rating gives away: the single most frequent motor rating in the segment is exactly 6 kW, on 17 models — just inside Switzerland's 6 kW band and Germany's 7.5 kW (electric) band. A motor rating in this segment is a license decision as much as an engineering one.
Who builds small electric boats?
| Country | Verified builders | Models |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | 13 | 46 |
| Austria | 6 | 22 |
| Poland | 6 | 21 |
| Italy | 10 | 18 |
| Germany | 6 | 15 |
| France | 6 | 11 |
| United States | 7 | 9 |
| Finland | 6 | 9 |
| Sweden | 5 | 7 |
| Canada | 2 | 7 |
The Netherlands leads — the sloep tradition translating directly into electric drive — and 21 countries build in this segment in total.
What builders publish — and what they don't
- 65% publish motor power (129 of 197)
- 45% publish battery capacity (89)
- 44% publish a starting price (87)
- 33% publish top speed in knots (65) and 16% publish range in nautical miles (32) — many small-boat builders state speed in km/h and range in hours, which this count deliberately does not convert
A missing figure stays missing in this catalogue — nothing is estimated — which is exactly why these publication rates can be trusted, and why they are the honest picture of how transparent this market is with its buyers.
Method
Counted from the live catalogue on 24 October 2026: only builders verified as the actual yard (their own site or a company register), only models in current production, every specification read from the builder's own published materials, every award verified against the jury's own source. The 8.53 m (28 ft) line is the same one that separates the small-boat catalogue from the electric yacht network. License thresholds were read from national authorities' official texts in October 2026 and are summarised, with sources named, in the license guide.
Journalists, clubs and researchers are welcome to cite any figure with a link to this page. Per-country cuts and builder-level data are available on request — contact us.