Can You Swim With Dolphins in Lanzarote?
No — Canary Islands law bans swimming within 500 m of cetaceans. What Decree 178/2000 actually says, what the Barco Azul flag means, and what you can legally do instead.
No. Swimming with wild dolphins in Lanzarote is illegal, and not by a narrow margin — Canary Islands law prohibits swimming or diving within 500 metres of a cetacean or group of cetaceans. That is a wide exclusion zone, it applies to everyone rather than just to tour boats, and it is the reason no legitimate operator on the island sells a wild-dolphin swim. There is also no captive dolphin facility on Lanzarote. If you have seen a Lanzarote listing that appears to promise swimming with dolphins, this guide explains what you are almost certainly looking at instead.
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What the law actually says
Cetacean watching in the Canary Islands is regulated by the Canary Islands Government under Decree 178/2000, and the rules are specific rather than advisory.
- Article 13 prohibits swimming and diving within 500 metres of a cetacean or group of cetaceans.
- Licensed boats must keep a minimum distance of 60 metres from the animals.
- Boats must disengage their propellers when cetaceans come within 100 metres.
- There are limits on how long a boat may stay with a group, and on how many boats may gather around one pod.
- A qualified guide must be aboard any vessel operating cetacean-watching trips commercially.
Note who the 500-metre rule binds. It is not a condition of a tour operator’s licence that you could get around by hiring a private boat or swimming from shore — it is a prohibition on the activity itself, in Canarian waters, for anyone. A private charter that let you get in the water beside a pod would be breaking the same law a commercial boat would.
The practical effect is that on Lanzarote, dolphins are something you watch from a deck. That is a genuine constraint on the experience, and it is better to know it before you book than to discover it when the engines cut sixty metres short of the pod.
The Barco Azul flag, and why you should look for it
The visible marker of a boat that is licensed and bound by those rules is the Barco Azul — “Blue Boat” — symbol. It is set into a yellow Canary Islands flag roughly 80 × 50 cm, with the period of the vessel’s authorisation printed beneath it in blue. It is displayed on the boat, and it is worth a glance at the pier.
The reason it matters is counter-intuitive: a boat that gets closer is not giving you a better trip. If an operator’s photographs show a vessel nosing right up to a pod, or passengers in the water beside dolphins in Canarian waters, that is not a premium product — it is either a rule breach or a photograph taken somewhere else. The 60-metre line applies to everyone, so no operator can legitimately compete on proximity.
What operators can legitimately compete on is how little they disturb the animals on the way in, and how well they help you see across that distance. Which is where the honest differences between Lanzarote’s boats actually lie.
What to book instead if you want to be close to the animals
Since proximity is capped by law, the useful question becomes: what maximises the experience within sixty metres?
A silent boat. Engine noise is the main thing that alters cetacean behaviour around a vessel. The Whale and Dolphin Watching Eco-Friendly Catamaran is the first fully electric, emission-free catamaran in the Canary Islands, running out of Marina Puerto Calero — it arrives at the legal line having disturbed far less than a diesel hull, so animals are more likely to stay and behave naturally. At 4.7 out of 5 it also holds the highest rating of any dolphin trip on this site. Read our full breakdown →
A hydrophone. The same trip carries an onboard underwater microphone, which is the closest thing to contact the law allows: you hear dolphins and pilot whales clicking, whistling and buzzing to each other in real time, and it works perfectly well at a distance where the animals are only dorsal fins to the eye. No other trip compared on this site offers one.
A small boat and a determined skipper. The RIB marine safari caps at twelve passengers, so nobody is looking over three rows of heads, and it can reposition quickly when a sighting comes in. Reviewers repeatedly single out the crew for how hard they work at actually finding animals. Read our full breakdown →
And optics. This is the least glamorous and most effective advice on the page. Bring binoculars or a camera with a real zoom. Sixty metres is much further than it sounds on open water, and the gap between a memorable sighting and a distant grey smudge is very often just the lens you brought.
So what are the “swim” trips you have seen?
Several Lanzarote boat trips genuinely include swimming — it just is not swimming with dolphins. Two examples from the trips compared on this site:
The 2.5-hour morning speedboat tour pairs a dolphin search with a swim stop at Papagayo Beach. Those are two separate parts of the morning: the boat looks for dolphins in deep water, then anchors somewhere else entirely for the swim.
The Papagayo Beaches catamaran day trip anchors off the Costa de Papagayo coves for around two hours, with kayaks included and swimming and snorkelling straight off the boat. Dolphins are often seen on the route down — as a bonus on a beach day, not as a swim. Note that snorkelling gear is not supplied, and there is no landing on the beaches themselves. Read our full breakdown →
Similarly, the Lobos Island half-day trip includes swimming in the island’s natural lagoons after a crossing that follows the dolphin route.
In every case the sequence is dolphins from the boat, then swimming somewhere else. A listing describing both in one paragraph can read as though they overlap. They do not, and legally they cannot.
What about captive dolphin experiences?
There is no dolphinarium on Lanzarote, so a “swim with dolphins” experience on this island is not on offer in captivity either. Facilities of that kind exist elsewhere in the Canaries, and travellers sometimes conflate the archipelago into one destination when planning.
That is a choice with its own ethics, and worth deciding deliberately rather than by accident. What Lanzarote offers is the wild alternative: animals in their own habitat, on their own terms, at a distance the law sets rather than the operator. Roughly 60–65% of trips find them, and about one in three does not — which is exactly what watching wild animals is supposed to feel like.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it illegal to swim with dolphins in Lanzarote?
Yes. Under Canary Islands Decree 178/2000, swimming and diving are prohibited within 500 metres of a cetacean or group of cetaceans. The prohibition applies to the activity itself, not only to licensed tour boats, so a private charter cannot legally arrange it either.
Why do boats have to stay 60 metres away from dolphins?
It is a legal minimum approach distance under the same decree, alongside a requirement to disengage propellers within 100 metres, limits on how long a boat may stay with a group and how many boats may gather, and a requirement that a qualified guide is aboard. The rules exist to keep tourism from altering the animals’ behaviour and feeding.
What is the Barco Azul flag?
Barco Azul, or “Blue Boat”, is the Canary Islands Government’s marker for vessels authorised to watch cetaceans for tourism. It appears as a blue symbol set into a yellow Canarian flag roughly 80 × 50 cm, with the authorisation period printed beneath. Seeing it at the pier tells you the operator is licensed and bound by the approach rules.
Are there any dolphin swimming tours in Lanzarote at all?
No wild-dolphin swims, and there is no captive dolphin facility on the island. Several boat trips do include a swimming stop — at Papagayo Beach, off the Costa de Papagayo coves, or in the lagoons at Lobos Island — but those stops happen away from the animals, as a separate part of the itinerary.
Can I snorkel near dolphins from a boat in Lanzarote?
No. Snorkelling counts as swimming for the purposes of the 500-metre rule, so it is prohibited near cetaceans. The snorkelling included on trips such as the Papagayo catamaran day trip takes place at anchor off the beaches, well away from any pod. Bring your own mask for those stops — most operators do not supply gear.
Ready to book?
If watching rather than swimming is the plan, compare every Lanzarote dolphin-watching boat or check live availability on the homepage booking calendar. For the closest thing to contact that the law allows, the eco-catamaran’s hydrophone is the one to look at.
Go Looking for Lanzarote's Wild Dolphins
Bottlenose and Atlantic spotted dolphins are out there most of the year — and the boats that find them leave from Puerto del Carmen every afternoon. Free cancellation up to 24 hours before you sail.
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