Buying a boat in Panama is a cash-heavy, paper-heavy process in a small market. Most boats are imported, so their duty and ITBMS history matters as much as their engine hours. Ownership and mortgages on Panamanian-flagged boats sit in the Registro Público de Naves of the Autoridad Marítima de Panamá (AMP), which you can search, and the sale itself is usually a contrato de compraventa signed before a notary, then recorded as a transfer at the AMP. Foreign-flagged boats sold in Panama follow the flag state's paperwork plus Panamanian customs status.
The three questions people ask are: where do I find boats and what do they cost here, how do I get a survey and sea trial done in Panama, and how do I make sure the boat is really the seller's to sell. Surveyors and haul-out yards are concentrated in Panama City, Shelter Bay and Vista Mar; sea trials in the Bahía de Panamá should be timed for the tide and, in the dry season, the afternoon wind.
This collection will cover the whole buying process, choosing a boat for Pacific tides and chop or Caribbean reefs, the real budget (price, import, ITBMS, marina, maintenance), new versus used in the tropics, surveys and sea trials, checking ownership and liens at the AMP, purchase agreements with notary and bilingual contracts, deposits and escrow, scams, financing and why most deals are cash, and buying a boat to charter in Panama City. The Panama City guides to buying, surveys and ownership costs are live now.
If you are used to the Florida way of doing this, read the Florida buying sub-hub alongside; the survey logic is the same, the title system is not.