The Boca Raton Club does not publish its initiation fee or annual dues, and we have found no news report or public filing that prints its fee schedule since MSD Partners bought the resort, then called the Boca Raton Resort and Club, from Blackstone in June 2019. The last published figures come from the Blackstone era: a $45,000 membership fee in 2014, and a $30,000 fee plus $7,290 a year in social dues in 2017. Estimates that circulate today come from brokerages and directories, not the club, so the current price is whatever the club’s membership office quotes you. Membership is sold separately from real estate: outside a few specific buildings, owning a home in Boca Raton gives you no right to join, and buying one does not oblige you to. That makes The Boca Raton the opposite of a mandatory club such as St Andrews Country Club, where joining costs a reported $550,000 from September 1, 2026.

We are Steven, Elliot, and Wendy Koolik, and much of our work happens in the East Boca neighborhoods around The Boca Raton. Buyers here ask us two questions about the resort more than any others: what does it cost to join, and does living nearby help? This guide sets out what is documented and dated, separates it from the guesses in search results, and compares the cost with the clubs you must join in a mandatory club community.

What Is The Boca Raton Today?

The Boca Raton is the resort at 501 East Camino Real that many residents still call the Boca Resort. It opened on February 6, 1926 as the Ritz-Carlton Cloister Inn, designed by Addison Mizner, and after Clarence Geist bought it in 1927 it operated as the Boca Raton Club. Under recent owners the membership was called the Premier Club; today it is The Boca Raton Club, reviving the late-1920s name.

Hilton managed the resort under its Waldorf Astoria brand until July 2021, when the property left the brand and was renamed The Boca Raton. It is now independent, managed by an affiliate of its owner rather than a hotel company. The owner is an affiliate of BDT & MSD Partners, the merchant bank formed in 2023 when Michael Dell’s investment firm, MSD Partners, combined with Byron Trott’s BDT & Company. MSD Partners made the purchase from Blackstone in a deal that closed on June 4, 2019. The Coastal Star, citing a Fitch Ratings report, put the total at $875 million: $589.7 million for the resort and $285.3 million for the Premier Club, which then had about 11,000 members.

Since then the owner has rebuilt much of the property. A spokesperson told The Real Deal in May 2026 that it had invested $375 million; Morningstar data cited by Commercial Observer in December 2025 put the figure just under $390 million; Skift reported close to $450 million in August 2026. Skift also reported an average daily rate of about $980 excluding groups over the past year, against about $390 before the pandemic. The resort, reported at 1,047 rooms in its 2024 and 2025 loan reports, now runs as five separate hotels: Cloister, Tower, Yacht Club, Beach Club, and Bungalows. Forbes Travel Guide’s 2026 ratings gave Five Stars to the Beach Club, the Yacht Club, Spa Palmera, and the Flybridge restaurant.

What Does a Membership at The Boca Raton Include?

The club describes its membership as a “lifetime membership,” and the resort’s own answer to “What is The Boca Raton Club?” is that it “offers members unlimited access to the iconic lifestyle of The Boca Raton.” Here is what the club’s own pages list as of October 2026.

Membership is not an all-inclusive pass. Dining, spa services, cabanas, hotel nights, and slips have been charged separately, some with member discounts; the 2014 schedule listed dockage at $2.25 to $5 a foot and cabanas at $200 to $450 a day. The initiation fee and dues buy access, and use costs extra.

How Is Membership Different From Staying as a Hotel Guest?

The Boca Raton is not open to the general public. Its own FAQ is direct: “The Boca Raton is only open to Club members and resort guests, and is not open to the general public.” You can book a room, which buys access for the stay, or join the club, which Morningstar DBRS described in 2020 as earning revenue from “initiation fees, annual dues, dining and bar revenues, and usage fees for the extensive facilities without the need to stay at the hotel.”

At the average rate Skift reported, seven nights would come to about $6,860 before tax, plus $371 in resort fees. That rate is a 12-month average, so price your actual winter dates before comparing. For someone who visits for a week or two each winter, a hotel stay may still cost less than an initiation fee plus a year of dues. Residents who expect to use the beach, pools, spa, or courts most weeks are the people a membership is designed for.

What Does The Boca Raton Club Cost in 2026?

The club does not publish a fee schedule

As of October 28, 2026, The Boca Raton Club’s website lists no categories, no initiation fee, no dues, and no application steps. It offers a membership inquiry line, 561-447-3100, and an inquiry form. We have not found a fee schedule in any news report or public filing since the 2019 sale. Any specific 2026 price you see online is therefore an estimate, and the honest answer to “how much is a membership at The Boca Raton” is that the club quotes it to you directly.

The last published schedules, 2014 and 2017

Two local publications printed Premier Club prices during the Blackstone years. They show the structure: a one-time membership fee and annual social dues paid by every member, with golf sold as an option on top.

The published fee fell from $45,000 to $30,000 between 2014 and 2017, a reminder that resort clubs reprice in both directions. Both schedules predate the sale, the rebrand, the loss of the second golf course, the Beach Club rebuild, and room rates roughly two and a half times higher. They are history, not today’s price.

What brokers and directories estimate now

The most specific recent figure we found comes from a Boca Raton brokerage guide published in September 2025, which labels its numbers “ballpark figures based on 2025 rates and industry knowledge” and gives “initiation starts around $95,000 with annual dues in the neighborhood of $18,500.” A club directory page from August 2023 lists initiation “over $100,000” and dues “over $30,000,” and calls its own numbers “just estimates and rumors.” Other figures that circulate cite no source or no longer load. None of these is the club’s number.

What the financial filings say about the club

Rating agency reports on the resort’s loans are the closest thing to club filings, and they speak to size, not price. The Premier Club had about 11,000 members in 2019 (Fitch, reported by The Coastal Star). Morningstar DBRS reported about 4,000 active memberships representing about 12,000 individual members as of May 2024, an average of about three people per membership. Morningstar DBRS put the club at roughly 30 percent of total hotel revenues at the time of the 2019 loan, and the 2024 loan funded a $166,080 reserve for membership fee refunds, a sign that some memberships carry refund terms.

Membership Rules: Categories, Golf, Minimums, Refunds, and Waitlists

Categories

The club’s website names no categories. In 2014 and 2017 the structure was a social membership that every member held, with golf as a paid option. A 2025 brokerage guide reports “family vs. individual tiers, annual vs. monthly plans, and separate golf fees.” Ask which categories are open to new members this season and what each one includes.

Golf access and limits

Golf has changed most. The owners gave the 130-acre Boca Country Club, about seven miles from the resort, to the City of Boca Raton; it stayed private through September 30, 2021, and opened for public play on November 1, 2021 as the Boca Raton Golf and Racquet Club. The course on the resort grounds is closed for a redesign that the resort says reintroduces the strategic elements of Donald Ross’s original 1926 design, and is scheduled to reopen in late fall 2026. In 2014 the club’s printed material stated that it could “limit the number of Golf Options accepted during the club year,” and a 2025 brokerage guide says the golf add-on “often has a waitlist.” If golf is your reason for joining, ask whether a golf option is open now, what it costs, and how tee times will work when the course reopens.

Food and beverage minimums

The 2017 published schedule said “no assessments, no minimums,” and a 2025 brokerage guide describes “no food minimums.” We have not seen the current agreement say so. Confirm it in writing, along with whether the club can levy assessments.

Refunds, resignation, and the word “lifetime”

The club calls its membership a “lifetime membership.” That describes how long the membership can last; it does not tell you whether any part of the fee comes back if you resign, sell, or move. The refund reserve in the 2024 loan indicates that some members hold refund rights. Ask what applies to new members, whether dues stop if you resign, and whether a membership can pass to a spouse or heir.

Sponsorship and application

The club publishes no sponsorship requirement and invites inquiries directly; some directories call it invitation-only, but the club does not say so. Ask whether references are required and how long approval takes.

Does Owning a Home in Boca Raton Come With a Membership?

No. The Boca Raton Club is sold separately from real estate, and we know of no Boca Raton neighborhood, including Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club directly across Camino Real, whose deeds convey a membership. A 2025 brokerage guide puts it simply: membership “isn’t tied to living in a particular neighborhood.” The reverse is also true. Buying near the resort never requires you to join, which is the opposite of how a mandatory club community works.

There are three building-specific arrangements worth knowing. They are tied to particular condominiums, not to the city, and their terms are set by the developer, the association, or the club.

“Access” can mean an included membership, a right to apply, or a preferred rate, and a developer paying your initiation does not pay your dues.

A mandatory club community works the other way. At Boca West, Broken Sound, Woodfield, St Andrews, Boca Grove, the Polo Club, and in Delray Beach at Addison Reserve and Mizner, buying the house obliges you to join, and dues continue for as long as you own; every later buyer must also pay the club’s entry fee, which affects resale. Our guide to gated communities without mandatory club membership sorts the alternatives by structure.

The Boca Raton vs Boca Raton’s Mandatory Club Communities: Annual Cost

The table below uses the corrected figures from our Boca Raton and Delray Beach country club membership fees comparison. Year-one club cost is the initiation or capital contribution, any named closing contribution, and one year of dues. It leaves out HOA dues, property tax, carts, food minimums, and assessments. Most mandatory club figures here are reported by brokerages because the clubs do not post fee schedules on their websites (Broken Sound’s $4,000 compliance fee comes from the Broken Sound Master Association), and they change, often on October 1. Because HOA dues and property tax are left out, these totals run lower than the year-one figures in our full comparison.

On the figures available, published or estimated, entry to The Boca Raton appears to cost less than any mandatory club in the table, largely because those clubs sell golf, a full clubhouse, and the right to own inside the gate as one package. The comparison is not like for like: a mandatory club sits inside your own community, while The Boca Raton is a resort club you travel to. And in a mandatory community the fee and dues come with the house; at The Boca Raton they come with a choice, so ask about resignation terms before you sign.

For the clubs this table does not cover, see our new guides to membership fees at Boca Raton’s other country clubs and to Delray Beach private club membership costs in 2026, which covers beach clubs as well as golf clubs.

What It Means for Buyers in East Boca

For East Boca buyers, The Boca Raton is an optional amenity: choose the house on its own merits, then decide whether the club belongs in your budget.

Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club

Royal Palm sits directly south of the resort across Camino Real. Every owner belongs to the Royal Palm Improvement Association, at $4,150 per lot a year, but the Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club itself is optional and admits members by nomination, with two existing members proposing and seconding a candidate. Its fees have been reported at $210,000 for golf and $75,000 for social membership, with 2023 dues near $30,000 and $22,000; the club does not publish them. A Royal Palm owner can therefore belong to Royal Palm’s club, to The Boca Raton Club, to both, or to neither, and each is its own application and its own bill. Our Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club community guide covers the community in detail.

The Golden Triangle and the Intracoastal neighborhoods

The Golden Triangle, the East Boca neighborhoods that include Golden Harbour, Kings Court, Lake Wyman Shores, and Boca Villas, has no club of its own, and neither do most canal streets around Lake Boca Raton. If you want beach access, pools, courts, and dining close to home, The Boca Raton is the option to price, and you can decide after you close. Our guide to The Sanctuary, Golden Harbour, and Boca Raton’s Intracoastal communities covers bridges, inlet access, and pricing.

Downtown condominiums

Downtown, the question is whether a building comes with any club arrangement at all. Most do not. In 2024 the Glass House developers offered to pay buyers’ initiation fees at The Boca Raton. When a developer advertises a club benefit, get it in the purchase contract and confirm what happens to it at resale. For condominium documents, reserves, and inspections, see our guide to Florida condo law in 2026.

For Sellers: How to Present Proximity to The Boca Raton

If you are selling near the resort, its location is a legitimate feature, described factually: the distance by car or boat, the route to the beach and inlet, and the fact that club membership is not tied to where an owner lives. So is the resort’s current state: $375 million invested by the owner’s May 2026 count, four Forbes Five-Star ratings in 2026, and a planned condominium on the grounds, The Residences at The Boca Raton, whose sales launched in May 2026 at prices from $5 million.

What you should not do is imply that a membership conveys with the house, or claim that being near the resort adds a particular amount to the home’s value. We have not seen a credible study that measures that effect, and a buyer’s agent will ask. If your building does have an arrangement with the club, as One Thousand Ocean’s original sales materials described, put the current agreement and its cost in the listing file so buyers can read the terms early.

Timing matters as much as presentation. Our guide to the best time to sell a luxury home in Boca Raton covers when buyers arrive and when closings actually land, and our East Boca Raton seller’s guide covers waterfront disclosure and pricing.

How to Get The Boca Raton Club’s Current Fee Schedule

1. Contact The Boca Raton Club’s membership office through its inquiry line or form and ask for the current fee schedule for each category open to new members.
2. Ask for the membership agreement and club rules, and confirm the dues for the current club year and how increases are set.
3. Ask whether golf is included, an add-on, or waitlisted, and confirm any food and beverage minimum, assessment right, and guest, marina, or cabana fees.
4. Ask what happens to the membership if you resign, sell, move, or pass it to a spouse or heir, and whether any part of the fee is refundable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Figures are drawn from The Boca Raton and The Boca Raton Club websites, Morningstar DBRS and Fitch rating reports, and reporting by The Real Deal, Commercial Observer, Skift, The Coastal Star, WPTV, WFLX, BocaNewsNow, SFBW, and Ocean Home, as of October 28, 2026. The Boca Raton Club does not publish its fees; historical schedules and brokerage estimates are labeled as such and are not current prices. Mandatory club fees are as reported by brokerages and change often. Confirm terms and costs with The Boca Raton Club and any association involved, and have a Florida real estate attorney review any contract that refers to a club benefit.