Driving in Antigua and Barbuda
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Montserrat on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
81 exceptions recorded across 33 countries · none match Montserrat to Antigua and Barbuda · Driving and licence exchange
A visitor drives on a temporary licence. Section 40 of the Vehicles and Road Traffic Act, Cap. 460, lets a temporary driver's licence be granted for up to three months to anyone shown to be a bona fide visitor, with or without a driving test, and a self-drive hire operator may be authorised to hand them over on the licensing authority's behalf - which is why the rental counter issues one. A resident's licence runs for a year and may be renewed for one year or, at the holder's request, three. In 2025 the whole administration moved: the Vehicles and Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2025 struck out "Commissioner of Inland Revenue" wherever it appeared across twenty-two sections and put the General Manager of the Transport Board in its place, and replaced the First Schedule of fees.
At a glance
- Visitor's temporary driver's licence
- Up to 3 months
Section 40(1) of the Vehicles and Road Traffic Act, Cap. 460. A driving test may be dispensed with.
- Driving test for a visitor
- May be waived
Section 40(1) allows the temporary licence to be granted "with or without any driving test".
- Resident's driving licence
- Valid 1 year
Section 38, renewable for a further year or, at the holder's request, three years.
- Visitor's own vehicle
- Temporary vehicle licence for not more than 3 months
Section 29(1) of the Act, conditional on a valid licence from the country where the vehicle was last licensed and on third-party insurance.
- Licensing authority
- Transport Board since 2025
Section 4 of the Vehicles and Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2025, No. 1 of 2025, which substituted the General Manager of Transport Board for the Commissioner of Inland Revenue in twenty-two sections.
- Vehicle licence fee, car under 1200cc
- XCD 227as of 2025
First Schedule as replaced by section 9 of the Vehicles and Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2025. This is a vehicle licence fee; the amended Schedule we read sets no driver's licence fee.
- Mutual recognition of an OECS licence
- Stated by the OECS Commission, not by the Act
The Vehicles and Road Traffic Act contains no OECS provision, and the 2025 amendment did not add one.
Requirements
- For a visitor: a temporary driver's licence, granted on satisfying the authority that you are a bona fide visitor, for a period not exceeding three months, on payment of the prescribed fee
- For a visitor's own vehicle brought in: a temporary vehicle licence for not more than three months, a valid licence from the country where the vehicle was last licensed, and compliance with third-party insurance law
- For a resident: a driver's licence valid one year, renewable for one year or, at the holder's request, three
- Since 2025: applications and fees go to the Transport Board rather than to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue
In detail
An amendment that may have left section 40 behind
The Vehicles and Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 2025, No. 1 of 2025, moved vehicle and driver licensing from the Commissioner of Inland Revenue to the General Manager of the Transport Board. It did it by repealing the definition of "Commissioner" in section 2 of the principal Act, inserting definitions of the Transport Board and its General Manager, and then, in section 4, substituting the new office for the old one in a named list of sections: 15 to 20, 22, 23, 26 to 29, 36, 37, 39, 51, 52, 72, 73, 79, 87 and 91. Section 38, which sets the duration of a driving licence, is not in that list. Neither is section 40, the visitor's temporary driver's licence. Both sections refer to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue, and the definition that gave that expression meaning has been repealed. We make no claim about how the courts or the Transport Board resolve it; the point for a reader is that what the statute says about who grants a visitor's licence is now unclear, and that the Act's own list is where the uncertainty comes from.
Why the rental desk can issue your licence
Section 40(2) of the Act lets the Licensing Officer authorise the owner of a self-drive hire motor vehicle to hand over, on the Licensing Officer's behalf, any temporary licence granted under the section. That is unusual and it is the explanation for the familiar Caribbean experience of being sold a local driving permit at the car hire counter. The licence is a real one granted by the authority; the rental company is acting as its agent under express statutory authority, not selling a convenience.
Country-level policy
The government's laws site carries a Revised Edition whose chapters were revised to 1992, and a separate collection of Acts and Statutory Instruments as printed year by year. The Revised Edition is where search engines land, and for immigration it is wrong: it still presents the Immigration and Passport Act, Cap. 208, as the law, although section 87(1) of the Immigration and Passport Act 2014 repealed it outright. There is no consolidated edition of the 2014 Act carrying its 2015, 2021 and 2023 amendments, so the rules in force exist only as an Act plus three amending Acts applied by hand. The same shape repeats for citizenship by investment, where the current Regulations are a Schedule inside an amending Act and six Statutory Instruments have been applied to them since.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Montserrat
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«It shall be lawful for the Commissioner of
Inland Revenue to grant a temporary driver's licence other
than a chauffeur's licence for any period not exceeding three
months to any applicant for the same, when it is shown to
his satisfaction that the applicant is a bona *fide* visitor to
Antigua and Barbuda.»Read with section 4 of the 2025 amendment, the words "Commissioner of Inland Revenue" in this section are now "General Manager of Transport Board". Quoted as the Revised Edition prints it, with the spacing the scan carries.
«The Licensing Officer may from time to time, by
writing under his hand, authorise the owner of a self-drive
hire motor vehicle to hand over on his behalf to applicants
therefor, any licence granted under this section.»The statutory basis for the car-hire company issuing the visitor's licence across the counter.
«A driving licence is, unless previously suspended,
cancelled or revoked, valid for one year from the date of
issue, and may be renewed for a further period of one year,
or at the request of the holder, a period of three years.»This instrument is published only as an image. The wording above was read off that picture and checked by eye, so it did not pass the machine verbatim check the other quotations passed. Treat it as accurate but re-read the scan before relying on it.
«Provided that before a temporary licence is issued the
visitor shall satisfy the of Inland Revenue that
he a valid licence issued in the country in which
private motor car or motor cycle was last licensed»The visitor's vehicle licence, for not more than three months. Quoted as the capture stands: the scan has dropped the word "Commissioner" and several short words from the right margin, and the quotation is not tidied.
«The principal Act is amended in sections 15-20, 22, 23, 26-29, 36,37,39, 51,52, 72, 73, 79, 87 and
91 by deleting the words “Commissioner of Inland Revenue” wherever occurring and substituting
therefor the words “General Manager of Transport Board”.»The list is worth reading closely: it names sections 26 to 29 and section 39, but not section 38 or section 40. On the face of the amendment the visitor's temporary driver's licence in section 40 is still the Commissioner of Inland Revenue's to grant.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The government's law site, carrying two distinct collections: chapters of a Revised Edition whose base cut-off is 1992, and Acts, Bills and Statutory Instruments as printed year by year. The Revised Edition chapters are scanned page-images with a recognition layer; the annual Acts from about 2014 are born-digital.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The Revised Edition does not show repeal. It still publishes the Immigration and Passport Act as a chapter although the 2014 Act repealed it outright, with nothing on the page to say so, and that chapter is what a search engine surfaces first. It carries no later amendments either, and there is no consolidated text of any post-1992 Act, so a rule must always be cited as the section of the resulting Act naming the instrument that put it there. Its instrument collection is incomplete: the instrument that inserted one regulation of the investment rules is in neither collection. And its scans are lossy - a schedule paragraph disappears from extraction entirely and one Act loses its right margin - so a quotation from a chapter must be declared as a recognition and a negative claim must never rest on one alone.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«| Cars/Wagons | Less than 1200cc | $227.00 |»Quoted as the table stands in the capture. The Schedule as replaced covers vehicle licence fees by engine size and weight; no driver's licence fee appears in it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The government's law site, carrying two distinct collections: chapters of a Revised Edition whose base cut-off is 1992, and Acts, Bills and Statutory Instruments as printed year by year. The Revised Edition chapters are scanned page-images with a recognition layer; the annual Acts from about 2014 are born-digital.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The Revised Edition does not show repeal. It still publishes the Immigration and Passport Act as a chapter although the 2014 Act repealed it outright, with nothing on the page to say so, and that chapter is what a search engine surfaces first. It carries no later amendments either, and there is no consolidated text of any post-1992 Act, so a rule must always be cited as the section of the resulting Act naming the instrument that put it there. Its instrument collection is incomplete: the instrument that inserted one regulation of the investment rules is in neither collection. And its scans are lossy - a schedule paragraph disappears from extraction entirely and one Act loses its right margin - so a quotation from a chapter must be declared as a recognition and a negative claim must never rest on one alone.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«test applicants for drivers' licences as to their competence to drive, and, if satisfied, to
grant the necessary certificates of competency; and»The competence test and the certificate of competency are the Examining Officer's, acting when required by the Traffic Commissioner or the General Manager of Transport Board.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The government's law site, carrying two distinct collections: chapters of a Revised Edition whose base cut-off is 1992, and Acts, Bills and Statutory Instruments as printed year by year. The Revised Edition chapters are scanned page-images with a recognition layer; the annual Acts from about 2014 are born-digital.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The Revised Edition does not show repeal. It still publishes the Immigration and Passport Act as a chapter although the 2014 Act repealed it outright, with nothing on the page to say so, and that chapter is what a search engine surfaces first. It carries no later amendments either, and there is no consolidated text of any post-1992 Act, so a rule must always be cited as the section of the resulting Act naming the instrument that put it there. Its instrument collection is incomplete: the instrument that inserted one regulation of the investment rules is in neither collection. And its scans are lossy - a schedule paragraph disappears from extraction entirely and one Act loses its right margin - so a quotation from a chapter must be declared as a recognition and a negative claim must never rest on one alone.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The Revised Edition of the Vehicles and Road Traffic Act is a scanned volume and the capture loses words from the right margin of many lines. Section 29(1) is quoted with those losses visible rather than repaired. Where a rule could not be read with confidence, it is not stated here.
No driver's licence fee is published on this record. The First Schedule as replaced in 2025 sets vehicle licence fees by engine size and weight and does not state one, and the Revised Edition's own First Schedule was not legible enough to quote.
The Act contains no provision about foreign driving licences generally, no reference to an international driving permit, and no OECS or CARICOM provision. That rests on a search of the Act's arrangement of sections and of the stored reading. The OECS Commission states that a Protocol citizen may drive in any Protocol Member State on a licence from their home country; that is the Commission's statement about the regime, and no Antiguan provision we read gives it effect.
The 2025 amendment also removed a permanent disqualification provision in section 73(6) and transferred the proceeds of fees to the Transport Board. Neither is set out here.
- consolidatesVehicles and Road Traffic Act, Cap. 460, Revised Edition of the Laws of Antigua and Barbuda
Laws of Antigua and Barbuda
About this source
The government's law site, carrying two distinct collections: chapters of a Revised Edition whose base cut-off is 1992, and Acts, Bills and Statutory Instruments as printed year by year. The Revised Edition chapters are scanned page-images with a recognition layer; the annual Acts from about 2014 are born-digital.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The Revised Edition does not show repeal. It still publishes the Immigration and Passport Act as a chapter although the 2014 Act repealed it outright, with nothing on the page to say so, and that chapter is what a search engine surfaces first. It carries no later amendments either, and there is no consolidated text of any post-1992 Act, so a rule must always be cited as the section of the resulting Act naming the instrument that put it there. Its instrument collection is incomplete: the instrument that inserted one regulation of the investment rules is in neither collection. And its scans are lossy - a schedule paragraph disappears from extraction entirely and one Act loses its right margin - so a quotation from a chapter must be declared as a recognition and a negative claim must never rest on one alone.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidatesVehicles and Road Traffic (Amendment) Act, 2025, No. 1 of 2025
Laws of Antigua and Barbuda
About this source
The government's law site, carrying two distinct collections: chapters of a Revised Edition whose base cut-off is 1992, and Acts, Bills and Statutory Instruments as printed year by year. The Revised Edition chapters are scanned page-images with a recognition layer; the annual Acts from about 2014 are born-digital.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The Revised Edition does not show repeal. It still publishes the Immigration and Passport Act as a chapter although the 2014 Act repealed it outright, with nothing on the page to say so, and that chapter is what a search engine surfaces first. It carries no later amendments either, and there is no consolidated text of any post-1992 Act, so a rule must always be cited as the section of the resulting Act naming the instrument that put it there. Its instrument collection is incomplete: the instrument that inserted one regulation of the investment rules is in neither collection. And its scans are lossy - a schedule paragraph disappears from extraction entirely and one Act loses its right margin - so a quotation from a chapter must be declared as a recognition and a negative claim must never rest on one alone.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source