Healthcare in Antigua and Barbuda
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Saint Kitts and Nevis 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 Saint Kitts and Nevis to Antigua and Barbuda · Access to healthcare
Health cover here is contributory and it is tied to employment rather than to residence. The Medical Benefits Act, Cap. 271, establishes the Medical Benefits Scheme and funds it by a contribution from every insured person and a matching contribution from every employer, and it borrows its definitions of "insured person", "employer" and "wages" wholesale from the Social Security Act. What the Act sets at two and one-half per cent each, the Scheme today collects at three and one-half per cent each - a divergence between the statute and the agency that administers it, visible on the Scheme's own published rates. A self-employed person pays five per cent of earnings. The Act says nothing about a person who is resident but not employed, and nothing we read entitles a newcomer to anything before they start working.
At a glance
- Contribution rate in the Act
- 2.5% employee plus 2.5% employer
Section 3(2) of the Medical Benefits Act, Cap. 271, as it stands in the Revised Edition.
- Contribution rate the Scheme collects
- 3.5% employee plus 3.5% employer
Published by the Medical Benefits Scheme for an employed person over 16 and not yet 60. We did not find the amending instrument that raised it from the Act's two and one-half per cent.
- Self-employed contribution
- 5% of earnings
Medical Benefits Scheme, for a self-employed person aged 16 but not yet 60. The rate falls to 2.5% from 60 and to nothing from 70.
- Employed, 60 but not yet 70
- 2.5% employee, nothing from the employer
Medical Benefits Scheme published rates.
- Employed, aged 70 and over
- No contribution from either side
Medical Benefits Scheme published rates.
- Low earner
- Employer pays 7%, employee nothing
Medical Benefits Scheme, for an employed person earning less than $400 monthly or less than $100 weekly. The Act's own proviso puts the whole burden on the employer at five per cent below twenty dollars weekly or eighty-seven dollars monthly.
- Health insurance as an immigration condition
- A matter the officer may consider, not a requirement
Section 38(2)(b) of the Immigration and Passport Act 2014.
Requirements
- Employment or self-employment in Antigua and Barbuda, because the Scheme is funded by contributions on wages and earnings
- Registration with the Medical Benefits Scheme; the contribution is deducted by the employer and matched by them
- For a low earner, nothing: where monthly wages are under $400 or weekly wages under $100 the employer pays the whole seven per cent
- No statutory health insurance requirement for an immigrant, although section 38(2)(b) of the Immigration and Passport Act 2014 lets the Chief Immigration Officer weigh whether an applicant for an extension has adequate cover
In detail
The statute says two and a half; the Scheme charges three and a half
This is the kind of gap that only shows when you read both. Section 3(2) of the Medical Benefits Act, Cap. 271, as the Revised Edition prints it, funds the Scheme by a contribution of two and one-half per cent of wages from every insured person and a matching two and one-half per cent from every employer, with a proviso putting the whole five per cent on the employer where wages fall below twenty dollars weekly or eighty-seven dollars monthly. The Medical Benefits Scheme publishes its own rates and they are three and one-half per cent from each side for an employed person over sixteen and under sixty, with the low-earner threshold at four hundred dollars monthly or one hundred weekly and the employer's share at seven per cent. Those are different numbers. The Scheme is the body that collects, so what it publishes is what is paid; the Act in the Revised Edition is what the law says. We did not find the amending instrument that moved the rate, and this record publishes both figures with their sources rather than quietly preferring one.
Contributory, and tied to work
Nothing in the Medical Benefits Act attaches to residence. The Scheme is funded by contributions on wages and earnings, the people it insures are whoever the Social Security Act calls insured persons, and what it provides is left to regulations the Act does not reproduce. For a newcomer the practical shape is that cover follows employment, that a self-employed person pays five per cent of earnings, that contributions stop at seventy, and that a resident who neither works nor is self-employed is outside the contributory scheme entirely. What public hospital care costs such a person, and on what terms, is not something any instrument we read settles.
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 Saint Kitts and Nevis
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
«The Scheme shall be funded by a contribution of
every insured person equivalent to two and one-half per cent
of his wages and a contribution of every employer equivalent
to two and one-half per cent of the wages of every person
employed by him:»The rate on the face of the statute as the Revised Edition prints it. The Scheme collects three and one-half per cent from each side today, and we did not find the amending instrument.
«where the wages payable to an insured person
are less than twenty dollars weekly or eighty-seven dollars
monthly, a contribution of five per cent of his wages
shall be payable wholly by the employer; and»The Act's own low-earner rule. The Scheme today applies the same idea at $100 weekly and $400 monthly and charges the employer seven per cent, so both the threshold and the rate have moved without the Revised Edition following.
«For the purposes of this section the words "insured
person ',<sup>7</sup> "employer" and "person employed" or any variation thereof shall have the same meanings in this Act as they
have under the Social Security Act.»Quoted with the recognition errors the scanned Revised Edition carries. Who is insured is therefore settled by the Social Security Act, Cap. 408, which we did not read - so this record cannot say whether a non-citizen worker is an insured person, and does not.
«There is hereby established a scheme, to be
called the Medical Benefits Scheme (hereinafter called "the
Scheme)" under which arrangements shall be made for the
provision of such financial and other assistance towards the
cost of medical benefits to such class or classes of persons
in such circumstances and subject to such conditions as may
be prescribed by regulations.»What the Scheme actually provides is left entirely to regulations. The Act creates a fund and names nobody's entitlement to anything.
«**Employees: 3.5% of wages**»The rate the agency administering the Scheme states it collects. It is not the rate in the Act and this record reports both rather than choosing.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The statutory scheme funded by contributions on wages and earnings, publishing the rates it actually collects by age and employment status.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: The rates it publishes are not the rates in the Act - the statute says two and a half per cent from each side and the scheme charges three and a half, and the Act's low-earner threshold bears no relation to the scheme's. The amending instrument was not found, so this is evidence of what is collected and not of what the law says. It must not be cited for who is an insured person, which another Act settles, nor for what treatment is covered, which the Act leaves entirely to regulations the scheme does not publish.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«**5% of earnings**»About this source
The statutory scheme funded by contributions on wages and earnings, publishing the rates it actually collects by age and employment status.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: The rates it publishes are not the rates in the Act - the statute says two and a half per cent from each side and the scheme charges three and a half, and the Act's low-earner threshold bears no relation to the scheme's. The amending instrument was not found, so this is evidence of what is collected and not of what the law says. It must not be cited for who is an insured person, which another Act settles, nor for what treatment is covered, which the Act leaves entirely to regulations the scheme does not publish.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«**Employers: 7% of wages**»About this source
The statutory scheme funded by contributions on wages and earnings, publishing the rates it actually collects by age and employment status.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: The rates it publishes are not the rates in the Act - the statute says two and a half per cent from each side and the scheme charges three and a half, and the Act's low-earner threshold bears no relation to the scheme's. The amending instrument was not found, so this is evidence of what is collected and not of what the law says. It must not be cited for who is an insured person, which another Act settles, nor for what treatment is covered, which the Act leaves entirely to regulations the scheme does not publish.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«is in good health and possesses adequate health insurance coverage;»The only mention of health insurance in the immigration statute, and it is a matter the Chief Immigration Officer may take into account rather than a condition anyone must satisfy.
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
Nothing here says what the Medical Benefits Scheme actually pays for. Section 3(1) of the Act leaves the classes of person, the circumstances and the conditions to regulations, and we did not reach those regulations. The Scheme publishes service information on its own site; we read only its contribution rates.
Whether a non-citizen worker is an "insured person" is determined by the Social Security Act, Cap. 408, which we did not read. This record therefore does not state that a foreign worker is covered, or that they are not.
The stored reading of the Medical Benefits Act is a recognition of a scanned Revised Edition page and carries the scanner's errors, including a stray superscript inside the definition quotation. Those are preserved rather than tidied.
No figure on this record comes from an insurer, a relocation guide or a hospital's price list. The two sources are the Act and the Scheme that administers it, and where they disagree the disagreement is stated.
- consolidatesMedical Benefits Act, Cap. 271, 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
- administersContribution Rates, Medical Benefits Scheme
Medical Benefits Scheme (Antigua and Barbuda)
About this source
The statutory scheme funded by contributions on wages and earnings, publishing the rates it actually collects by age and employment status.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: The rates it publishes are not the rates in the Act - the statute says two and a half per cent from each side and the scheme charges three and a half, and the Act's low-earner threshold bears no relation to the scheme's. The amending instrument was not found, so this is evidence of what is collected and not of what the law says. It must not be cited for who is an insured person, which another Act settles, nor for what treatment is covered, which the Act leaves entirely to regulations the scheme does not publish.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
- consolidatesImmigration and Passport Act, 2014, No. 6 of 2014
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