Tax Residency in Antigua and Barbuda
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Haiti 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 Haiti to Antigua and Barbuda · When you become a tax resident
Antigua and Barbuda abolished personal income tax, and the sentence that did it is section 47 of the Unincorporated Business Tax Act 2016: the Personal Income Tax Act 2005 is repealed with effect from 1 July 2016. What the same Act did in the same breath is create a tax on self-employment income that a reader can easily miss - a sole trader pays nothing on the first XCD 21,000 of chargeable business income, eight per cent to XCD 93,000 and twenty-five per cent above that. So an employee resident here pays no income tax and a freelancer resident here pays up to twenty-five per cent on their profits. There is no statutory test of personal tax residence at all, because with no personal income tax there is nothing for one to attach to; the residence concepts that survive are the ordinary residence and domicile tests in the business tax Act and the permanent residence permit's own annual payment to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue.
At a glance
- Personal income tax
- Repealed with effect from 1 July 2016
Section 47 of the Unincorporated Business Tax Act, 2016, No. 7 of 2016.
- Unincorporated Business Tax, sole trader
- 0% to XCD 21,000, 8% to XCD 93,000, 25% above
Schedule I to the Unincorporated Business Tax Act 2016, headed for income year 2016. The Act states the bands in dollars without naming the currency; everything else in the Act is in Eastern Caribbean dollars.
- Withholding on payments to a non-resident individual
- 25%
Part V of the Unincorporated Business Tax Act 2016, on mortgage payments, rent, debenture interest, annuities and payments that would be chargeable in the non-resident's hands.
- Statutory test of personal tax residence
- None found
With the Personal Income Tax Act repealed there is no personal income tax for a residence test to govern. The Unincorporated Business Tax Act uses "ordinarily resident or domiciled" without defining either.
- 183-day rule
- Not found in any instrument we read
Neither the Unincorporated Business Tax Act 2016 nor the Personal Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2016 contains a day-count test.
- Permanent residence annual payment
- Prescribed fees, amount not found
Section 42(6) of the Immigration and Passport Act 2014 requires it annually to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue. The figure of US$20,000 circulates widely; no instrument we reached states it.
Requirements
- No personal income tax return, because the Personal Income Tax Act 2005 was repealed with effect from 1 July 2016
- Unincorporated Business Tax on self-employment income, partnership income and deemed unincorporated business income, at the Schedule I rates
- Withholding at twenty-five per cent on mortgage payments, rent, debenture interest, annuities and other chargeable payments made to a non-resident individual
- For a permanent resident under section 42 of the Immigration and Passport Act 2014: an annual payment of the prescribed fees to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue for as long as the status is held
In detail
No income tax, and a tax on income
Both halves of that sentence are true and the second is the one that gets left out. The Personal Income Tax Act 2005 was repealed with effect from 1 July 2016 by section 47 of the Unincorporated Business Tax Act 2016. From that date an employed person resident in Antigua and Barbuda pays no tax on their salary. But the same Act that performed the repeal imposed the Unincorporated Business Tax on the chargeable income of an individual from self-employment, from partnership and from a deemed unincorporated business, at nought per cent to twenty-one thousand dollars, eight per cent to ninety-three thousand and twenty-five per cent above that, and section 46(1) moved everyone who had been paying personal income tax on business income straight across into it. A consultant, a freelancer or a sole trader who moves here is in exactly the regime a guide describing a zero-income-tax jurisdiction says does not exist.
Why there is no residence test to report
Most countries in this comparison have a rule that decides when a person becomes tax resident - a day count, a centre of interests, a domicile test. Antigua and Barbuda has none that we could find, and it is not alone: the records here say the same of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas and Bolivia. The reason is structural rather than an omission: a test of personal tax residence exists to decide who is liable to a personal income tax, and there is no personal income tax. What survives are narrower uses of the idea. The Unincorporated Business Tax Act speaks of a person "not ordinarily resident or domiciled in Antigua and Barbuda" and taxes payments made to a non-resident individual by withholding at twenty-five per cent. Neither term is defined in the Act. Anyone needing to establish tax residence here for the purposes of another country's law will be relying on a certificate from the Commissioner of Inland Revenue rather than on a statutory test, and this record does not describe how one is obtained because we found no instrument governing it.
The US$20,000 that is not in the statute
Antigua and Barbuda's permanent residence scheme is sold on three numbers: thirty days a year, US$100,000 of income and a flat annual tax of US$20,000. The thirty days is in section 42(2)(a) of the Immigration and Passport Act 2014. The income figure has been US$500,000 since the 2021 amendment, not US$100,000. And the US$20,000 is not in the Act at all: section 42(6) requires the holder to pay "the prescribed fees" annually to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue, and we did not find the instrument that prescribes them. It may well be US$20,000. This record does not say so, because no instrument we read does.
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.
Section 42 of the Immigration and Passport Act 2014 creates a permit that is marketed as a tax arrangement and drafted as an immigration status. It asks for a permanent place of abode and thirty days a year in the country, or a substantial economic activity approved by Cabinet; it asks for an annual income of not less than US$500,000, raised from US$100,000 by the 2021 amendment; it gives the right to work without a work permit; it runs for twelve months at a time; and it requires an annual payment of prescribed fees to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue. In 2021 a second limb was added: section 42A lets a holder apply for citizenship by registration after seven unbroken years of ninety days a year, substantial economic activity and tax compliance, and makes the permit issued under that section valid for ten years.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Haiti
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 Personal Income Tax Act 2005 is repealed with effect from 1 <sup>st</sup>July, 2016»Quoted with the superscript markup the capture carries. The repeal sits in Part XII of a different Act - the one that replaced the tax - which is why searching the Personal Income Tax Act's own amendments for it does not find 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
«A person who is engaged in an unincorporated business and is currently paying tax under the
Personal Income Tax Act 2005 shall, on the coming into force of this Act, be a taxpayer under this
Act.»The transitional provision that makes the point: the self-employed were moved across rather than released.
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
«shall be levied at the rate or rates specified in this Act in relation to each income year upon the
chargeable income of an individual being income accruing in or derived from Antigua and
Barbuda or elsewhere whether or not received in Antigua and Barbuda in respect of ―»Worldwide in its reach - "or elsewhere whether or not received in Antigua and Barbuda" - and confined to the three heads that follow: self-employment income, other income including partnership income, and income from a deemed unincorporated business.
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
«| SOLE TRADER | $0.00 to $21,000.00 | 0% |
| SOLE TRADER | $21,001.00 to $93,000.00 | 8% |
| SOLE TRADER | $93,001.00 and over | 25% |»Quoted as the table stands in the capture. The partnership bands scale with the number of partners: two partners pay nothing to $42,000, three to $63,000, four to $84,000 and five or more to $105,000.
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
«the payer shall upon paying the interest, rent, annuity or other payment withhold tax at the rate of
twenty-five percent on every dollar of such payment»A withholding on payments out to a non-resident individual, credited against that individual's ultimate liability. It is the main point at which a non-resident meets Antiguan income taxation.
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
«(d) In respect of the income year 2016 $21,000.00”»The wind-down. The personal allowance for 2014 and 2015 was $42,000 and for 2016 it was halved to $21,000, because only half the year was going to be taxed.
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
«A person who is granted a permanent residence permit shall, while the person remains a
permanent resident under the scheme, pay annually to the Commissioner of Inland Revenue the prescribed fees.»The only link in Antiguan law between residence status and the tax authority. It is a fee, not a tax, and the Act does not state 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
Practical notes
No day-count rule, no centre-of-interests test and no tax-residence certificate procedure is published here, because none was found. This rests on the Unincorporated Business Tax Act 2016 read in full, on the Personal Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2016 read in full, and on the Immigration and Passport Act 2014. The repealed Personal Income Tax Act 2005 was not read and nothing here describes what it contained beyond what the two 2016 Acts say about it.
The Schedule I bands are headed "for income year 2016". No later instrument amending them was found, and this record dates them to the Act rather than asserting they are unchanged. Anyone relying on the figure should check for an amending Act.
The Act writes its bands and its penalties in bare dollars. The Eastern Caribbean dollar is the currency of Antigua and Barbuda and is fixed at 2.7 to the United States dollar, so XCD 93,000 is about US$34,400 - but the conversion is ours, the Act does not make it, and the threshold is published here in the currency the instrument uses.
Nothing here covers the Antigua and Barbuda Sales Tax, property tax, stamp duty or the Non-Citizens Land Holding Regulation Act. Those were not read. A newcomer buying property should expect a licensing regime for non-citizens that this record says nothing about.
There is a gap between the two 2016 Acts worth noticing: the Personal Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2016 was assented to on 23 June 2016 and set final filing dates of 15 August and 30 September 2016, while the Unincorporated Business Tax Act repeals the principal Act with effect from 1 July 2016. The obligations under the repealed Act were meant to outlive it, and section 46(2) says so expressly.
- consolidatesUnincorporated Business Tax Act, 2016, No. 7 of 2016
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
- consolidatesPersonal Income Tax (Amendment) Act, 2016, No. 8 of 2016
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
- 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