CARICOM Movement into Barbados: the Skills Certificate, and the Protocol That Has No Statute
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Jamaica on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
91 exceptions recorded across 34 countries · none match Jamaica to Barbados · Residency under a regional treaty
Barbados runs two things at once, and only one of them is in an Act. The statute is the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) Act, Chapter 186A, rewritten by the amending Act of 2020 which commenced on the day it was assented. Under it a skilled community national who presents a qualifying certificate issued by a competent authority or Minister of any Member State is admitted for six months and may work in those six months without a work permit. For an indefinite stay the Barbados Accreditation Council verifies the certificate with the authority that issued it, tells the Chief Immigration Officer, and the Chief Immigration Officer stamps the words indefinite entry in the passport. The other thing is enhanced cooperation in free movement with Belize, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, running since 1 October 2025. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asked on its own page what laws govern free movement, lists four existing Acts and no new one. There is no Barbadian equivalent of Belize's Caribbean Community (Free Movement and Contingent Rights) Act 2026.
At a glance
- Period granted on entry with a qualifying certificate
- 6 months
- Work permit during those six months
- Not required
Section 3(2) of the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) Act, quoted here, says it in terms: a skilled community national who enters under subsection (1) is permitted to engage in employment without a work permit. The words were new in 2020.
- Who issues the certificate you present at the border
- A competent authority or a competent Minister of any Member State - including your own
- What Barbados does before indefinite entry
- The Barbados Accreditation Council verifies the certificate with the authority that issued it
- What indefinite entry looks like
- The Chief Immigration Officer stamps the words indefinite entry in the passport
- Fee for a Certificate of Recognition issued by the Council
- $100.00
Part II of the Third Schedule as substituted in 2020. This is the certificate Barbados issues; a national of another Member State presents the certificate their own authority issued.
- Fee for an application for indefinite stay
- $200.00, plus $100.00 for verification of the qualifying certificate
Part II of the Seventh Schedule as inserted in 2020. The money column is printed below both labels in the publisher's layout.
- Qualifying occupations after 2020
- Graduates, holders of an associate degree, nurses, teachers, agricultural workers, artisans, household domestics, security guards, sports persons, media workers, artistes and musicians
- Member States in the Second Schedule
- Thirteen, including Barbados itself and all three enhanced cooperation partners
Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. Unlike Belize, Barbados has not deleted its free movement partners from this list.
- Act implementing the 2025 enhanced cooperation protocol
- None found
Requirements
- Nationality of a Member State listed in the Second Schedule to Chapter 186A
- A valid passport issued by a Member State
- A qualifying certificate - a Certificate of Recognition of Caribbean Community Skills issued by a competent authority or a competent Minister of a Member State - presented to the immigration officer on entry
- For indefinite entry: an application to the Barbados Accreditation Council in the form in the Seventh Schedule, the documents the Council requires, and the fees in Part II of that Schedule
- Not being a prohibited person under the Fifth Schedule
In detail
Where Barbados draws the Skills Certificate line
Three countries in this comparison have the same Treaty obligation and three different domestic answers. Saint Kitts and Nevis splits by who issued the certificate: its own, and you stay indefinitely; your home state's, and you get six months. Grenada splits by which form the certificate is on: the form in its own Second Schedule, and you stay indefinitely; the home state's equivalent, and you get six months. Barbados does neither. The certificate you present at the border may be issued by a competent authority or a competent Minister of any Member State, and it earns six months and the right to work without a permit from day one. Indefinite entry is not a different certificate: it is the same certificate, verified. The Barbados Accreditation Council writes to the authority that issued it, confirms it is genuine, notifies the Chief Immigration Officer, and the passport is stamped. The division of labour is between a document and a verification, not between two documents.
Who qualifies, and how far the 2020 Act widened it
Before 2020 the occupations list was short: people certified as representing their state in sport, and musicians, artistes and media workers. Part A required a degree or professional membership. The 2020 Act replaced both parts. Part A now adds an associate degree or comparable qualification; Part B adds agricultural workers, artisans, household domestics and security guards certified by an authorised agency, and simply "Nurses and teachers." The Act then defines each of those terms in section 2, mostly by reference to a Caribbean Vocational Qualification, and adds a Sixth Schedule listing what counts as an artiste, a media person, a musician and a sports person - a list that reaches a costume builder, a newsroom clerk, a puppeteer and a massage therapist. That is the CARICOM baseline, adopted late but adopted whole.
The right of establishment, and whether it commenced
This is where Barbados separates from the other two common-law countries covered. Saint Kitts has no implementing provision at all. Grenada has an Act of 2006 whose schedule of amendments to discriminatory enactments was deferred to a ministerial Notice that appears never to have been made. Barbados wrote the exemption straight into the operative provision of the Immigration Act: section 17(1) does not apply to a national of a Member State to whom the right of establishment under Articles 32, 33, 34(c), 36 and 37 applies, nor to one to whom the provision of services under Articles 37 and 38 applies, nor - since 2020 - to one to whom free movement under Articles 45 and 46 applies. That substitution was made by the Fifth Schedule to Act 2020-3, which commenced on 17 February 2020 on its own face. There is no commencement Order to look for and nothing left to be brought into force.
Enhanced cooperation: what Barbados has, and what it does not
Barbados is one of the four states - with Belize, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - that began full free movement among themselves on 1 October 2025 under the enhanced cooperation provisions of the Revised Treaty. Belize gave that domestic effect in the Caribbean Community (Free Movement and Contingent Rights) Act 2026, which creates an Indefinite Stay Stamp at the port of entry, treats the holder as a national of Belize, and deletes the three partner states from the Skills Certificate Schedule. Barbados has done none of those things. Its Second Schedule still lists Belize, Dominica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines as Member States for Skills Certificate purposes. No Act of 2025 or 2026 on the Parliament's own bills register implements the protocol. The Immigration Bill, 2026 and the Barbados Citizenship Bill, 2026 were laid on 21 April 2026 and were still before the House when this was written, and neither creates a free movement regime: the Immigration Bill's only free movement reference is to make its permitted entrant provision subject to Chapter 186A. And the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in its own frequently asked questions published for the launch, answers the question "What laws govern free movement?" with a list of four Acts that all predate it. Participation is real and people are entering under it; the legal basis offered for it is the existing statutes plus administration.
Country-level policy
Barbados publishes its law in three places that do not agree with each other about how current it is, and none of them says so on its face. The Supreme Court's statute library carries the Chapters, printed by the Government Printer, with a Law Revision Order year in the running head of each page - 2007 on the newest pages of the Immigration Act and the Income Tax Act, 1997 on the Income Tax pages that carry the residence and domicile rules. The Attorney General's Office carries annual Acts and statutory instruments, and its series of annual Acts stops at 2020. The Government Printing Department publishes the Official Gazette, which is where an Act of 2021 or later is actually found. A reader looking for the law in force has to use all three, and an amendment made between 2021 and today is invisible in the first two.
On 21 April 2026 the Government laid the Immigration Bill, 2026 and the Barbados Citizenship Bill, 2026. The Immigration Bill would repeal Chapter 190 outright and replace it: a points test for permanent residence, an express route for the spouse of a citizen and for a retired person with sufficient financial resources, a right for a direct descendant of a citizen to be registered as a permanent resident, automated passport control kiosks, advance passenger information shared with intelligence agencies, and a lengthening of the long-stay permit from three years to five. Both Bills were still before the House of Assembly when this was written and neither has commenced. Nothing in this record is law. It is here because the Act they would replace is the Act every other Barbados record rests on, and because what the Bills do not contain is itself a finding: neither of them implements the 2025 free movement arrangement.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Jamaica
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
«to enter Barbados for a period of 6 months.»Cited to the resulting section of Chapter 186A, naming the Act that substituted it. The duty is on the immigration officer - the subsection opens "an immigration officer shall at a port of entry permit" - and it reaches the skilled community national and, where applicable, any dependant.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government's law portal, with four sections: annual Acts, annual statutory instruments, consolidated statutes and subsidiary legislation, and indices. The annual series is where an Act is found as enacted, with its assent and commencement dates on its face - the Remote Employment Act 2020-23 and the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act 2020-3 both come from here. Files are served from a flat /attachments/ path.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The annual Acts and statutory instruments series stops at 2020. An Act of 2021 or later is not here at all, so the absence of an instrument on this site proves nothing about years after 2020 - for that, the Official Gazette is the publisher to use. Its consolidated statutes list is a partial mirror of the judiciary's and does not carry the Immigration Act or the Citizenship Act. It consolidates and does not issue, so a commencement date read here is the Act's own statement rather than a gazette record.
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«A skilled community national who enters Barbados pursuant to subsection (1) is permitted to engage in employment without a work permit.»New in 2020. The six-month entrant may work from the first day; the earlier text gave bare entry and left employment to the indefinite-stay stage.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government's law portal, with four sections: annual Acts, annual statutory instruments, consolidated statutes and subsidiary legislation, and indices. The annual series is where an Act is found as enacted, with its assent and commencement dates on its face - the Remote Employment Act 2020-23 and the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act 2020-3 both come from here. Files are served from a flat /attachments/ path.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The annual Acts and statutory instruments series stops at 2020. An Act of 2021 or later is not here at all, so the absence of an instrument on this site proves nothing about years after 2020 - for that, the Official Gazette is the publisher to use. Its consolidated statutes list is a partial mirror of the judiciary's and does not carry the Immigration Act or the Citizenship Act. It consolidates and does not issue, so a commencement date read here is the Act's own statement rather than a gazette record.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«presents to the immigration officer, on entry into Barbados,
a qualifying certificate and a valid passport issued by a Member State.»The certificate is presented at the border, not applied for afterwards. A CARICOM national without one is an ordinary visitor under section 13 of the Immigration Act.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government's law portal, with four sections: annual Acts, annual statutory instruments, consolidated statutes and subsidiary legislation, and indices. The annual series is where an Act is found as enacted, with its assent and commencement dates on its face - the Remote Employment Act 2020-23 and the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act 2020-3 both come from here. Files are served from a flat /attachments/ path.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The annual Acts and statutory instruments series stops at 2020. An Act of 2021 or later is not here at all, so the absence of an instrument on this site proves nothing about years after 2020 - for that, the Official Gazette is the publisher to use. Its consolidated statutes list is a partial mirror of the judiciary's and does not carry the Immigration Act or the Citizenship Act. It consolidates and does not issue, so a commencement date read here is the Act's own statement rather than a gazette record.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«qualifying certificate” means a Certificate of Recognition of Caribbean Community Skills issued by a competent authority or a competent Minister of a Member State;»Any Member State, including the holder's own. Barbados does not split the question by who issued the certificate, as Saint Kitts does, nor by which form it is on, as Grenada does.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government's law portal, with four sections: annual Acts, annual statutory instruments, consolidated statutes and subsidiary legislation, and indices. The annual series is where an Act is found as enacted, with its assent and commencement dates on its face - the Remote Employment Act 2020-23 and the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act 2020-3 both come from here. Files are served from a flat /attachments/ path.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The annual Acts and statutory instruments series stops at 2020. An Act of 2021 or later is not here at all, so the absence of an instrument on this site proves nothing about years after 2020 - for that, the Official Gazette is the publisher to use. Its consolidated statutes list is a partial mirror of the judiciary's and does not carry the Immigration Act or the Citizenship Act. It consolidates and does not issue, so a commencement date read here is the Act's own statement rather than a gazette record.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«The Council shall on the presentation of the qualifying certificate verify with the competent authority or Minister in the relevant Member State that the qualifying certificate is a valid certificate issued by that competent authority or Minister to the skilled community national.»The Council is the Barbados Accreditation Council, established by the Barbados Accreditation Council Act, Cap. 38A. This verification step is what Barbados substitutes for re-certification: the home state's certificate is accepted, but only after Barbados has written to the body that issued it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government's law portal, with four sections: annual Acts, annual statutory instruments, consolidated statutes and subsidiary legislation, and indices. The annual series is where an Act is found as enacted, with its assent and commencement dates on its face - the Remote Employment Act 2020-23 and the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act 2020-3 both come from here. Files are served from a flat /attachments/ path.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The annual Acts and statutory instruments series stops at 2020. An Act of 2021 or later is not here at all, so the absence of an instrument on this site proves nothing about years after 2020 - for that, the Official Gazette is the publisher to use. Its consolidated statutes list is a partial mirror of the judiciary's and does not carry the Immigration Act or the Citizenship Act. It consolidates and does not issue, so a commencement date read here is the Act's own statement rather than a gazette record.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«he shall stamp the words “indefinite entry” in each passport.»A passport stamp, not a permit and not a card. The Act attaches no expiry to it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government's law portal, with four sections: annual Acts, annual statutory instruments, consolidated statutes and subsidiary legislation, and indices. The annual series is where an Act is found as enacted, with its assent and commencement dates on its face - the Remote Employment Act 2020-23 and the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act 2020-3 both come from here. Files are served from a flat /attachments/ path.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The annual Acts and statutory instruments series stops at 2020. An Act of 2021 or later is not here at all, so the absence of an instrument on this site proves nothing about years after 2020 - for that, the Official Gazette is the publisher to use. Its consolidated statutes list is a partial mirror of the judiciary's and does not carry the Immigration Act or the Citizenship Act. It consolidates and does not issue, so a commencement date read here is the Act's own statement rather than a gazette record.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Persons certifi ed by a competent authority as representing a Member State as sports
persons, media workers, artistes or musicians.»Quoted as printed: the publisher's PDF breaks the "fi" ligature into "fi " throughout this Act, so the word reads "certifi ed". Paragraph 2 adds agricultural workers, artisans, household domestics and security guards; paragraph 3 is simply "Nurses and teachers." Part A covers degree holders and, new in 2020, holders of an associate degree.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government's law portal, with four sections: annual Acts, annual statutory instruments, consolidated statutes and subsidiary legislation, and indices. The annual series is where an Act is found as enacted, with its assent and commencement dates on its face - the Remote Employment Act 2020-23 and the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act 2020-3 both come from here. Files are served from a flat /attachments/ path.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The annual Acts and statutory instruments series stops at 2020. An Act of 2021 or later is not here at all, so the absence of an instrument on this site proves nothing about years after 2020 - for that, the Official Gazette is the publisher to use. Its consolidated statutes list is a partial mirror of the judiciary's and does not carry the Immigration Act or the Citizenship Act. It consolidates and does not issue, so a commencement date read here is the Act's own statement rather than a gazette record.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Qualifying Caribbean Community States
1. Antigua and Barbuda.
2. Barbados.
3. Belize.»The list of thirteen. Act 2020-3 renamed the heading to Member States by a general substitution of words but did not replace the Schedule, so the list stands as printed - including Belize, Dominica and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which Belize deleted from its own equivalent Schedule in 2026.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The statute library of the Barbadian judiciary, publishing the Chapters of the Laws of Barbados and the subsidiary legislation as PDFs printed by the Government Printer. It is the only place the consolidated Chapters are published as a browsable set, and it carries the Constitution, the Immigration Act Chapter 190, the Income Tax Act Chapter 73, the Customs Act Chapter 66, the Exchange Control Act Chapter 71 and the Caribbean Community Acts.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It consolidates and does not issue, and its editions are old and dated per page rather than per Act: the Immigration Act and the Income Tax Act print Law Revision Order years of 2007 on their newest pages and 1997 or 2002 on others, and no page says what the Act looks like today. It must not be cited for anything amended after about 2008 without checking the amending Act - section 17(1) of the Immigration Act was substituted in 2020 and this edition does not show it. Several of its files are scans with no text layer: the Barbados Citizenship Act Chapter 186 is unreadable and the Road Traffic Act Chapter 295 is largely so, and neither may be quoted from this publisher. Extraction of the Immigration Act PDF silently loses four pairs of pages, so an absence in it is not evidence of absence in the Act. It must also not be relied on for completeness, and the gap is the publisher's rather than ours: its Immigration Act lists sections 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 30 and 31 in its own arrangement of sections and prints none of them. Two independent extractions of the file agree, every page but the last carries a text layer, and the headings Charging of member of crew, Persons unlawfully entering, Applications for work permits and Deportation orders each appear exactly once, in the contents. A negative claim read off this Chapter - that the Act says nothing about something - can be neither trusted nor disproved from it.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«a Community national who is permitted to enter Barbados under this Act shall not be subject to any restriction that is not permitted under the Caribbean Community Act.»Read with section 3 of the Caribbean Community Act, which gives the Revised Treaty the force of law in Barbados, this is the hook that makes the Treaty's own non-discrimination provisions enforceable here. Section 9(2), as substituted in 2020, now lets a dependant work without a work permit too.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The statute library of the Barbadian judiciary, publishing the Chapters of the Laws of Barbados and the subsidiary legislation as PDFs printed by the Government Printer. It is the only place the consolidated Chapters are published as a browsable set, and it carries the Constitution, the Immigration Act Chapter 190, the Income Tax Act Chapter 73, the Customs Act Chapter 66, the Exchange Control Act Chapter 71 and the Caribbean Community Acts.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It consolidates and does not issue, and its editions are old and dated per page rather than per Act: the Immigration Act and the Income Tax Act print Law Revision Order years of 2007 on their newest pages and 1997 or 2002 on others, and no page says what the Act looks like today. It must not be cited for anything amended after about 2008 without checking the amending Act - section 17(1) of the Immigration Act was substituted in 2020 and this edition does not show it. Several of its files are scans with no text layer: the Barbados Citizenship Act Chapter 186 is unreadable and the Road Traffic Act Chapter 295 is largely so, and neither may be quoted from this publisher. Extraction of the Immigration Act PDF silently loses four pairs of pages, so an absence in it is not evidence of absence in the Act. It must also not be relied on for completeness, and the gap is the publisher's rather than ours: its Immigration Act lists sections 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 30 and 31 in its own arrangement of sections and prints none of them. Two independent extractions of the file agree, every page but the last carries a text layer, and the headings Charging of member of crew, Persons unlawfully entering, Applications for work permits and Deportation orders each appear exactly once, in the contents. A negative claim read off this Chapter - that the Act says nothing about something - can be neither trusted nor disproved from it.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«Subject to this Act, the Treaty shall have the force of law in Barbados.»The whole text of the Revised Treaty is printed as the First Schedule to this Act, and the 2005 Paramaribo Protocol as the Second. A later protocol becomes part of Barbadian law the same way - by being added to this Act. The enhanced cooperation protocol is not in the edition published here.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The statute library of the Barbadian judiciary, publishing the Chapters of the Laws of Barbados and the subsidiary legislation as PDFs printed by the Government Printer. It is the only place the consolidated Chapters are published as a browsable set, and it carries the Constitution, the Immigration Act Chapter 190, the Income Tax Act Chapter 73, the Customs Act Chapter 66, the Exchange Control Act Chapter 71 and the Caribbean Community Acts.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It consolidates and does not issue, and its editions are old and dated per page rather than per Act: the Immigration Act and the Income Tax Act print Law Revision Order years of 2007 on their newest pages and 1997 or 2002 on others, and no page says what the Act looks like today. It must not be cited for anything amended after about 2008 without checking the amending Act - section 17(1) of the Immigration Act was substituted in 2020 and this edition does not show it. Several of its files are scans with no text layer: the Barbados Citizenship Act Chapter 186 is unreadable and the Road Traffic Act Chapter 295 is largely so, and neither may be quoted from this publisher. Extraction of the Immigration Act PDF silently loses four pairs of pages, so an absence in it is not evidence of absence in the Act. It must also not be relied on for completeness, and the gap is the publisher's rather than ours: its Immigration Act lists sections 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 30 and 31 in its own arrangement of sections and prints none of them. Two independent extractions of the file agree, every page but the last carries a text layer, and the headings Charging of member of crew, Persons unlawfully entering, Applications for work permits and Deportation orders each appear exactly once, in the contents. A negative claim read off this Chapter - that the Act says nothing about something - can be neither trusted nor disproved from it.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«Commencement: 17th February, 2020»Assent and commencement on the same day, with nothing held back for a Minister's Notice.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government's law portal, with four sections: annual Acts, annual statutory instruments, consolidated statutes and subsidiary legislation, and indices. The annual series is where an Act is found as enacted, with its assent and commencement dates on its face - the Remote Employment Act 2020-23 and the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act 2020-3 both come from here. Files are served from a flat /attachments/ path.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The annual Acts and statutory instruments series stops at 2020. An Act of 2021 or later is not here at all, so the absence of an instrument on this site proves nothing about years after 2020 - for that, the Official Gazette is the publisher to use. Its consolidated statutes list is a partial mirror of the judiciary's and does not carry the Immigration Act or the Citizenship Act. It consolidates and does not issue, so a commencement date read here is the Act's own statement rather than a gazette record.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs answers its own question about the governing law with four Acts: the Caribbean Community Act, the Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals Act, the Immigration Act and the Barbados Accreditation Council Act. None of those was passed or amended for enhanced cooperation, and the Ministry names no instrument made under them for it either.
Belize's Act names Barbados in its Schedule I of protocol member states. Barbados has not reciprocated with an Act of its own, so a Belizean national in Barbados and a Barbadian national in Belize are in legally different positions under the same arrangement.
The Act's own text is printed with a broken "fi" ligature throughout - "certifi ed", "qualifi cation", "indefi nite", "Offi cial". Quotations here reproduce it, because that is what the publisher's document says.
The consolidated Chapter 186A published by the Law Courts is the text before the 2020 amendment. It still has a section 6 and a section 7 that the 2020 Act repealed, and a section 4 under which the Minister of Education issued the certificate. Anything quoted from it here is a provision the 2020 Act left alone.
This record rests on Chapter 186A as published, the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act 2020-3 in full, section 3 of the Caribbean Community Act Chapter 15, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs free movement FAQ, the Immigration Bill 2026 and the Parliament of Barbados bills register.
- consolidatesCaribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act, 2020-3
Office of the Attorney General of Barbados
About this source
The Government's law portal, with four sections: annual Acts, annual statutory instruments, consolidated statutes and subsidiary legislation, and indices. The annual series is where an Act is found as enacted, with its assent and commencement dates on its face - the Remote Employment Act 2020-23 and the Caribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) (Amendment) Act 2020-3 both come from here. Files are served from a flat /attachments/ path.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The annual Acts and statutory instruments series stops at 2020. An Act of 2021 or later is not here at all, so the absence of an instrument on this site proves nothing about years after 2020 - for that, the Official Gazette is the publisher to use. Its consolidated statutes list is a partial mirror of the judiciary's and does not carry the Immigration Act or the Citizenship Act. It consolidates and does not issue, so a commencement date read here is the Act's own statement rather than a gazette record.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidatesCaribbean Community (Movement of Skilled Nationals) Act, Chapter 186A of the Laws of Barbados
Supreme Court of Barbados - Laws of Barbados
About this source
The statute library of the Barbadian judiciary, publishing the Chapters of the Laws of Barbados and the subsidiary legislation as PDFs printed by the Government Printer. It is the only place the consolidated Chapters are published as a browsable set, and it carries the Constitution, the Immigration Act Chapter 190, the Income Tax Act Chapter 73, the Customs Act Chapter 66, the Exchange Control Act Chapter 71 and the Caribbean Community Acts.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It consolidates and does not issue, and its editions are old and dated per page rather than per Act: the Immigration Act and the Income Tax Act print Law Revision Order years of 2007 on their newest pages and 1997 or 2002 on others, and no page says what the Act looks like today. It must not be cited for anything amended after about 2008 without checking the amending Act - section 17(1) of the Immigration Act was substituted in 2020 and this edition does not show it. Several of its files are scans with no text layer: the Barbados Citizenship Act Chapter 186 is unreadable and the Road Traffic Act Chapter 295 is largely so, and neither may be quoted from this publisher. Extraction of the Immigration Act PDF silently loses four pairs of pages, so an absence in it is not evidence of absence in the Act. It must also not be relied on for completeness, and the gap is the publisher's rather than ours: its Immigration Act lists sections 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 30 and 31 in its own arrangement of sections and prints none of them. Two independent extractions of the file agree, every page but the last carries a text layer, and the headings Charging of member of crew, Persons unlawfully entering, Applications for work permits and Deportation orders each appear exactly once, in the contents. A negative claim read off this Chapter - that the Act says nothing about something - can be neither trusted nor disproved from it.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
- consolidatesCaribbean Community Act, Chapter 15 of the Laws of Barbados
Supreme Court of Barbados - Laws of Barbados
About this source
The statute library of the Barbadian judiciary, publishing the Chapters of the Laws of Barbados and the subsidiary legislation as PDFs printed by the Government Printer. It is the only place the consolidated Chapters are published as a browsable set, and it carries the Constitution, the Immigration Act Chapter 190, the Income Tax Act Chapter 73, the Customs Act Chapter 66, the Exchange Control Act Chapter 71 and the Caribbean Community Acts.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It consolidates and does not issue, and its editions are old and dated per page rather than per Act: the Immigration Act and the Income Tax Act print Law Revision Order years of 2007 on their newest pages and 1997 or 2002 on others, and no page says what the Act looks like today. It must not be cited for anything amended after about 2008 without checking the amending Act - section 17(1) of the Immigration Act was substituted in 2020 and this edition does not show it. Several of its files are scans with no text layer: the Barbados Citizenship Act Chapter 186 is unreadable and the Road Traffic Act Chapter 295 is largely so, and neither may be quoted from this publisher. Extraction of the Immigration Act PDF silently loses four pairs of pages, so an absence in it is not evidence of absence in the Act. It must also not be relied on for completeness, and the gap is the publisher's rather than ours: its Immigration Act lists sections 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 30 and 31 in its own arrangement of sections and prints none of them. Two independent extractions of the file agree, every page but the last carries a text layer, and the headings Charging of member of crew, Persons unlawfully entering, Applications for work permits and Deportation orders each appear exactly once, in the contents. A negative claim read off this Chapter - that the Act says nothing about something - can be neither trusted nor disproved from it.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
- administersFAQs On Enhanced Cooperation in Free Movement of CARICOM Nationals
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados
About this source
The ministry responsible for consular policy and for CARICOM affairs, and the Government's voice on both. It publishes the complete visa table for every country in the world - the only such list any Caribbean country in this comparison puts out as a readable document - and it published the frequently asked questions for the launch of enhanced cooperation in free movement on 1 October 2025, including the Government's own answer to which laws govern it.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It administers and does not issue: nothing it publishes is an instrument, and its free movement FAQ is explicitly an explanation of a decision rather than a text of law. Its visa table carries its own revision date - August 2022 - and nothing says whether it has been reviewed since, so it must not be cited as the position today without checking. Its visitor page states a driving permit requirement that the Road Traffic Act as consolidated to 2022 does not contain.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- issuesImmigration Bill, 2026
Parliament of Barbados
About this source
The legislature's own site, carrying every Bill with its text as a PDF and a stage table recording the date of each reading in each House. It is the only way to tell whether a Bill has passed, and it is the register to check before believing any report that Barbados has legislated. It also mirrors gazette issues containing Bills.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: A Bill is not law and must never be cited as one. The text published is the Bill as introduced or as amended at a named date, not the Act as passed - for that the Official Gazette is the publisher. The stage table is the authoritative thing here; the PDF is a draft. It must not be cited for the content of any Act in force.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source