Country-wide policy
The Exit Certificate
Printed as live subsidiary legislation to the Income Tax Act is a rule that no person shall leave or attempt to leave Dominica without a certificate from the Comptroller of Inland Revenue saying he owes no tax, that nobody may issue him a ticket without one, and that it is an immigration officer's duty to stop him boarding. The Regulations date from 1984 and carry a long list of exemptions, the widest of which covers any person temporarily resident in Dominica who has not carried on a business or exercised any employment here - which is to say, an ordinary visitor. The rule matters for anybody who does work or trade in Dominica and then wants to leave, and it is the kind of provision that is invisible until it is not.
Topics it changes
What it requires
- An exit certificate from the Comptroller of Inland Revenue certifying that no income tax or withholding tax is owed, or that satisfactory arrangements have been made
- Production of the certificate to an immigration officer before boarding
- Or a certificate of exemption, obtainable without a fee by a person temporarily resident who has not worked or carried on business in Dominica
- Or membership of one of the exempt classes: under sixteen, diplomats, international organisation staff, ministers, members of Parliament and judges on official business
At a glance
- Who the rule applies to
- Every person leaving Dominica, subject to the exemptions
Regulation 2(a) of the Income Tax (Exit Certificates) Regulations, made under section 130 of the Income Tax Act and in force from 9 August 1984.
- Enforcement
- An immigration officer's duty to stop you boarding
Regulation 3, which also lets an officer order a passenger who has already boarded to disembark.
- Who is exempt outright
- Under-sixteens, ministers, members of Parliament and judges on official business, diplomats, international organisation representatives
Regulation 5(1). The exemption for the last two groups is tied to income exempted by section 25(1)(b) of the Act.
- Who may get a certificate of exemption without a fee
- A temporarily resident person who has not worked or carried on business here
Regulation 5(2)(e). Full-time students aged sixteen to twenty-five with no taxable income, public officers on duty and certain married women are also listed.
- Endorsement route
- "Exit without tax certificate", or EWIC, endorsed in the passport
Regulation 5 treats the endorsement as a certificate of exemption from the Comptroller.
- Is it enforced?
- Not stated here
We found nothing on the Inland Revenue Division's site or the Government portal about exit certificates, and nothing repealing the Regulations. Their presence in the revised edition is a statement about the law, not about practice at the airport.
A tax clearance enforced at the gate
Several countries in this comparison have tax clearance requirements on paper. Dominica's is unusual in two ways. First, it is addressed to the traveller, the ticket seller and the immigration officer in three separate limbs, so the obligation is distributed rather than left with the revenue authority. Second, it survives in the revised edition of the Income Tax Act as live subsidiary legislation, printed with the Act, rather than as a historical curiosity. Regulation 2 forbids leaving or attempting to leave without a certificate and forbids issuing a ticket to a person who lacks one; regulation 3 makes it the duty of an immigration officer to stop such a person boarding, or to order him off if he has already boarded.
The exemption that swallows most travellers
Regulation 5(2)(e) entitles any person temporarily resident in Dominica who has not carried on a business or exercised any employment here to a certificate of exemption, without fee, on application to the Comptroller. That covers the ordinary tourist, and it is probably why the rule is rarely encountered. It does not cover a person who has worked here, however briefly, and it is a certificate obtained on application rather than an automatic exclusion. The Regulations also provide for an endorsement in the passport reading "Exit without tax certificate", or EWIC, which is deemed to be a certificate of exemption.
What the law says
«(a) no person shall leave or attempt to leave Dominica without obtaining an exit certificate issued by the Comptroller certifying that he does not owe,or that satisfactory arrangements have been made for the payment of, any income tax or withholding tax;»Made under section 130 of the Income Tax Act and printed with it in the revised edition, which means the Law Revision Commissioner treated them as in force.
«3. Subject to regulation 5, it shall be the duty of an immigration officer to stop any person who has not produced to him a valid exit certificate from boarding as a passenger any ship or aircraft about to depart from Dominica or to order him to disembark if he has already boarded the ship or aircraft.»The enforcement limb, and the reason the rule is not merely administrative: it is executed by immigration rather than by revenue.
«(e) any person who is temporarily resident in Dominica who has not carried on a business or exercised any employment in Dominica;»The exemption that covers an ordinary visitor, and the reason the rule is invisible to most travellers. It is a certificate of exemption obtained on application, not an automatic exclusion.
Practical notes
We found no repeal of these Regulations, and the revised edition prints them as live. We also found nothing on the Inland Revenue Division's website or the Government portal that mentions them, so we cannot say whether they are administered. The honest position is that the law is as quoted and the practice is unknown to us.
The Income Tax Act is published as a scan with no text layer and these quotations are recognitions of a picture, marked accordingly. The capture of regulation 5 interleaves the two subregulations, and only passages that read continuously are quoted.