Tax Residency in Dominica
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 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 Vincent and the Grenadines to Dominica · When you become a tax resident
There are three ways to become tax resident in Dominica and only one of them is the 183-day test everybody quotes. The Income Tax Act's definition catches you if your permanent place of abode is here and you are physically present for any period at all in the year; or if you are present for at least 183 days; or if a shorter presence is continuous with a qualifying presence in the year before or after. Residence brings worldwide income into charge. The Inland Revenue Division's own page states the test as "physically present in Dominica for more than 183 days continuously" - which adds a word the Act does not have and drops the abode limb entirely, and is the kind of difference that decides a case. The rates the Division publishes are not the rates in the consolidated Act either, and we did not find the instrument that changed them.
At a glance
- Day-count test
- 183 days in the basis period
Paragraph (a)(ii) of the definition of "resident in Dominica" in section 2 of the Income Tax Act. The Act does not require the days to be continuous.
- Abode test
- Permanent place of abode plus any presence at all
Paragraph (a)(i). Absence for the whole basis period is forgiven where the Comptroller is satisfied it was for education, medical treatment, government duties or another reasonable purpose.
- Continuity test
- A short presence joined to a qualifying one in the adjoining year
Paragraph (a)(iii). It catches a stay that straddles a year end and would otherwise fall short in both years.
- What "ordinarily resident" means
- Resident under the abode limb only
Section 2. The term matters because several charging provisions - employment abroad, interest, management services - key to ordinary residence rather than to residence.
- Scope of charge for a resident
- All sources, in or out of Dominica
Section 8(1)(a). Dominica taxes a resident on worldwide income.
- Resident allowance
- EC$30,000, from 1 January 2018as of 2018-01-01
Section 47 of the Act, which the Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2018 amended by replacing "twenty-five" with "thirty". The consolidated text still reads twelve thousand dollars, so at least one amendment between 1995 and 2018 is not in our reading.
- Rates the Inland Revenue Division publishes
- Nil to 30,000; 15% to 50,000; 25% to 80,000; 35% above
From the Division's current income tax rates page. The Fifth Schedule to the Act as consolidated reads 20 per cent on the first 18,000, 30 on the next 30,000 and 40 above 48,000. We did not find the instrument that replaced the Schedule.
- Company rate the Division publishes
- 25 per cent, from 1 January 2016
The consolidated Fifth Schedule says thirty. The Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2018 lowered thirty to twenty-five in section 63, but section 63 is the dividend credit provision, not the company rate.
- Exit certificate to leave the country
- Required by the Regulations
Regulation 2 of the Income Tax (Exit Certificates) Regulations, printed as subsidiary legislation with the Act and made in 1984. Regulation 5 exempts people under sixteen, diplomats, students with no taxable income, and persons temporarily resident who have not worked or carried on business here.
- Filing deadline
- 31 March
Stated by the Inland Revenue Division. A person whose income is entirely from employment and under EC$30,000 is not obliged to file.
Requirements
- File a return with the Inland Revenue Division by 31 March each year if you are resident
- Count your days in the basis period - at least 183 makes you resident regardless of anything else
- Check the abode limb: a permanent place of abode in Dominica plus any physical presence at all makes you resident
- Check the continuity limb: a short presence continuous with a qualifying presence in the adjoining year counts
- Declare income from all sources, inside and outside Dominica, if you are resident
- Claim the resident allowance, which only a person resident for tax purposes may have
In detail
Three limbs, and only one is the one people quote
Section 2 of the Income Tax Act defines residence for an individual in three alternatives. The first is a permanent place of abode in Dominica together with physical presence for some period of time in the basis period - any period, however short - unless the Comptroller is satisfied that a full year's absence was for education, medical treatment, government duties or another reasonable purpose. The second is physical presence for not less than 183 days in the basis period. The third catches a presence too short to qualify on its own but continuous with a qualifying presence in the preceding or succeeding year. Somebody who buys a house in Dominica and spends a fortnight a year in it is caught by the first limb and never comes near the second.
The Revenue's own statement of the test is narrower than the Act
The Inland Revenue Division's personal income tax page says that all residents must file by 31 March and that this "includes individuals who are physically present in Dominica for more than 183 days continuously". Three differences from the Act. The Act says "not less than" 183 days, not "more than". The Act does not say continuously. And the Act's first limb, the abode test, does not appear on the page at all. A reader relying on the page would conclude that leaving for a fortnight in the middle of a long stay breaks residence, and that owning a home here and visiting briefly does not create it. Neither follows from the definition.
The rates in the Act are not the rates in force
The Fifth Schedule as consolidated charges 20 per cent on the first 18,000 dollars, 30 on the next 30,000 and 40 above 48,000, with companies at 30. The Inland Revenue Division publishes nil on the first 30,000, 15 per cent to 50,000, 25 to 80,000 and 35 above, with companies at 25 since 1 January 2016. We traced one piece of the gap: the resident allowance in section 47, which the revised edition prints at twelve thousand dollars, had reached twenty-five thousand by 2018 and was raised to thirty thousand by section 11 of the Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2018, deemed in force from 1 January 2018. We did not find the instrument that replaced the Fifth Schedule itself, having read the consolidated chapter, the Income Tax (Amendment) Acts of 2018 and 2023, and the Division's own pages. The rates stated here are the Division's, and they are marked as the Division's.
You may need the Comptroller's permission to leave
The Income Tax (Exit Certificates) Regulations, made in 1984 and printed as live subsidiary legislation with the Act, say that no person shall leave or attempt to leave Dominica without an exit certificate from the Comptroller certifying that he owes no income tax or withholding tax, that no one may issue a ticket to a person without one, and that it is the duty of an immigration officer to stop a passenger who cannot produce one. Regulation 5 exempts a long list - under-sixteens, ministers and judges on official business, diplomats, international organisation staff, full-time students with no taxable income, public officers on duty, and any person temporarily resident who has not worked or carried on business here. The last of those covers an ordinary visitor. It remains a striking thing to find in a revised edition: a tax clearance as a condition of departure, enforced at the gate.
Country-level policy
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.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
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
«(ii) he is physically present in Dominica for not less than one hundred and eighty-three days in the basis period for that year of assessment; or»The Act says "not less than one hundred and eighty-three days in the basis period". It does not say continuously, and it does not say in any twelve-month window.
«"ordinarily resident", in relation to an individual, means a person who is a resident within the meaning of paragraph (a)(i) of the definition of "resident in Dominica";»A day-counter is resident but not ordinarily resident. The distinction carries real consequences in sections 9 and 10, which deem certain foreign income to arise in Dominica only for the ordinarily resident.
«(a) where the taxpayer is a resident, subject to subsection (2), all amounts ascertained in accordance with Part V, accrued directly or indirectly from all sources whether in or out of Dominica; and»Worldwide taxation of residents, on the face of the Act. There is no territorial carve-out of the Panamanian or Costa Rican kind.
«47. A resident individual shall be entitled to an allowance of twelve thousand dollars irrespective of the nature of his income.»Twelve thousand is what the revised edition prints, with amendment markers for Acts of 1985, 1987 and 1989. By 2018 the figure in force was twenty-five thousand, because the amending Act of that year replaced that word. The instrument that took it from twelve to twenty-five is not in our reading.
«11. Section 47 of the Act is amended by deleting the word
“twenty-five” and substituting the word “thirty”.»Cite the resulting section, not the amending one: the rule in force is section 47 reading thirty thousand dollars, and Act 6 of 2018 is what put it there. Section 1(4) of that Act deems section 11 in force from 1 January 2018.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The government's collection: the Revised Laws of 1990 as chapters, plus Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders year by year.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current text of any Act: the chapters are the 1990 revised edition authorised to the mid-nineties, and later amending Acts sit in the collection without being folded in - the immigration chapter prints its last amendment as 1995 while the database lists six later ones. It must not be cited for completeness either: the visa-exemption Regulations actually in force are absent from it entirely, as are three Acts of one recent year, so an absence here is not proof of non-existence. Every chapter is an image-only scan, so a quotation from one is a recognition. And its catalogue titles are unreliable - one instrument is listed under a name that is not its short title.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«1. On the chargeable income of every individual, unincorporated body of persons or trustees-
(a) for every dollar of the first 18,000.....20%
(b) for every dollar of the next 30,000 ..... 30%
(c) for every dollar over 48,000 ..... 40%»The rate table as the revised edition prints it, with amendment markers for 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1989. It is not what the Inland Revenue Division charges, and the instrument that replaced it was not found.
«(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;»Regulation 3 makes it an immigration officer's duty to stop a passenger who has not produced one. Printed as live subsidiary legislation in the revised edition.
Practical notes
The tax rates published here are the Inland Revenue Division's, not an instrument's. The Fifth Schedule to the Income Tax Act as consolidated says something different, and we did not find the amendment that replaced it. The figures are given as what the Division charges, and a reader planning around them should treat the Division's page rather than the Act as the operative statement.
The resident allowance of EC$30,000 is traced to section 47 as amended by section 11 of the Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2018. The step from twelve thousand in the revised edition to twenty-five thousand before 2018 is not traced: the instrument that made it is not among the Income Tax amendments we read.
The Income Tax Act as consolidated is a scan of a photocopy with no text layer. The capture reorders subsections and interleaves marginal notes; the definition of "resident in Dominica" appears with its first subparagraph rendered as "(1)" rather than "(i)". Every quotation here was taken from a passage that reads continuously, and nothing rests on a passage that does not.
Dominica is party to the CARICOM double taxation agreement, given effect by the Caribbean Community Double Taxation Agreement Order, 2008 (S.R.O. 6 of 2008), which the Inland Revenue Division links from its own page. We did not read it and state nothing about its terms.
- consolidatesIncome Tax Act, Chapter 67:01, Revised Laws of Dominica
Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica - Laws of Dominica
About this source
The government's collection: the Revised Laws of 1990 as chapters, plus Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders year by year.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current text of any Act: the chapters are the 1990 revised edition authorised to the mid-nineties, and later amending Acts sit in the collection without being folded in - the immigration chapter prints its last amendment as 1995 while the database lists six later ones. It must not be cited for completeness either: the visa-exemption Regulations actually in force are absent from it entirely, as are three Acts of one recent year, so an absence here is not proof of non-existence. Every chapter is an image-only scan, so a quotation from one is a recognition. And its catalogue titles are unreliable - one instrument is listed under a name that is not its short title.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- consolidatesIncome Tax (Amendment) Act, 2018 (Act 6 of 2018)
Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica - Laws of Dominica
About this source
The government's collection: the Revised Laws of 1990 as chapters, plus Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders year by year.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current text of any Act: the chapters are the 1990 revised edition authorised to the mid-nineties, and later amending Acts sit in the collection without being folded in - the immigration chapter prints its last amendment as 1995 while the database lists six later ones. It must not be cited for completeness either: the visa-exemption Regulations actually in force are absent from it entirely, as are three Acts of one recent year, so an absence here is not proof of non-existence. Every chapter is an image-only scan, so a quotation from one is a recognition. And its catalogue titles are unreliable - one instrument is listed under a name that is not its short title.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- administersCurrent Income Tax Rates
Inland Revenue Division (Dominica)
About this source
The only published statement of the rates, bands and allowances actually charged, and of the filing calendar.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the residence test: its wording is narrower than the Act's on two counts and omits one of the Act's three limbs entirely, so it would mislead in both directions. Nor for the authority behind its rates - the rates it publishes are not the schedule's and it does not name the instrument that changed them.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- administersPersonal Income Tax
Inland Revenue Division (Dominica)
About this source
The only published statement of the rates, bands and allowances actually charged, and of the filing calendar.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the residence test: its wording is narrower than the Act's on two counts and omits one of the Act's three limbs entirely, so it would mislead in both directions. Nor for the authority behind its rates - the rates it publishes are not the schedule's and it does not name the instrument that changed them.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source