Studying in Grenada
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 Grenada · Residency as a student
Grenada has no student visa and no student permit. The Immigration Act runs from section 1 to section 39 with no study category anywhere in it, and the one place students are named in the whole of the immigration legislation is an exemption from a fee: St George's University students and faculty do not pay the monthly charge for extending a stay. In practice a student enters as a visitor, which in Grenada means a permit of up to twelve months - long enough for an academic year, and the reason no separate status was ever needed. Working while studying is a different matter: that needs a work permit like anybody else, and the Ministry of Labour runs a Students and Trainees permit category for internships that the statute does not contain.
At a glance
- Student visa or permit
- None
The Immigration Act has thirty-nine sections and one inserted section 8A; none creates a study category, and neither do Acts 7 of 2012, 16 of 2016, 13 of 2017 or 1 of 2021.
- Status a student actually holds
- Visitor permit, up to 12 months
Section 14(1) of the Immigration Act, the same permit a tourist holds.
- Extension fee for a St George's University student
- Nil
Paragraph (c) of the Second Schedule to the Immigration (Extension of Permit Fee) Regulations exempts St George's University students and faculty members from the extension fee.
- Extension fee for any other student
- EC$75 per month
Regulation 3(4) as amended by S.R.O. 29 of 2019.
- Working while studying
- Work permit required
Section 3(1) of the Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens (Employment) Act catches every occupation for reward or profit. There is no student concession in it.
- Internship permit category
- Administrative, not statutory
The Ministry of Labour's Work Permit Guidelines describe a Students and Trainees category with its own evidence list. The Act contains only the Minister's absolute discretion under section 4(1).
Requirements
- Entry as a visitor under section 14 of the Immigration Act, for a period of up to twelve months in the officer's discretion
- An extension through the Chief Immigration Officer if the first permit was shorter, up to twelve months from entry
- EC$75 a month for the extension, unless you are a St George's University student or faculty member, who pay nothing
- A work permit, applied for by the employer, if you will do paid work or a paid internship
- A fresh entry, by leaving and returning, to reset the twelve-month ceiling for a second year
In detail
An absence that makes sense once you see the visitor rule
Most countries need a student permit because a visitor gets thirty or ninety days and a degree takes longer. Grenada's visitor permit runs to twelve months, which covers an academic year, and the ceiling resets on a new entry, which is what a vacation abroad produces. The structural pressure that creates student visas elsewhere never built up here. That is a better answer than a gap in our research: the Immigration Act is thirty-nine sections long, we read all of them, and the word study appears in none.
One university runs through the whole statute book
St George's University is large enough relative to Grenada that it shows up in legislation written for everybody. Its students and faculty are the only named class of students exempt from the extension-of-permit fee. Its School of Medicine has its own Act of 1976, under which an agreement can vary how the Income Tax Act applies to its non-resident medical lecturers, overriding the tax Act in terms. A reader whose study is at that institution is in a different practical position from one who is not, and the difference is written into the law rather than arranged informally.
Paid work and internships
Nothing about being a student changes the work permit rule. The Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens (Employment) Act makes it an offence to engage in any occupation for reward or profit without a permit, and the 1968 list of exempt classes does not include students. The Ministry of Labour has built a Students and Trainees category on top of the Minister's absolute discretion, with its own documentary requirements: an offer of internship, a detailed job description, evidence of maintenance, and for medical trainees a letter about eligibility for registration. That category is the Ministry's, not Parliament's.
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
«Where a person desires to remain in Grenada as a visitor or passenger in transit for a period not exceeding twelve months, an immigration officer may, if so requested, without deciding whether that person is or is not a prohibited alien, grant him or her a permit to remain in Grenada for such period not exceeding twelve months as may be specified in the permit.»The only permit a student can be granted. A twelve-month ceiling covers an academic year, which is why no study category was ever created.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government of Grenada's law portal. Publishes the Continuous Revised Edition of 2010 arranged by Chapter, each Chapter printing the Act with its subsidiary legislation, and separately a year-by-year run of Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders as enacted from 2011.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A Chapter must never be cited for what the law is now, and nothing on the page says so: the Immigration Chapter is amended only to 2007 and lacks the OECS indefinite stay and the Schengen visa waiver; the Citizenship Chapter stops at 2002 and shows section 5A as repealed when an Act of 2016 has since filled it; the Income Tax Chapter prints 30 per cent when three Orders have made it 28 and 10; the Banking Chapter is an Act repealed in 2015. Subsidiary legislation printed inside a Chapter is equally frozen - the CARICOM skills Qualifications Order is shown as amended to 2008 and the 2015 amendment that added artisans and domestic workers is invisible. It must also not be cited for completeness after 2025: the 2026 collections hold five Acts and three instruments, and an amendment the investment agency publicly relied on in August 2026 is in neither. The Citizenship by Investment Act is not in the revised edition at all and has no consolidated text anywhere. Year listings paginate twenty at a time, so reading only the first page loses instruments.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«(c) St. George’s University students and faculty members;»The only mention of students in the whole of Grenada's immigration legislation. The other exempt classes are employees of Save the Children, the Peace Corps and United Nations organisations, and diplomats.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government of Grenada's law portal. Publishes the Continuous Revised Edition of 2010 arranged by Chapter, each Chapter printing the Act with its subsidiary legislation, and separately a year-by-year run of Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders as enacted from 2011.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A Chapter must never be cited for what the law is now, and nothing on the page says so: the Immigration Chapter is amended only to 2007 and lacks the OECS indefinite stay and the Schengen visa waiver; the Citizenship Chapter stops at 2002 and shows section 5A as repealed when an Act of 2016 has since filled it; the Income Tax Chapter prints 30 per cent when three Orders have made it 28 and 10; the Banking Chapter is an Act repealed in 2015. Subsidiary legislation printed inside a Chapter is equally frozen - the CARICOM skills Qualifications Order is shown as amended to 2008 and the 2015 amendment that added artisans and domestic workers is invisible. It must also not be cited for completeness after 2025: the 2026 collections hold five Acts and three instruments, and an amendment the investment agency publicly relied on in August 2026 is in neither. The Citizenship by Investment Act is not in the revised edition at all and has no consolidated text anywhere. Year listings paginate twenty at a time, so reading only the first page loses instruments.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Subject to this section and to the Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals Act, Chapter 39B, an individual who is a foreign national or a Commonwealth citizen shall not engage in any occupation for reward or profit, or be employed, in Grenada»No student exception. The 1968 exempted-persons Order covers writers, directors, auditors and commercial travellers, and not students.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government of Grenada's law portal. Publishes the Continuous Revised Edition of 2010 arranged by Chapter, each Chapter printing the Act with its subsidiary legislation, and separately a year-by-year run of Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders as enacted from 2011.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A Chapter must never be cited for what the law is now, and nothing on the page says so: the Immigration Chapter is amended only to 2007 and lacks the OECS indefinite stay and the Schengen visa waiver; the Citizenship Chapter stops at 2002 and shows section 5A as repealed when an Act of 2016 has since filled it; the Income Tax Chapter prints 30 per cent when three Orders have made it 28 and 10; the Banking Chapter is an Act repealed in 2015. Subsidiary legislation printed inside a Chapter is equally frozen - the CARICOM skills Qualifications Order is shown as amended to 2008 and the 2015 amendment that added artisans and domestic workers is invisible. It must also not be cited for completeness after 2025: the 2026 collections hold five Acts and three instruments, and an amendment the investment agency publicly relied on in August 2026 is in neither. The Citizenship by Investment Act is not in the revised edition at all and has no consolidated text anywhere. Year listings paginate twenty at a time, so reading only the first page loses instruments.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Where any agreement referred to in the Saint George’s University (School of Medicine) Limited Act, No. 17 of 1976, provides for any variation in the applicability of this Act to employment income earned by lecturers employed in the medical faculty of the Saint George’s University (School of Medicine) Limited, who are not citizens of Grenada or not ordinarily resident in Grenada, such variation shall have effect, notwithstanding anything in this Act.»Evidence of how far the arrangements with one institution reach: an Act of 1976 can vary the income tax treatment of its non-resident medical lecturers, overriding the Income Tax Act itself.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government of Grenada's law portal. Publishes the Continuous Revised Edition of 2010 arranged by Chapter, each Chapter printing the Act with its subsidiary legislation, and separately a year-by-year run of Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders as enacted from 2011.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A Chapter must never be cited for what the law is now, and nothing on the page says so: the Immigration Chapter is amended only to 2007 and lacks the OECS indefinite stay and the Schengen visa waiver; the Citizenship Chapter stops at 2002 and shows section 5A as repealed when an Act of 2016 has since filled it; the Income Tax Chapter prints 30 per cent when three Orders have made it 28 and 10; the Banking Chapter is an Act repealed in 2015. Subsidiary legislation printed inside a Chapter is equally frozen - the CARICOM skills Qualifications Order is shown as amended to 2008 and the 2015 amendment that added artisans and domestic workers is invisible. It must also not be cited for completeness after 2025: the 2026 collections hold five Acts and three instruments, and an amendment the investment agency publicly relied on in August 2026 is in neither. The Citizenship by Investment Act is not in the revised edition at all and has no consolidated text anywhere. Year listings paginate twenty at a time, so reading only the first page loses instruments.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Facilitates the entry of students and trainees, to gain practical work experience or to train as part of their studies.»A work permit category, not a study status. The evidence list in section 9.7.2 asks for an offer of internship, a job description and proof of maintenance.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Decides work permits under the Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens (Employment) Act and publishes the guidelines applicants and employers work from.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for what the law requires. Its guidelines put Guyana in the thousand-dollar fee band and cite S.R.O. 26 of 2015 for it, when that instrument is precisely what removed Guyana from the paragraph in question; the difference is EC$2,000 a year. Its five work categories, including a Work to Residency category promising a pathway to residency, exist nowhere in the Act or the Regulations and nothing in the Immigration Act gives a work permit any residence effect - they are an account of how an absolute ministerial discretion is exercised. Two of its fee exemptions rest on unpublished Cabinet decisions. The guidelines are dated June 2020 and the fee bands they recite come from instruments of 2008, 2014 and 2015.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This record is written from the Immigration Act, its five printed subsidiary instruments, the four Immigration amending Acts of 2012 to 2021, the Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens (Employment) Act with its two subsidiary instruments, and the Ministry of Labour's June 2020 guidelines. None contains a study permit. We did not survey the Education Act or the statutes of individual institutions, which govern enrolment rather than immigration status.
Nothing we read sets out what a student must show an immigration officer on arrival. The general sufficient-means test in the Immigration (Restriction) Regulations applies, and an acceptance letter is not mentioned in any instrument.
Nothing in the law gives a student a route to permanent residence or shortens any citizenship period. Time spent here as a student is residence for the purposes of section 5 and section 7 of the Citizenship Act in the ordinary way, with no special treatment and no disqualification either.
- consolidatesImmigration Act, Chapter 145, Continuous Revised Edition of the Laws of Grenada 2010
Laws of Grenada · consolidated to 2010
About this source
The Government of Grenada's law portal. Publishes the Continuous Revised Edition of 2010 arranged by Chapter, each Chapter printing the Act with its subsidiary legislation, and separately a year-by-year run of Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders as enacted from 2011.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A Chapter must never be cited for what the law is now, and nothing on the page says so: the Immigration Chapter is amended only to 2007 and lacks the OECS indefinite stay and the Schengen visa waiver; the Citizenship Chapter stops at 2002 and shows section 5A as repealed when an Act of 2016 has since filled it; the Income Tax Chapter prints 30 per cent when three Orders have made it 28 and 10; the Banking Chapter is an Act repealed in 2015. Subsidiary legislation printed inside a Chapter is equally frozen - the CARICOM skills Qualifications Order is shown as amended to 2008 and the 2015 amendment that added artisans and domestic workers is invisible. It must also not be cited for completeness after 2025: the 2026 collections hold five Acts and three instruments, and an amendment the investment agency publicly relied on in August 2026 is in neither. The Citizenship by Investment Act is not in the revised edition at all and has no consolidated text anywhere. Year listings paginate twenty at a time, so reading only the first page loses instruments.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- consolidatesForeign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens (Employment) Act, Chapter 115, Continuous Revised Edition of the Laws of Grenada 2010
Laws of Grenada · consolidated to 2010
About this source
The Government of Grenada's law portal. Publishes the Continuous Revised Edition of 2010 arranged by Chapter, each Chapter printing the Act with its subsidiary legislation, and separately a year-by-year run of Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders as enacted from 2011.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A Chapter must never be cited for what the law is now, and nothing on the page says so: the Immigration Chapter is amended only to 2007 and lacks the OECS indefinite stay and the Schengen visa waiver; the Citizenship Chapter stops at 2002 and shows section 5A as repealed when an Act of 2016 has since filled it; the Income Tax Chapter prints 30 per cent when three Orders have made it 28 and 10; the Banking Chapter is an Act repealed in 2015. Subsidiary legislation printed inside a Chapter is equally frozen - the CARICOM skills Qualifications Order is shown as amended to 2008 and the 2015 amendment that added artisans and domestic workers is invisible. It must also not be cited for completeness after 2025: the 2026 collections hold five Acts and three instruments, and an amendment the investment agency publicly relied on in August 2026 is in neither. The Citizenship by Investment Act is not in the revised edition at all and has no consolidated text anywhere. Year listings paginate twenty at a time, so reading only the first page loses instruments.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- administersMinistry of Labour, Work Permit Guidelines, June 2020
Ministry of Labour (Grenada)
About this source
Decides work permits under the Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens (Employment) Act and publishes the guidelines applicants and employers work from.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for what the law requires. Its guidelines put Guyana in the thousand-dollar fee band and cite S.R.O. 26 of 2015 for it, when that instrument is precisely what removed Guyana from the paragraph in question; the difference is EC$2,000 a year. Its five work categories, including a Work to Residency category promising a pathway to residency, exist nowhere in the Act or the Regulations and nothing in the Immigration Act gives a work permit any residence effect - they are an account of how an absolute ministerial discretion is exercised. Two of its fee exemptions rest on unpublished Cabinet decisions. The guidelines are dated June 2020 and the fee bands they recite come from instruments of 2008, 2014 and 2015.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidatesIncome Tax Act, Chapter 149, Continuous Revised Edition of the Laws of Grenada 2010
Laws of Grenada · consolidated to 2010
About this source
The Government of Grenada's law portal. Publishes the Continuous Revised Edition of 2010 arranged by Chapter, each Chapter printing the Act with its subsidiary legislation, and separately a year-by-year run of Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders as enacted from 2011.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: A Chapter must never be cited for what the law is now, and nothing on the page says so: the Immigration Chapter is amended only to 2007 and lacks the OECS indefinite stay and the Schengen visa waiver; the Citizenship Chapter stops at 2002 and shows section 5A as repealed when an Act of 2016 has since filled it; the Income Tax Chapter prints 30 per cent when three Orders have made it 28 and 10; the Banking Chapter is an Act repealed in 2015. Subsidiary legislation printed inside a Chapter is equally frozen - the CARICOM skills Qualifications Order is shown as amended to 2008 and the 2015 amendment that added artisans and domestic workers is invisible. It must also not be cited for completeness after 2025: the 2026 collections hold five Acts and three instruments, and an amendment the investment agency publicly relied on in August 2026 is in neither. The Citizenship by Investment Act is not in the revised edition at all and has no consolidated text anywhere. Year listings paginate twenty at a time, so reading only the first page loses instruments.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source