Country-wide policy
The law portal serves two editions of the Laws of Guyana at the same time
Guyana's statute book is published under the Law Revision Act, which establishes a Law Revision Commission chaired by the Attorney-General, lets it publish in loose-leaf or any other form it determines, and makes every authorised page bear the number of the Law Revision Order that put it there. Section 9 then says those pages are, in all courts and for all purposes, the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The authority is therefore the L.R.O. number printed at the foot of every page, and on mola.gov.gy two different numbers are in circulation. The first three volumes carry L.R.O. 1/2022; everything from volume four onwards carries L.R.O. 1/2012, which the Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 shows the law as it stood on 31 December 2012. Immigration, citizenship, aliens, the CARICOM Acts, income tax, customs and road traffic are all in the older half.
Topics it changes
- Visiting as a tourist
- Residency on passive income
- Residency as a retiree
- Residency through work
- Residency through investment
- Residency as a student
- Residency through ancestry
- Residency through marriage
- Residency under a regional treaty
- Becoming a citizen
- When you become a tax resident
- Opening a bank account
- Access to healthcare
- Driving and licence exchange
- Bringing your belongings
What it requires
- Read the L.R.O. number printed at the foot of every page of a Guyanese Chapter before relying on it
- Treat L.R.O. 1/2012 as showing the law as at 31 December 2012, and L.R.O. 1/2022 as showing it at 31 December 2022
- For any Chapter in the older half, check the Acts passed since for an amendment, because the Chapter will not show it
At a glance
- What makes a page authoritative
- A Law Revision Order of the Commission, approved by the President, whose number every page bears
- Who prepares the edition
- The Law Revision Commission: a chairman and up to four other members, with the Attorney-General as chairman and the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office
- Form it may take
- Loose-leaf, or such other form as the Commission may determine
- Default revision date
- 1 January in each year, unless the Commission orders otherwise
A calendar date from the definition in section 2, quoted below, not a quantity.
- What L.R.O. 1/2012 shows
- The law as it stood on 31 December 2012
Stated in those words by the Attorney General, who chairs the Law Revision Commission, and printed as a note in the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Chapter. Both are quoted below.
- What L.R.O. 1/2022 shows
- All laws enacted up to 31 December 2022
The Attorney General's words to the National Assembly on 19 June 2026, quoted below.
- Chapters replaced with the 2022 edition on the portal
- 52 of 461
Counted from the portal's own chapter listing on the day of reading: the whole of volumes 1 and 2, part of volume 3, and nothing beyond.
- Where the Immigration, Citizenship and Income Tax Chapters sit
- In the older half, at L.R.O. 1/2012
L.R.O. 1/2012 is the number of the Law Revision Order printed at the foot of each page, not a quantity.
What the statute makes authentic
The question is never which domain a text sits on. It is which statute authorises the publication. In Guyana that statute is the Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, an Act of 1972 whose section 3 creates a Law Revision Commission chaired by the Attorney-General, whose section 4 lets the Commission publish in loose-leaf form or in such other form as it may determine, whose section 5 requires the Commission, with the President's approval, to authorise every page by order and requires every page to carry that order's number, and whose section 9 makes the authorised pages the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana in all courts and for all purposes. The authority therefore runs to pages, not to a website; and what identifies an authorised page is the L.R.O. reference printed on it.
Which means the footer is the thing to read
Open any Chapter from mola.gov.gy and the foot of every page says either L.R.O. 1/2012 or L.R.O. 1/2022. On the day of reading, the Constitution, the Interpretation and General Clauses Act, the Law Revision Act itself and the rest of volumes 1 and 2, together with part of volume 3, carried 1/2022. The Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM Chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act and the National Insurance Act all carried 1/2012. The portal gives no sign of this on its listing page: the chapters are presented as one set. Fifty-two of 461 entries had been replaced.
What the older half is missing
Ten years of legislation. The Income Tax Act as published prints a flat rate of thirty-three and one third per cent in section 36 and has no section 36A at all; the Revenue Authority says section 36 now charges 25 per cent and section 36A charges 35. The Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act omits every item of its subsidiary legislation and says so, while the regulations that let a visitor drive on a foreign licence were made in 2022. The Immigration Act shows no amendment after 2007. None of those pages says on its face that it is out of date; what each says is L.R.O. 1/2012, and the reader has to know what that means.
What the law says
«9. Subject to sections 10 and 12, the pages duly
Guyana to
authorised for inclusion in the Laws of Guyana shall, in all courts
constitute sole
and proper and for all purposes, be the sole and proper Statute Book of
Statute Book. Guyana in respect of the written laws contained therein as in
force on the relevant revision date.»The words set off on their own lines inside this quotation are the section's marginal note and the amending-Act references, which the publisher prints down the left-hand edge of the page; the extraction places them inline. The authority attaches to the pages, and only for the law in force on the relevant revision date. A page is not evidence of anything after that date.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«3. (1) There shall be a Law Revision Commission
and functions
consisting of a chairman and not more than four other
of Commission.
members whose functions shall be to prepare, publish and»The words set off on their own lines inside this quotation are the section's marginal note and the amending-Act references, which the publisher prints down the left-hand edge of the page; the extraction places them inline. The sentence continues after the page break: "maintain in accordance with this Act an edition of the laws of Guyana to be known as the 'Laws of Guyana'". Sub-section (2) makes the Attorney-General and the Chief Parliamentary Counsel members by office, with the Attorney-General as chairman.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«4. The Laws of Guyana shall be published in loose-leaf
Publication. form or in such other form as the Commission may determine
and shall comprise such pages as may be authorised to be
included therein under section 5.»The words set off on their own lines inside this quotation are the section's marginal note and the amending-Act references, which the publisher prints down the left-hand edge of the page; the extraction places them inline. The form is the Commission's to choose, which is what lets a PDF on a ministry website be the statute book rather than a copy of it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Every page comprised in the Laws of Guyana
shall bear a reference to the Law Revision Order by which its
inclusion therein was authorised.»This is why the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the thing to read: it is the statutory marker of which revision a page belongs to.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«“revision date” means the 1st January in each year unless
with respect to any year the Commission, by order,
directs that there shall be no revision date in that year
or appoints either in addition to or in substitution for
the 1st January some other date or dates to be the
revision date or the revision dates for that year; and»The default is 1 January, but the Commission may appoint another date, and for both the 2012 and the 2022 revisions it plainly did: both are stated as 31 December.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«This Act has been revised up to December 31, 2012.»The only Chapter we read that prints its revision date as a date. Every other Chapter leaves it to the Law Revision Order number.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«the previous revised edition reflected the laws of Guyana as they stood on December 31, 2012, while the newly completed revision captures all laws enacted up to December 31, 2022.»The Attorney General chairs the Law Revision Commission by virtue of section 3(2) of the Law Revision Act, so this is the Commission's chairman stating what each edition covers. It is a ministry news page and not an instrument, and it is used here only to date two editions whose own pages give an order number rather than a date.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Guyana's law portal, publishing the Laws of Guyana chapter by chapter as PDFs. The Law Revision Act, Chapter 2:02, makes the Law Revision Commission - chaired by the Attorney General, with the Chief Parliamentary Counsel a member by office - responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the edition, lets it choose the form of publication, requires every page to carry the number of the Law Revision Order that authorised it, and provides by section 9 that those pages are in all courts and for all purposes the sole and proper Statute Book of Guyana for the law in force on the relevant revision date. The portal also carries draft bills and ministry news.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It serves two editions at once and says so nowhere on its listing. On 2026-10-06, 52 of its 461 chapter entries carried L.R.O. 1/2022 - volumes 1 and 2 and part of volume 3 - and the remaining 409 carried L.R.O. 1/2012. The Attorney General told the National Assembly in June 2026 that 1/2012 shows the law as at 31 December 2012 and 1/2022 all laws enacted to 31 December 2022, so the L.R.O. number at the foot of each page is the only way to tell which edition you are reading. Everything that matters for migration - the Immigration Act, the Guyana Citizenship Act, the Aliens Act, all five CARICOM chapters, the Income Tax Act, the Customs Act, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act - is still in the 2012 half. It must never be cited for what the law is now: the Income Tax Act it publishes prints a flat 33 1/3 per cent and has no section 36A, while the Revenue Authority charges 25 and 35 per cent under a section 36A. It publishes no amending Acts and no statutory instruments at all, so there is nothing on the site to check a Chapter against. Several chapters omit their own subsidiary legislation or schedules and say so in a note. Filenames carry a volume label and a unix timestamp, so a chapter's URL cannot be guessed and changes when the file is replaced.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source