Living in Haiti on Income from Elsewhere: One Permit, and a Means Test That Shrank by Fifty Times
Haiti has no rentier visa and no passive-income category. There is one residence instrument for everybody, the permis de séjour, and the only financial test attached to it is a bank attestation. What makes Haiti worth reading is the size of the gap between the instrument and the counter. The immigration law as rewritten in 1959 requires an applicant for a non-immigrant or resident visa to show a minimum deposit of ten thousand United States dollars in a bank established in Haiti, or an affidavit from a Haitian citizen willing to take responsibility for him, and repeats the ten thousand dollars in the documents list for the residence permit itself. The procedure the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration publishes through Haiti's embassy in Canada asks for a bank attestation from a bank sitting in Haiti of a minimum of 7,500 gourdes or US$200. Nothing we read bridges the two figures.
At a glance
- Dedicated income, rentier or passive-income category
- None
Everything runs through the permis de séjour, which has no categories. A person of independent means lodges the same file as a worker.
- Bank attestation the agency asks for
- A minimum of 7,500 gourdes or US$200as of 2026-10-06
From the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration's procedure as published by Haiti's embassy in Canada.
- Deposit the immigration law requires
- US$10,000 in a bank established in Haiti, or an affidavit of support from a Haitian citizen
Article 17 as rewritten by the law of 8 December 1959, for a non-immigrant or resident visa; article 31 repeats it for the residence permit itself.
- First issue of the residence permit
- 5,000 gourdesas of 2026-10-06
From the United States embassy's page, which says the figure applies in Haiti only. Payable by banker's draft to the Trésor Public.
- Renewal
- 2,500 gourdesas of 2026-10-06
Same source.
- Permit period
- One fiscal year, 1 October to 30 September
Not twelve months from the grant. A permit issued in August runs to the following 30 September.
Requirements
- A letter to the Director of the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration asking for a residence permit and giving the reasons
- A photocopy of the passport's biographical page
- A letter from an employer or from whoever is supporting you, guaranteeing your stay in Haiti and your repatriation if needed
- A medical certificate no more than thirty days old
- Two colour passport-format photographs
- A photocopy of the boarding card from your most recent entry
- A photocopy of your birth certificate, with a French translation
- A bank attestation from a bank sitting in Haiti
- A police record from your country of origin, recently issued
- The fee, by banker's draft payable to the Trésor Public
- An interview and fingerprinting when the file is lodged
In detail
No category to qualify for
Almost every country in this comparison answers "how do I live here on my own money" by naming a visa. Haiti names none. The immigration law has one residence instrument, the permis de séjour, and it is not divided by the purpose of the stay. Income therefore does not qualify you for anything; it appears only as a document in the file, the bank attestation, and as the thing that keeps you from being a burden. The practical consequence is that a retired person, a remote worker and a missionary lodge the same papers at the same desk.
Ten thousand dollars, or two hundred
Article 17 of the immigration law, as the 1959 law rewrote it, requires an applicant for a non-immigrant or resident visa to show a deposit of ten thousand United States dollars in a bank established in Haiti, or an affidavit from a Haitian citizen willing to take him in charge. Article 31 asks for the same certificate again among the residence permit documents. The procedure the immigration directorate publishes today asks for a bank attestation of 7,500 gourdes or two hundred dollars. We did not find the instrument that moved the figure, and the two cannot both be the rule. What a reader can do with this is narrow and real: bring the attestation the directorate asks for, and know that a much older and much larger number is still printed in the law.
A permit tied to the tax year
The permit does not run twelve months from the day it is granted. It runs to the end of the fiscal year, 30 September, and the renewal application must carry the slip proving that the income tax of the fiscal year just ended has been paid. That is a tighter coupling between residence and tax than anything else in this comparison: in Haiti, falling behind with the revenue directorate is a residence problem before it is a tax problem.
Country-level policy
A Haitian residence permit is not granted for twelve months from the day it is issued. It is granted for a fiscal year, 1 October to 30 September, which means a permit obtained in August expires six weeks later. Renewal is annual and the application must be accompanied by the slip attesting payment of income tax for the fiscal year just ended. The permit therefore sits downstream of the revenue directorate: a foreigner who has not settled with the Direction Générale des Impôts cannot complete the immigration file. The same coupling appears from the other end in the immigration law, where the exit visa a departing foreigner needs is issued only on a certificate from the revenue administration that he is square with the tax authorities. Dominica's record holds the same coupling at one end - an exit certificate required by its Income Tax Regulations - and no record here holds it at both.
On 17 September 2026 Le Moniteur published, as Special No. 47 of its 181st year, a decree of the Council of Ministers instituting a state of emergency over the departments of the Ouest, the Artibonite and the Centre for three months. The Ouest is the department that contains Port-au-Prince, and with it the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration on Avenue John Brown, where residence permits are applied for. The decree's recitals describe a multiform crisis producing a situation of extreme urgency, marked by increased violence from armed gangs and a worrying humanitarian situation threatening the existence of the population and the foundations of the Republic. An earlier decree to the same effect had been published on 2 June 2026, so this is a renewal rather than a first measure. What we hold of the decree is its opening: the copy we could read carries the gazette heading, the title and the recitals and stops before the operative articles, so we cannot say what powers it confers or what it suspends.
Haiti's official journal, Le Moniteur, is still publishing - its Special No. 47 of 17 September 2026 is in these records - but it has no reachable archive of its own, and the Secrétariat Général du Conseil des Ministres, which hosts the government's collection of laws, did not answer a single request from here. The consequence is specific rather than general. Four instruments between them decide most of what a person moving to Haiti needs to know, and none of them could be read. The decree-law of 26 December 1978 on immigration and emigration is the one the immigration directorate itself cites by article number for the residence permit, and the one the law of 2002 names as imposing that permit at its article 30. The decree of 6 November 1984 on Haitian nationality is where the Constitution has pointed since 2011 for the conditions of naturalisation. The Code Fiscal enacted by decree of 20 January 2023 brings the whole tax code together and is published by the Ministry of Economy and Finance as a 244-page image whose only machine-readable text is a watermark reading "ne pas reproduire". And the decree of 13 March 1963 defines which new undertakings give a foreign shareholder an exemption from the work permit.
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«Il devra justifier d'un dépôt minimum de DIX MILLE DOLLARS ($.10.000) dans une Banque établie en Haïti ou exciper d'un affidavit délivré par un citoyen haïtien capable de le prendre en charge le cas échéant.»Our translation - not official
He shall show a minimum deposit of TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS ($.10,000) in a Bank established in Haiti, or produce an affidavit issued by a Haitian citizen able to take charge of him should the need arise.
The alternative matters as much as the figure: ten thousand dollars, or somebody Haitian who will vouch for you.
«Article 31.—Toute demande en vue de l'obtention du Permis de Séjour sera accompagnée des pièces suivantes:
1.—Le passeport de l'intéressé;
2.—Un certificat d'immatriculation à une Légation ou Consulat établi en Haïti;
3.—Un récépissé de la BNRH ou de l'Agent des Contributions attestant que l'étranger a versé à ladite Banque ou au dit Agent la taxe suivante:»Our translation - not official
Every application for the grant of a Residence Permit shall be accompanied by the following documents: 1. the applicant's passport; 2. a certificate of registration with a Legation or Consulate established in Haiti; 3. a receipt from the BNRH or the Revenue Agent attesting that the foreigner has paid to the said Bank or the said Agent the following tax:
The tax that follows falls with length of residence: two hundred gourdes in the first five years, a hundred and fifty from five to ten, a hundred beyond ten, and a foreigner born in Haiti is treated as being in the last band.
«_8\. Une Attestation Bancaire émanant d’une banque siégeant en Haïti. (un minimum de 7500Gourdes ou 200$ US)_»Our translation - not official
8. A Bank Attestation from a bank sitting in Haiti. (a minimum of 7,500 Gourdes or US$200)
The page attributes the list to the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration itself. Against article 17's ten thousand dollars this is smaller by a factor of about fifty.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Haiti's mission in Ottawa, and the most useful live Haitian government source we found. Its consular page publishes the visa tariff, states that no prior visa is required of a Canadian citizen staying under ninety days, and reproduces in full the long-stay permit procedure of the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration, which it attributes to the DIE by name and ties to articles 31 to 34 of the décret-loi du 26 décembre 1978.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is a mission describing an instrument it does not publish. The article numbers it cites belong to a decree-law we have never read, so the figures on the page - the ninety-day courtesy stay, the fiscal-year permit, the bank attestation of 7,500 gourdes or US$200 - are the agency's account of the law and not the law's own words. Its ninety days also contradict the thirty days article 16 of the immigration law gives, and the page cannot settle which governs. It mentions that citizens of certain countries must meet conditions as to status in Canada to be exempted from the visitor's visa, and does not publish that list.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«**Tous les citoyens étrangers, devant séjourner plus de quatre-vingt-dix jours en Haïti, sauf ceux dʼascendance haïtienne**, doivent, avant la fin des quatre-vingt-dix (90) jours de séjour de courtoisie, contacter la Direction de lʼImmigration et de lʼÉmigration **pour lʼobtention dʼun permis long séjour, valable pour un exercice fiscal, soit du 1er octobre au 30 septembre, conformément au décret-loi du 26 décembre 1978 sur l’Immigration et l’Émigration et plus précisément en ses articles 31,32, 33 et 34.**»Our translation - not official
All foreign citizens who are to stay more than ninety days in Haiti, except those of Haitian ascendancy, must, before the end of the ninety (90) days of courtesy stay, contact the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration to obtain a long-stay permit, valid for one fiscal year, that is from 1 October to 30 September, in accordance with the decree-law of 26 December 1978 on Immigration and Emigration and more precisely its articles 31, 32, 33 and 34.
The article numbers the mission cites are those of the 1978 decree-law, which we could not obtain. The same article numbers carry the residence permit in the 1959 text, so the 1978 instrument appears to renumber nothing and to replace the content.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Haiti's mission in Ottawa, and the most useful live Haitian government source we found. Its consular page publishes the visa tariff, states that no prior visa is required of a Canadian citizen staying under ninety days, and reproduces in full the long-stay permit procedure of the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration, which it attributes to the DIE by name and ties to articles 31 to 34 of the décret-loi du 26 décembre 1978.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is a mission describing an instrument it does not publish. The article numbers it cites belong to a decree-law we have never read, so the figures on the page - the ninety-day courtesy stay, the fiscal-year permit, the bank attestation of 7,500 gourdes or US$200 - are the agency's account of the law and not the law's own words. Its ninety days also contradict the thirty days article 16 of the immigration law gives, and the page cannot settle which governs. It mentions that citizens of certain countries must meet conditions as to status in Canada to be exempted from the visitor's visa, and does not publish that list.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This record rests on the 1959 immigration law as reprinted from Le Moniteur No. 128, on the residence-permit procedure published by Haiti's embassy in Canada and attributed there to the immigration directorate, and on the United States embassy's version of the same procedure. The claim that no income category exists is bounded by those documents and by the Labour Code: none of them names one, and the immigration law creates a single permit rather than a set of routes.
The two embassy pages do not agree on who needs the permit. Haiti's mission says every foreign citizen staying more than ninety days except those of Haitian ascendancy; the United States mission says every person over the age of 21 travelling on a non-Haitian document who intends to stay more than three months. An age threshold appears in one and not in the other.
The fee figures come from the United States embassy's page, which says it believes them accurate at the date of printing and warns that Haitian immigration requirements change without notice. They have not been traced to an instrument and no instrument we read prescribes them.
- reportsLoi du 8 décembre 1959 sur l'immigration et l'émigration, extrait du Moniteur No. 128 du 10 décembre 1959
HaitiDocs (facsimile of the Imprimerie de l'État offprint)
About this source
A Haiti document archive holding about five thousand items - central bank circulars, customs statistics, electoral council decrees, and facsimiles of Le Moniteur going back to 1959. Used here because Haiti's own law collection at sgcm.gouv.ht would not answer a single request and Le Moniteur has no reachable archive of its own. What it serves for the instruments quoted here is the gazette's or the State Printing Office's own page image, so the artefact is the State's even though the host is not.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It is not the publisher of record and must never be cited where a Haitian government host serves the same file. It does no amendment tracking, so nothing taken from it is evidence that a text is current - the 1959 immigration law quoted here is known to have been overtaken at least in part by a 1978 decree-law we could not obtain. Its catalogue metadata is not reliable: it dates the immigration law "8 juillet 1959" where the document's own title page says 8 December 1959, and it attributes the Labour Code to the justice ministry when the PDF carries haitijustice.com as a watermark on every page. That Labour Code edition also replaces four articles - 426, 483, 505 and 507 to 510 - with a bracketed editorial summary instead of their text, so it cannot support a claim that the Code is silent on something.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- administersVisas - Section consulaire, Ambassade d'Haïti au Canada
Ambassade d'Haïti au Canada
About this source
Haiti's mission in Ottawa, and the most useful live Haitian government source we found. Its consular page publishes the visa tariff, states that no prior visa is required of a Canadian citizen staying under ninety days, and reproduces in full the long-stay permit procedure of the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration, which it attributes to the DIE by name and ties to articles 31 to 34 of the décret-loi du 26 décembre 1978.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It is a mission describing an instrument it does not publish. The article numbers it cites belong to a decree-law we have never read, so the figures on the page - the ninety-day courtesy stay, the fiscal-year permit, the bank attestation of 7,500 gourdes or US$200 - are the agency's account of the law and not the law's own words. Its ninety days also contradict the thirty days article 16 of the immigration law gives, and the page cannot settle which governs. It mentions that citizens of certain countries must meet conditions as to status in Canada to be exempted from the visitor's visa, and does not publish that list.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- reportsInformation on Obtaining a Permis De Sejour
U.S. Embassy in Haiti
About this source
The United States mission in Port-au-Prince, whose citizen-services page sets out the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration's residence permit procedure in English, with the fee table - 5,000 gourdes first issue, 2,500 renewal, 1,250 student - and an English version of article 1 of the Haitian law of 12 August 2002 on Haitians of origin.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: A foreign mission describing another state's procedure, and it says so itself: it believes the information accurate at the date of printing and warns that Haitian immigration requirements and procedures are often subject to variation without notice. It carries no date. Its fee figures trace to no instrument. It disagrees with Haiti's own mission on who needs the permit - three months and an age threshold of 21, against ninety days and no age threshold. And its English of article 1(g) of the 2002 law renders "3 ha 87, soit l'équivalent de trois (3) carreaux de terre" as "three (3) acres", about a ninth of the area, so it must not be cited for the content of a Haitian instrument.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source