Country-wide policy
Jamaica still sorts arrivals by the Commonwealth
Two statutes of the mid-1940s still govern who may come and stay, and the dividing line between them is the Commonwealth. The Immigration Restriction (Commonwealth Citizens) Act applies to Commonwealth citizens and gives them a statutory ceiling of twelve months. The Aliens Act applies to everyone else, requires registration, allows a security deposit scaled by which part of the world you come from, and sets no period for a stay at all. The same line runs through the law of citizenship, where a Commonwealth or Irish citizen is registered after five years and everyone else is naturalised on a longer and stricter test; through the work permit statute, which names Commonwealth citizens and foreign nationals as separate defined terms; and through the Agency's fee table, which charges non-Commonwealth nationals to register and charges them re-entry visa fees by nationality. For Caribbean Community purposes it matters because two member states, Haiti and Suriname, are not in the Commonwealth.
Topics it changes
- Visiting as a tourist
- Residency through work
- Residency as a student
- Becoming a citizen
- Residency under a regional treaty
What it requires
- Work out which of the two Acts applies to your nationality before reading anything about periods of stay
- Non-Commonwealth nationals over sixteen staying more than six months: register with the Agency and pay the fee
- Non-Commonwealth residents: a re-entry visa, priced by nationality
At a glance
- Commonwealth citizen, statutory ceiling
- Twelve months
- Non-Commonwealth national, statutory ceiling
- None in the Aliens Act
- Registration of non-Commonwealth nationals
- JM$2,000.00
- Re-entry visa for non-Commonwealth residents
- JM$500.00 to JM$2,000.00
- Citizenship after five years
- Commonwealth and Irish citizens only
- CARICOM members outside the Commonwealth
- Haiti and Suriname
- Haitian ordinary passports
- Visa required for Jamaica
What the law says
«Provided that an immigration officer shall not grant leave
under this section for a period exceeding twelve months.»This instrument is published only as an image. The wording above was read off that picture and checked by eye, so it did not pass the machine verbatim check the other quotations passed. Treat it as accurate but re-read the scan before relying on it.
«Island shall not land in the Island except with the leave of
an immigration officer.»This instrument is published only as an image. The wording above was read off that picture and checked by eye, so it did not pass the machine verbatim check the other quotations passed. Treat it as accurate but re-read the scan before relying on it.
«(a) ordinarily resident in Jamaica; or»Open to citizens of the countries in the First Schedule and of Ireland, on five years.
«( U ) that he has resided in Jamaica throughout the period of
twelve months immediately preceding the date of the applica-
tion; and»The test for everyone else, with four more years in the preceding seven on top.
Practical notes
The Aliens Act's security deposit, sixty dollars for arrivals from north of Colombia and Venezuela, one hundred from South America, Europe or Africa and two hundred from anywhere else, is on a page authorised in 2004. We found no sign that it is collected.
The Agency's published multiple-entry visa fees name Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands alongside non-Commonwealth nationals generally, so the line it draws at the counter is not exactly the Commonwealth line the Acts draw.