Entering Saint Kitts and Nevis as a Visitor
This replaces the general rule for you
Entry from Saint Lucia: indefinite stay, not a visitor permit
A citizen of Saint Lucia does not arrive as a visitor. Saint Lucia is a party to the Protocol of the Eastern Caribbean Economic Union, and section 4(3) of the Immigration Act requires an immigration officer to grant a citizen of a Protocol Member State a permit to enter and remain for a stay of indefinite duration. The six-month ceiling that governs everyone else does not apply, and neither does the extension machinery, because there is nothing to extend. A passport is not needed either: section 14(7) lets a citizen of any member of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States establish identity and nationality by proof of citizenship with photo identification. The one condition is section 8 - the right does not run to a prohibited person, and section 4(4) requires due process before it is revoked.
A visitor is admitted for whatever period the immigration officer thinks appropriate, up to a ceiling of six months - twice what most of Latin America allows on a single admission - and the ceiling is not the end of it: the Chief Immigration Officer may, with the Minister's approval, extend a permit up to six years from the date of entry. Citizens of the European Union countries named in the Act's Sixth Schedule need no visa for ninety days. Citizens of any Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States member get six months as of right rather than at discretion. Since 2025 a traveller who needs no visa has had to obtain an Electronic Travel Authorisation before arriving, through a portal run by the Ministry of National Security - a requirement that does not appear anywhere in the Immigration Act as consolidated to 2020.
At a glance
- Maximum period an officer may grant a visitor
- 6 months
Section 14(1)(b) writes the figure in words - "not exceeding six months" - for everyone in Part II of the Second Schedule, which is where a visitor sits.
- Maximum a permit can be extended to
- 6 years from entry
Section 14(4)(a) spells it out as "a maximum of six years from the date of the entry". It needs the Minister's approval and is the outer limit of a visitor permit, not an entitlement.
- Visa-free period for EU citizens
- 90 days
Section 15(1) writes "a period of ninety days". Section 15(2) excludes the United Kingdom and Ireland from the definition and points to the Sixth Schedule.
- Countries in the Sixth Schedule
- 25
Counted from the list as printed in the 2020 revised edition, which was inserted by Act 28 of 2008. It is the EU of 2008 less the United Kingdom and Ireland, and it does not include Croatia, which joined the Union in 2013.
- Entry for OECS citizens
- 6 months, as of right
Section 14(8) says such a citizen "shall be permitted", not may be permitted. Section 4(3) goes further for citizens of a Protocol Member State - see the regional-treaty record.
- Electronic Travel Authorisation
- Required for visa-free travellers since 2025
The portal names itself the official route for the eTA, and the government's own January 2025 announcement describes it as applying to all travellers with visa-free access. We did not find the instrument that imposes it, nor a published fee, and do not state one.
- Cumulative annual ceiling
- None in the Act
Nothing in sections 14 or 15 counts days across trips, which is the opposite of Peru's 183-in-365 and Colombia's 180-in-365.
Requirements
- A passport, or a certificate of identity or travel permit that satisfies an immigration officer of your nationality and identity
- An Electronic Travel Authorisation obtained in advance where you travel on a passport with visa-free access, through the Saint Kitts and Nevis Electronic Border Management System
- A completed Immigration and Customs embarkation/disembarkation form, which the same portal now takes online
- Entry under one of the headings in the Second Schedule to the Immigration Act - transit, visitor, medical treatment, sport or cultural activity, study, employment, trade or business
- Not being a prohibited person under the First Schedule, which the EU and OECS entitlements are both expressly subject to
- Departure within the period the officer wrote on the permit, or an application to the Chief Immigration Officer before it expires
In detail
Six months, and then up to six years
Two numbers govern a visitor's stay and they are far apart. The first is the ceiling on what an officer may write on the permit at the border: six months, under section 14(1). The second is the ceiling on extension: section 14(4) lets the Chief Immigration Officer, with the Minister's approval, extend a permit to a maximum of six years from the date of entry. Nothing in the Act says the extension is hard to get or easy; it says the Minister must approve it. What the Act does not contain is any running total across trips. Peru counts 183 days inside a rolling year, Colombia counts 180, Panama caps a single admission at ninety and counts nothing. Saint Kitts and Nevis caps a single admission at six months and counts nothing either, which on the face of the instrument makes it the most permissive visitor regime in this comparison.
The European Union list stopped in 2008
Section 15 gives a citizen of a European Union country ninety days without a visa, and section 15(2) defines the term by reference to the Sixth Schedule, excluding the United Kingdom and Ireland. The Schedule was inserted by Act 28 of 2008 and lists twenty-five countries. That was the correct list in 2008. It has not been updated since: Croatia joined the European Union in 2013 and does not appear. A Croatian citizen is therefore outside section 15 as the Act reads, and whatever happens at the counter, the statutory entitlement is not there. The entitlement a Croatian passport does have is the ordinary one: admission at the officer's discretion for up to six months as a visitor.
An Electronic Travel Authorisation with no visible statutory basis
The Federation now runs an Electronic Travel Authorisation. The portal that issues it describes itself as the official route for both the online Immigration and Customs form and the eTA, and the government announced in January 2025 that it would require every traveller with visa-free access to obtain authorisation before entering. That requirement is not in the Immigration Act as the Law Commission consolidated it to 31 December 2020, and we found no later Act or Statutory Rule and Order creating it. Section 33 of the Act does give the Minister a general power to make regulations, so an instrument may exist and simply not be published where we could reach it. Until one is read, the eTA is recorded here as a thing the government operates and announces, not as a requirement whose terms - fee, validity, exemptions - we can state.
A security deposit schedule written in 1947
The Immigration Regulations printed as the Third Schedule to the Act are S.R.O. (L.I.) 14 of 1947, last amended in 2001. Regulation 5 still sets the security an immigrant may be required to deposit with the Accountant-General by reference to whether the person "belongs to one of the British West Indian Colonies or to British Guiana". The amounts - ninety-six dollars, four hundred and eighty dollars, nine hundred and sixty dollars - have never been restated. This is not a dead letter in form: the Regulations are part of the consolidated law and the Act's section 33 keeps them alive. It is a reminder that in a common-law jurisdiction the subsidiary legislation can be eighty years older than the Act it now hangs from.
Country-level policy
Since 2025 the Federation has operated an Electronic Travel Authorisation alongside an online immigration and customs form, through a portal the Ministry of National Security runs. The government announced it in January 2025 as a requirement for every traveller with visa-free access to apply for authorisation before entering, and presented it as both a security measure and a revenue stream. What we could not find is the instrument. The Immigration Act as consolidated to 31 December 2020 provides for permits granted by officers at the border and says nothing about pre-authorisation, and no later Act or Statutory Rule and Order creating the eTA was retrievable. The fee, the validity and the exemptions are therefore not stated here.
What applies to you
Entry from Saint Lucia: indefinite stay, not a visitor permit
A citizen of Saint Lucia does not arrive as a visitor. Saint Lucia is a party to the Protocol of the Eastern Caribbean Economic Union, and section 4(3) of the Immigration Act requires an immigration officer to grant a citizen of a Protocol Member State a permit to enter and remain for a stay of indefinite duration. The six-month ceiling that governs everyone else does not apply, and neither does the extension machinery, because there is nothing to extend. A passport is not needed either: section 14(7) lets a citizen of any member of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States establish identity and nationality by proof of citizenship with photo identification. The one condition is section 8 - the right does not run to a prohibited person, and section 4(4) requires due process before it is revoked.
- Citizenship of Saint Lucia
- Proof of citizenship accompanied by photo identification, which may be a driving licence, national identity card or voter card rather than a passport
- Not being a prohibited person under the First Schedule to the Immigration Act
What the law says
«in Part II of the Second Schedule to this Act to enter and remain in Saint Christopher and Nevis on such conditions as the officer thinks fit and for such period, not exceeding six months as that officer considers appropriate in the particular case;»The ceiling is six months; the period actually granted is the officer's. Part I of the same Schedule carries its own six-month cap for students and for people entering for employment, trade or business.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
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«1. Passengers in transit through Saint Christopher and Nevis.
2. Visitors.
3. Persons entering Saint Christopher and Nevis for medical treatment.»"Visitors" is the whole of the definition. The Act does not define the word, so what counts as a visitor is left to the officer.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«extend the period specified in the permit up to a maximum of six years from the date of the entry into Saint Christopher and Nevis of the person to whom the permit relates; or»Six years is the outer limit of a visitor permit in this Act. It is the longest outer limit on an entry permit in the records here; the next is Guyana, where extensions stop three years from the date of entry.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, a citizen from a European Union Country, as long as that person is not a prohibited person, shall be permitted to enter and remain in Saint Christopher and Nevis, without the requirement of an entry visa, for a period of ninety days.»The revised edition notes this was "Inserted in as section 13A by Act 28 of 2008" and renumbered on revision, so a citation to section 13A in older material is the same provision.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«MEMBER COUNTRIES OF THE EUROPEAN UNION Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Italy Latvia Luthuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden»Quoted with the publisher's spelling of Lithuania. The list is the EU as it stood when Act 28 of 2008 was passed: Croatia, which acceded in 2013, is not in it, so a Croatian passport is outside the section 15 waiver on the face of the Act.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Notwithstanding anything contained in this section, a citizen of a Member State of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, as long as such a citizen is not a prohibited person, shall be permitted to enter and remain in Saint Christopher and Nevis for a period of six months.»About this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Notwithstanding the provisions of section 9, a citizen of a Member State of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, may establish his or her identity and nationality by proof of citizenship accompanied by photo identification.»An OECS citizen does not need a passport at the border. Section 9 is the provision that otherwise makes it an offence to seek entry without one.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
There is no health-insurance requirement, no proof-of-funds threshold and no onward-ticket requirement anywhere in sections 8 to 15 of the Immigration Act or in the Second Schedule. Regulation 5 of the Immigration Regulations lets an officer require a security deposit from an immigrant, which is a different thing from a visitor and is discretionary. That is an absence in the Immigration Act and its Third Schedule as consolidated to 2020, not a survey of what an officer asks for at Robert L. Bradshaw International.
The widely circulated figure of ninety days for visitors to Saint Kitts and Nevis is the European Union waiver in section 15, not the general rule. The general rule in section 14 is six months. Taking the ninety from the one and applying it to the other is the same mistake as reading a tourist period off the wrong half of a sentence.
The Act gives the Minister power under section 4(5) to prohibit the entry of any person other than a citizen or a resident on reasonable grounds, and section 14(5) lets him modify, vary or revoke a permit at any time. Neither the six-month ceiling nor the six-year extension is a right.
The Immigration Act here names a second regional bloc alongside CARICOM: both the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and the Caribbean Community appear in its definitions, and they confer different things - see the regional-treaty record. It is not the only one that does. Antigua and Barbuda's Immigration and Passport Act, 2014 names the Organisation at section 21(1)(a), its Protocol at section 21(1)(b) and CARICOM at section 22(1), and adds a limb at section 23(1) for service providers of an EU Member State.
- consolidatesImmigration Act, Cap. 6.02, Revised Edition showing the law as at 31 December 2020
Law Commission of Saint Christopher and Nevis · consolidated to 2020-12-31
About this source
Prepares the revised editions of Kittitian law and hosts the annual collections of Acts and statutory rules and orders.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current state of the citizenship-by-investment rules: it prints the 2011 Regulations as a schedule to the Citizenship Act with no indication they were repealed in 2023. Nor for completeness - the 2020 edition is a supplement of fifty-six chapters rather than a corpus, so absence from it is not evidence that a law does not exist, and the social security and income tax Acts are simply not in it. Nor for anything after a revision's cut-off: the income tax Act it serves is as at 31 December 2002 and prints Omitted because of cut-off date in place of a section. Its annual instrument folders are not exhaustive either; one begins at number five.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- administersSaint Kitts and Nevis Electronic Border Management System
Ministry of National Security (Saint Kitts and Nevis)
About this source
The ministry's travel authorisation portal, operating since 2025.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for what the law requires: it is an operating system with no published statutory basis, and nothing in the Immigration Act as consolidated provides for pre-authorisation. Nor for anything beyond its landing page - the content is client-rendered and the fee, validity and exemptions do not survive capture, so none of them is stated here.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- administersSt. Kitts and Nevis to roll out advanced eTA system
Citizenship by Investment Unit (Saint Kitts and Nevis)
About this source
Administers the citizenship-by-investment programme and hosts the statutory rules and orders that set its thresholds - which is where the law in force actually lives, the consolidated edition being years out of date.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the completeness of the legislative record: its own notices page lists nothing after December 2024 and omits an instrument from 2026 that is hosted on the same site. Nor for immigration law generally, which it does not administer. Its news items are announcements and its marketing copy is not evidence of a requirement.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source