Country-wide policy
The Statute Book Is Sold, Not Published
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines publishes the fact of its laws and not their text. The Ministry of Legal Affairs puts every weekly Gazette online back to 2016, and each Gazette names the Acts and statutory rules and orders published that week - then says they can be purchased at the Government Printing Office at Campden Park. The House of Assembly publishes a table of every Act passed since 1993, with its long title, its short title, the dates of its readings, assent, publication and any proclamation, and its number. Neither publishes a section of an Act. The Immigration (Restriction) Act, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act, the Citizenship Act, the Employment of Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens Act and the Aliens (Land Holding Regulation) Act are all unreadable from outside the country, and every one of them governs something on this site.
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
- Bringing your belongings
What it requires
- To read an Act or a statutory rule and order: buy it at the Government Printing Office, Campden Park Industrial Estate
- The Laws of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Revised Edition 2009, is published in fifteen loose-leaf sets in hard copy or electronic form, by purchase
At a glance
- What is online
- The Gazette from 2016, and a table of Acts from 1993
legal.gov.vc for the Gazettes, assembly.gov.vc for the table of Acts.
- What is not online
- The text of any Act or statutory rule and order
Two exceptions were found: tax statutes published by the Inland Revenue Department, and customs statutes published by the Customs and Excise Department.
- Current edition of the laws
- Revised Edition 2009
Named in the long titles of amending Acts. The Constitution reachable online is the Revised Edition 1990.
- Effect on this country's pages
- Most rules rest on the administering agency rather than on a section
Where that is so, it is said on the page in question.
What this changes about reading this country
On the pages for Grenada, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Kitts and Nevis, a rule is usually a quoted section with a chapter number. Here it usually is not. The Government publishes the Gazette and Parliament publishes a table, so what can be established with certainty is which instruments exist, what they are called, what they amend, and the exact dates on which they were read, assented to, published and - occasionally - proclaimed. That turns out to answer more than it sounds: it is how the date of the OECS Protocol's commencement, the existence of four free movement instruments and the absence of any citizenship by investment Act were all established. What it cannot answer is what any of them says.
The two departments that break the pattern
The Inland Revenue Department publishes the Income Tax Act as Chapter 435 along with the Finance Act, the VAT Act, the Excise Act and others, and the Customs and Excise Department publishes the Customs (Control and Management) Act, the Customs Duties (Amendment) Act 2022, the Common External Tariff Order and about twenty more. Both are revenue departments, which is presumably why: a taxpayer cannot comply with a rate they cannot read. Nothing comparable exists for immigration, citizenship, employment of foreigners or land.
What the law says
«The following Acts which were assented to by Her Excellency the Governor-General are published in today's issue of the Gazette and can be purchased at the Government Printing Office, Campden Park Industrial Estate:-»The formula is the same in every issue. "Published in today's issue" means the issue records them; the text is a separate purchase.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The State's gazette, published weekly and archived online from 2016. Each issue opens with a Legislations notice naming every Act and every Statutory Rule and Order published that week, and carries Governor-General's notices, including the assignment of departments and subjects to each Minister under section 53 of the Constitution. It is the authoritative record that an instrument exists and of the date it was published.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It must never be cited for the content of an Act or a Statutory Rule and Order. The notice says in terms that the instruments 'can be purchased at the Government Printing Office, Campden Park Industrial Estate' - the issue announces them and does not contain them. A handful of Statutory Rules and Orders are posted as separate PDFs beside the 2026 issues; most are not. It must also not be cited for anything before 2016, which is where the online archive starts. File names are not a reliable guide to contents: the file named Gazette_No50_2025.pdf contains issue No. 40 of 30 July 2025.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«The following Documents are published in today's issue of the Gazette and can be purchased at the Government Printing Office, Campden Park Industrial Estate:-»The same for statutory rules and orders, which is why S.R. & O. 18 and 19 of 2025 - both part of the free movement package - cannot be read.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The State's gazette, published weekly and archived online from 2016. Each issue opens with a Legislations notice naming every Act and every Statutory Rule and Order published that week, and carries Governor-General's notices, including the assignment of departments and subjects to each Minister under section 53 of the Constitution. It is the authoritative record that an instrument exists and of the date it was published.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It must never be cited for the content of an Act or a Statutory Rule and Order. The notice says in terms that the instruments 'can be purchased at the Government Printing Office, Campden Park Industrial Estate' - the issue announces them and does not contain them. A handful of Statutory Rules and Orders are posted as separate PDFs beside the 2026 issues; most are not. It must also not be cited for anything before 2016, which is where the online archive starts. File names are not a reliable guide to contents: the file named Gazette_No50_2025.pdf contains issue No. 40 of 30 July 2025.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«The following Acts which were assented to
by His Excellency the Governor-General
are published in today's issue of the Gazette
and can be purchased at the Government
Printing Office, Campden Park Industrial Estate:-»April 2026, under a new Governor-General and a new government, and the formula is unchanged.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The State's gazette, published weekly and archived online from 2016. Each issue opens with a Legislations notice naming every Act and every Statutory Rule and Order published that week, and carries Governor-General's notices, including the assignment of departments and subjects to each Minister under section 53 of the Constitution. It is the authoritative record that an instrument exists and of the date it was published.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: It must never be cited for the content of an Act or a Statutory Rule and Order. The notice says in terms that the instruments 'can be purchased at the Government Printing Office, Campden Park Industrial Estate' - the issue announces them and does not contain them. A handful of Statutory Rules and Orders are posted as separate PDFs beside the 2026 issues; most are not. It must also not be cited for anything before 2016, which is where the online archive starts. File names are not a reliable guide to contents: the file named Gazette_No50_2025.pdf contains issue No. 40 of 30 July 2025.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«**Employment of Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens Act, 1973** This Act regulates the employment of foreign nationals and Commonwealth citizens in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.»A ministry describing thirteen Acts in a sentence each, with no link to any of them.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Publishes a one-sentence description of each of the thirteen employment statutes it administers, including the Employment of Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens Act 1973, and nine sector brochures giving current minimum wages.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It publishes no text of any Act and no link to one; its own page says a copy of the Acts can be purchased at the Government Printery. It must never be cited for work permits: it does not issue them and does not mention them. Its minimum wage page is headed 2024 but describes regulations of 2004 and says the complete regulations are sold at the Treasury Department, so the brochures are a summary of an instrument nobody can read.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
«Physical copies of the complete regulations are available for purchase at the Treasury Department and can be collected at the Government Printery»The same pattern below the level of an Act: a summary online, the instrument on paper.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Publishes a one-sentence description of each of the thirteen employment statutes it administers, including the Employment of Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens Act 1973, and nine sector brochures giving current minimum wages.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It publishes no text of any Act and no link to one; its own page says a copy of the Acts can be purchased at the Government Printery. It must never be cited for work permits: it does not issue them and does not mention them. Its minimum wage page is headed 2024 but describes regulations of 2004 and says the complete regulations are sold at the Treasury Department, so the brochures are a summary of an instrument nobody can read.
We re-read it every 120 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This is a description of what is available to a reader outside the country. The Laws of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Revised Edition 2009, is published in fifteen loose-leaf sets and can be bought; nothing here suggests the law is secret, only that it is not free to read.
Where a figure or a rule on these pages comes from an agency page rather than an instrument, the page says so. Where an Act has been read - the Income Tax Act, the anti-money-laundering regulations, the Constitution and the Protocol of the Eastern Caribbean Economic Union - the quotation is from the instrument itself.