Living in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on Income from Elsewhere
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Saint Lucia on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
81 exceptions recorded across 33 countries · none match Saint Lucia to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines · Residency on passive income
There is no published residence category for someone living on income from abroad - no passive income visa, no rentier permit, no threshold. What there is, is a single undifferentiated permission: a non-national who wants to take up residence applies to the Prime Minister's Office, and residency sits in the Prime Minister's own portfolio. Nothing is published about what that application requires, what it costs, or how long it takes. The tax side, by contrast, is readable and favourable: a resident who is not ordinarily resident is charged on foreign income only as it is received here, and pensions are exempt to EC$20,000 a year.
At a glance
- A residence route for people living on foreign income
- None published
Checked against the Passport and Immigration Department's pages, the Prime Minister's Office pages, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the House of Assembly's record of every Act passed from 1993 to 2025.
- What exists instead
- One permission, decided at the Prime Minister's Office
Residence and employment are treated as a single permission. The Governor-General's assignment of portfolios lists citizenship, residency, work permits and alien's landholding licences together as subjects of the Prime Minister.
- Income threshold
- Not published
The Passport and Immigration Department's residence and work permits page, quoted here, says only that permission must be obtained and that applications go to the Prime Minister's Office. It names no figure, and we found no Vincentian instrument that does.
- Tax on foreign income if you are resident but not ordinarily resident
- Only as received here
Section 8(2) of the Income Tax Act. See the tax residency page: ordinary residence turns on keeping a permanent place of abode, not on counting days.
Requirements
- An application for permission to take up residence, lodged at the Prime Minister's Office, Financial Complex, Kingstown
- Nothing further is published: no income threshold, no form, no fee, no processing time
In detail
One door, and no sign on it
The Passport and Immigration Department's page on visitors' permits ends with two sentences on residence: non-nationals who wish to take up residence and employment in the state must first obtain permission to do so, and applications should be lodged at the Prime Minister's Office in the Financial Complex in Kingstown. That is the whole of what the Government publishes about becoming a resident. There is no category for someone with investment income or a remote salary, no stated threshold, no published form and no fee. The Governor-General's assignment of portfolios confirms where the decision sits rather than what it involves: citizenship, residency, work permits and alien's landholding licences are four consecutive subjects of the Prime Minister's office.
The tax treatment is the part you can actually read
Someone living here on income from elsewhere should read section 8 of the Income Tax Act before anything else. A resident is charged on income from all sources, in or out of the country - but a resident who is not ordinarily resident is charged on foreign income only to the extent it is received in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Ordinary residence is defined by keeping a permanent place of abode here, so a person who becomes resident by counting one hundred and eighty-three days without establishing a permanent abode falls into the remittance treatment. Pension income, local or foreign, is exempt to twenty thousand East Caribbean dollars a year under section 14(u).
Country-level policy
A non-national cannot simply buy land here. The Aliens (Land Holding Regulation) Act, Chapter 316, requires a licence, and the licence is not a registry formality: the Governor-General's assignment of portfolios lists "Alien's Landholding Licences" among the Prime Minister's own subjects, immediately after citizenship, residency and work permits. Parliament's record shows the Act amended in 1993, 1996, 2000 and most recently by Act No. 13 of 2022. None of those texts is published, so the fee, the conditions, any development obligation and any exemption for CARICOM or OECS nationals are all unknown.
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.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Saint Lucia
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«Non-nationals who wish to take up residence and employment in the state must first obtain permission to do so. Applications should be lodged at the Prime Minister’s Office, Financial Complex, Kingstown.»About this source
The department that stamps passports and issues entry permits. Publishes the periods of stay granted on arrival by nationality, the extension procedure and its charge, the list of countries whose citizens need an entry visa in advance, the visa application requirements and fee, and the list of services the department offers. Also the registration point for nationals exercising CARICOM full free movement.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Everything it publishes is a description of practice, not a citation of the Immigration (Restriction) Act, Chapter 114, which is not published anywhere. It must never be cited as the legal basis for a period of stay, a fee or a visa requirement - only as the administering department's statement of what it does. It is silent on residence and work permits beyond naming the office that decides them, silent on students, and silent on the driving licence exemption its own government announced for full free movement nationals.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Citizenship
Residency
Work Permits
Alien's Landholding Licences»About 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
«his assessable income shall include income accrued from sources out of Saint Vincent
and the Grenadines, but only to the extent that such income is received in Saint Vincent
and the Grenadines.»Known to be out of date. The Fifth Schedule here prints 30% on chargeable income between $10,001 and $30,000 and 32.5% on a company's, and section 47(1)(b) prints an eighteen thousand dollar allowance. The Finance Act 2023 substituted 28% in both places of the Schedule and twenty-two thousand dollars in section 47, and the Inland Revenue Department now publishes a standard deduction of $25,000. None of those changes is in this text, and the instrument that moved the company rate from 32.5% to the 30% the 2023 Act amended is one we have not read.
The closing words of section 8(2), which apply to a resident who is not ordinarily resident.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Administers income tax, VAT, excise and the climate resiliency levy, and - unusually - issues every class of driving permit. One of only two departments that publish the text of statutes: it posts the Income Tax Act as Chapter 435, the VAT Act, the Excise Acts, the Finance Act and the Land Tax Act. Also publishes current rates, the standard deduction by year, the PAYE tables and the driving licence fee schedule.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: The Chapter 435 text it posts is the Revised Edition, consolidated to 1 January 2009, and nothing on the page says so. Its Fifth Schedule prints a 30 per cent individual band and a 32.5 per cent company rate that are no longer the law, and its section 47 allowance of eighteen thousand dollars has been superseded twice. The department's own rate pages are current but are not instruments, and the standard deduction of $25,000 it publishes for 2024 and 2025 is not traceable to any published Act. Its driving licence pages give no statutory basis at all.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«(u) the income on all pensions, including social security payments, whether
earned locally or abroad with effect from the income year 1986:»Known to be out of date. The Fifth Schedule here prints 30% on chargeable income between $10,001 and $30,000 and 32.5% on a company's, and section 47(1)(b) prints an eighteen thousand dollar allowance. The Finance Act 2023 substituted 28% in both places of the Schedule and twenty-two thousand dollars in section 47, and the Inland Revenue Department now publishes a standard deduction of $25,000. None of those changes is in this text, and the instrument that moved the company rate from 32.5% to the 30% the 2023 Act amended is one we have not read.
Capped at twenty thousand dollars a year by the proviso.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Administers income tax, VAT, excise and the climate resiliency levy, and - unusually - issues every class of driving permit. One of only two departments that publish the text of statutes: it posts the Income Tax Act as Chapter 435, the VAT Act, the Excise Acts, the Finance Act and the Land Tax Act. Also publishes current rates, the standard deduction by year, the PAYE tables and the driving licence fee schedule.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: The Chapter 435 text it posts is the Revised Edition, consolidated to 1 January 2009, and nothing on the page says so. Its Fifth Schedule prints a 30 per cent individual band and a 32.5 per cent company rate that are no longer the law, and its section 47 allowance of eighteen thousand dollars has been superseded twice. The department's own rate pages are current but are not instruments, and the standard deduction of $25,000 it publishes for 2024 and 2025 is not traceable to any published Act. Its driving licence pages give no statutory basis at all.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The statement that no income-based residence category exists is based on the Passport and Immigration Department's pages, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' pages, the Government's own business and investment pages, and the House of Assembly's record of every Act passed between 1993 and 2025. It is not based on reading the Immigration (Restriction) Act, Chapter 114, which is sold at the Government Printing Office and published nowhere.
Because residence and employment are a single permission at the same office, a person who intends to live here without working may still be going through the process built for people who intend to work. Nothing published distinguishes them.
- administersVisitors' Permits, Residence and Work Permits
Ministry of National Security, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
About this source
The department that stamps passports and issues entry permits. Publishes the periods of stay granted on arrival by nationality, the extension procedure and its charge, the list of countries whose citizens need an entry visa in advance, the visa application requirements and fee, and the list of services the department offers. Also the registration point for nationals exercising CARICOM full free movement.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Everything it publishes is a description of practice, not a citation of the Immigration (Restriction) Act, Chapter 114, which is not published anywhere. It must never be cited as the legal basis for a period of stay, a fee or a visa requirement - only as the administering department's statement of what it does. It is silent on residence and work permits beyond naming the office that decides them, silent on students, and silent on the driving licence exemption its own government announced for full free movement nationals.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
- issuesGazette of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Vol. 158 No. 69, 30 December 2025
Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - Official Gazette, Ministry of Legal Affairs and Justice
About 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
- administersIncome Tax Act, Chapter 435 (Laws of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines)
Inland Revenue Department, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines · consolidated to 2009-01-01
Known to be out of date. The Fifth Schedule here prints 30% on chargeable income between $10,001 and $30,000 and 32.5% on a company's, and section 47(1)(b) prints an eighteen thousand dollar allowance. The Finance Act 2023 substituted 28% in both places of the Schedule and twenty-two thousand dollars in section 47, and the Inland Revenue Department now publishes a standard deduction of $25,000. None of those changes is in this text, and the instrument that moved the company rate from 32.5% to the 30% the 2023 Act amended is one we have not read.
About this source
Administers income tax, VAT, excise and the climate resiliency levy, and - unusually - issues every class of driving permit. One of only two departments that publish the text of statutes: it posts the Income Tax Act as Chapter 435, the VAT Act, the Excise Acts, the Finance Act and the Land Tax Act. Also publishes current rates, the standard deduction by year, the PAYE tables and the driving licence fee schedule.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: The Chapter 435 text it posts is the Revised Edition, consolidated to 1 January 2009, and nothing on the page says so. Its Fifth Schedule prints a 30 per cent individual band and a 32.5 per cent company rate that are no longer the law, and its section 47 allowance of eighteen thousand dollars has been superseded twice. The department's own rate pages are current but are not instruments, and the standard deduction of $25,000 it publishes for 2024 and 2025 is not traceable to any published Act. Its driving licence pages give no statutory basis at all.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source