Opening an Account: the Identification Statute Accepts a Foreign Document and Asks for No Status
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Jamaica 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 Jamaica to Suriname · Opening a bank account
The rule a foreigner meets at a Surinamese bank counter is the Wet Identificatieplicht Dienstverleners of 2002. It obliges every service provider to establish the true identity of the client before providing a financial service, and lists what will do it for a natural person: a valid driving licence under the Rijwet 1971, a valid identity card, a valid travel document, or another valid document from the client's country of origin that satisfies that country's legal requirements. That last limb is the one that matters here. The statute does not require a Surinamese document, a residence permit, a Surinamese address or any immigration status at all; it requires that the identity be established and recorded, and it accepts a foreign document for the purpose. Name, address, place of residence, telephone number, date of birth, nationality, occupation and where relevant the employer are recorded, along with the type, number, date and place of issue of whatever document was used.
At a glance
- Residence permit required to be identified
- No
- Foreign identity document
- Accepted where it meets the legal requirements of the client's country of origin
- Proof of address
- Address is recorded; the Act does not require it to be evidenced
- Foreign company
- Identified by a deed drawn up by a Surinamese notary
Requirements
- A document establishing identity: a Surinamese driving licence, identity card or travel document, or a valid document from your country of origin meeting that country's legal requirements
- The particulars the service provider must record, including address, nationality and occupation
- For a legal person: a certified extract from the Chamber of Commerce in Suriname or a Surinamese notarial deed, and for a foreign legal person a deed drawn up by a Surinamese notary
Country-level policy
Suriname's laws are published by the National Assembly in four collections, and the boundary between them is a date. The first is Geldende teksten tot en met 2005, texts in force to 2005: the amendments were worked into the parent Acts in a project in 2005 to produce consolidated texts. The second and third are the Acts passed after 2005 and the amendments made after 2005, published as facsimiles of the Staatsblad, one instrument at a time. The index page states in terms that the new Acts and amendments have not since been incorporated into the consolidated text. That is a cut-off stated by the publisher rather than inferred from an edition's name, and it is unusually honest: most revised editions in this comparison say nothing about their own staleness. The practical consequence is that reading a consolidated Surinamese Act is only half the work. The other half is the list of post-2005 amendments, where the Income Tax Act alone has ten entries.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Jamaica
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
«1. Iedere dienstverlener is verplicht de ware identiteit van de cliënt vast te»Our translation - not official
Every service provider is obliged to establish the true identity of the client
The sentence continues into the circumstances in which it must be done. Article 4(1) puts the moment of it before a financial service is provided.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The National Assembly's legislation portal, and the only public collection of Surinamese law we found. Four collections, divided by one date. `Geldende teksten t/m 2005` holds consolidated texts: amendments were worked into the parent Acts in a project in 2005. `Wetten na 2005`, `Wijzigingen na 2005` and `Overeenkomsten/verdragen` hold the Acts, amending Acts and treaty-approval Acts published since, each as a facsimile of the page of the Staatsblad van de Republiek Suriname in which it was promulgated. Together about five hundred instruments. It also publishes `Naturalisatie wetten`, because in Suriname naturalisation is granted by an Act of Parliament.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidation stops in 2005 and the portal says so on its own index page: "De nieuwe wetten en wetswijzigingen zijn daarna niet opgenomen in de geldende tekst." So a text from the first collection shows the law as the 2005 project left it and nothing more - the Income Tax Act's consolidated text carries amendments only to S.B. 2003 no. 30, prints its rate table in a currency withdrawn in 2004, and has ten later amending entries in the portal's own list. Every money figure in that collection is in Surinamese guilders. Instruments in the other three collections are as enacted and carry no cut-off, but they are scans with no text layer, so they are readings of a picture. The collection carries Acts, amendments, treaties, naturalisation Acts and budgets, and does NOT carry staatsbesluiten, ministeriële beschikkingen or resoluties - which is where much of Surinamese immigration practice lives, so the absence of a measure here is never evidence that it was not made. It also does not always carry the parent Act: the Rijwet 1971 and the Wet Tarief van Invoerrechten 1996 appear only through instruments amending them, and the 1989 Act amending the Rijwet has a page with no document attached.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«3. Indien de cliënt een natuurlijke persoon is, wordt de identiteit vastgelegd met
behulp van de volgende documenten:
a. een geldig rijbewijs als bedoeld in artikel 7 lid 1 sub 3 van de Rijwet 1971,
of
b. een geldige identiteitskaart, of
c. een geldig reisdocument, of
d. een in het land van herkomst van cliënt ander geldig document, dat aan de
wettelijke eisen van dat land voldoet.»Our translation - not official
If the client is a natural person, the identity is recorded with the help of the following documents: (a) a valid driving licence as referred to in article 7(1)(3) of the Rijwet 1971, or (b) a valid identity card, or (c) a valid travel document, or (d) another valid document from the client's country of origin that satisfies the legal requirements of that country.
About this source
The National Assembly's legislation portal, and the only public collection of Surinamese law we found. Four collections, divided by one date. `Geldende teksten t/m 2005` holds consolidated texts: amendments were worked into the parent Acts in a project in 2005. `Wetten na 2005`, `Wijzigingen na 2005` and `Overeenkomsten/verdragen` hold the Acts, amending Acts and treaty-approval Acts published since, each as a facsimile of the page of the Staatsblad van de Republiek Suriname in which it was promulgated. Together about five hundred instruments. It also publishes `Naturalisatie wetten`, because in Suriname naturalisation is granted by an Act of Parliament.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidation stops in 2005 and the portal says so on its own index page: "De nieuwe wetten en wetswijzigingen zijn daarna niet opgenomen in de geldende tekst." So a text from the first collection shows the law as the 2005 project left it and nothing more - the Income Tax Act's consolidated text carries amendments only to S.B. 2003 no. 30, prints its rate table in a currency withdrawn in 2004, and has ten later amending entries in the portal's own list. Every money figure in that collection is in Surinamese guilders. Instruments in the other three collections are as enacted and carry no cut-off, but they are scans with no text layer, so they are readings of a picture. The collection carries Acts, amendments, treaties, naturalisation Acts and budgets, and does NOT carry staatsbesluiten, ministeriële beschikkingen or resoluties - which is where much of Surinamese immigration practice lives, so the absence of a measure here is never evidence that it was not made. It also does not always carry the parent Act: the Rijwet 1971 and the Wet Tarief van Invoerrechten 1996 appear only through instruments amending them, and the 1989 Act amending the Rijwet has a page with no document attached.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This is the statutory identification duty, not a bank's account-opening conditions. What any individual Surinamese bank asks for is a fact about that bank, and we have read no bank's terms. A bank may lawfully ask for more than the Act requires.
The Act is read in the consolidation frozen in 2005. Suriname has since enacted a Wet ter voorkoming en bestrijding van Money Laundering en Terrorismefinanciering and a Wet Toezicht Bank- en Kredietwezen 2023, both in the National Assembly's collection of Acts after 2005. We have not read either, so customer due diligence obligations beyond this Act are not recorded here.
The Act's reference to a driving licence under article 7(1)(3) of the Rijwet 1971 is the only place in the material we read where the Rijwet is quoted. The Rijwet itself is not published in the National Assembly's collection.
- consolidatesWet Identificatieplicht Dienstverleners (S.B. 2002 no. 66)
De Nationale Assemblee van de Republiek Suriname · consolidated to 2005
About this source
The National Assembly's legislation portal, and the only public collection of Surinamese law we found. Four collections, divided by one date. `Geldende teksten t/m 2005` holds consolidated texts: amendments were worked into the parent Acts in a project in 2005. `Wetten na 2005`, `Wijzigingen na 2005` and `Overeenkomsten/verdragen` hold the Acts, amending Acts and treaty-approval Acts published since, each as a facsimile of the page of the Staatsblad van de Republiek Suriname in which it was promulgated. Together about five hundred instruments. It also publishes `Naturalisatie wetten`, because in Suriname naturalisation is granted by an Act of Parliament.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The consolidation stops in 2005 and the portal says so on its own index page: "De nieuwe wetten en wetswijzigingen zijn daarna niet opgenomen in de geldende tekst." So a text from the first collection shows the law as the 2005 project left it and nothing more - the Income Tax Act's consolidated text carries amendments only to S.B. 2003 no. 30, prints its rate table in a currency withdrawn in 2004, and has ten later amending entries in the portal's own list. Every money figure in that collection is in Surinamese guilders. Instruments in the other three collections are as enacted and carry no cut-off, but they are scans with no text layer, so they are readings of a picture. The collection carries Acts, amendments, treaties, naturalisation Acts and budgets, and does NOT carry staatsbesluiten, ministeriële beschikkingen or resoluties - which is where much of Surinamese immigration practice lives, so the absence of a measure here is never evidence that it was not made. It also does not always carry the parent Act: the Rijwet 1971 and the Wet Tarief van Invoerrechten 1996 appear only through instruments amending them, and the 1989 Act amending the Rijwet has a page with no document attached.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source