Moving Your Things In: Trade in Goods Is Free by Statute, and the Relief for a Mover's Effects Is Not Published
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Antigua and Barbuda 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 Antigua and Barbuda to Suriname · Bringing your belongings
The Wet Goederenverkeer of 2003 states the starting position in one sentence: trade in goods with abroad is free, subject to measures that may be taken by State decree on grounds such as public order, security, health and the environment, and to a negative list of goods whose import or export is prohibited, requires a licence or gets special treatment. That is the rule about whether goods may come in at all. What it does not touch is duty, and the relief a person moving to Suriname would look for - exemption for household effects, for a vehicle, for the tools of a trade - sits in the Wet Tarief van Invoerrechten 1996, which the National Assembly's collection does not publish. The collection carries amendments to the tariff list and an Act amending the 1996 Act, not the 1996 Act itself. The only duty relief we could read is the investment one: a facility granted under the Investeringswet 2001 brings with it a permit for import and export of goods and services, policed by the import, export and foreign exchange control service.
At a glance
- General rule
- Trade in goods with abroad is free, subject to the exceptions the Act allows
- Household effects relief
- Not established
- Vehicle relief
- Not established
- Investment facility
- Carries a permit for import and export of goods and services
Requirements
- Goods not on the negative list made by State decree, or a licence where the list requires one
- Compliance with sanitary, phytosanitary and technical measures where they apply to what is being brought in
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.
Suriname borders Guyana, Brazil and French Guiana, and its aliens regulation names none of the crossings. Article 3 of the Vreemdelingenbesluit 1995 provides that border posts are established by the Minister at places designated for the purpose, that the Minister designates the officers who staff them and the hours they are open, and that he may authorise temporary posts in special circumstances. Article 4 then makes it an obligation on every alien entering or leaving to proceed via such a post within its opening hours and present himself there. Where those posts are is a ministerial designation that we did not find published. Guyana, across the Corantijn, does the opposite and writes its ports of entry into a regulation. What Suriname does publish is a list of two places where the entry fee can be paid in cash, on a Ministry of Foreign Affairs page: the Consulate-General at Cayenne and the dependance at Saint-Laurent for an arrival from French Guiana, and the Canawaima Management Company at South Drain, Nickerie for an arrival from Guyana. Brazil is on neither list.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda
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. Het goederenverkeer met het buitenland is vrij, behoudens het bepaalde in de leden 2 en 3.»Our translation - not official
Trade in goods with abroad is free, except as provided in sub-sections 2 and 3.
Sub-section (2) allows general measures by State decree on grounds of public order, public morality, state security, public safety, the international legal order, the health and life of persons, animals or plants, the environment, the national artistic heritage and industrial and commercial property, and special measures under sanitary, phytosanitary, technical, anti-dumping and safeguard rules. Sub-section (3) requires a negative list by State decree.
«1. Indien de Minister een faciliteit uit deze wet verleent, zal voor zover vereist en met
inachtneming van ter zake geldende bepalingen door de daartoe bevoegde instantie
tevens een vergunning worden verleend ten aanzien van :
a. verblijf en vestiging van buitenlands personeel;
b. tewerkstelling van buitenlands personeel;
c. vestiging van een onderneming;»Our translation - not official
If the Minister grants a facility under this Act, then insofar as required and with due regard to the provisions applicable, a permit shall also be granted by the competent authority in respect of: (a) residence and settlement of foreign personnel; (b) employment of foreign personnel; (c) establishment of an undertaking;
Paragraph (d) is import and export of goods and services. Article 24(3) makes the import, export and foreign exchange control service of the Ministry of Trade and Industry responsible for checking that this facility is correctly applied.
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
Practical notes
The duty relief a mover needs is in customs legislation we did not read. The Wet Tarief van Invoerrechten 1996, S.B. 1995 no. 111, is cited by both the Investeringswet and the Wet Fiscale Jurisdictie, so it is in force; the National Assembly's collection publishes amendments to its tariff list but not the Act. This is a gap in our reading, not an absence of relief.
The Wet Goederenverkeer requires a negative list by State decree. We did not find that decree, so what currently needs a licence to be imported is not recorded here.
Suriname has an Act on advance cargo information of 2022 and an Act on the transfer of passenger and crew lists, both in the collection of Acts after 2005 and both unread by us. Either may bear on what a traveller must declare.
- consolidatesWet Goederenverkeer (S.B. 2003 no. 58)
De Nationale Assemblee van de Republiek Suriname
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
- consolidatesInvesteringswet 2001 (S.B. 2002 no. 42)
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