Country-wide policy
Three land borders, and the places you may cross them are not published
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.
Topics it changes
At a glance
- Crossings named in the regulation
- None
- Crossings named anywhere we read
- Two, on a page about where to pay a fee
- Crossing from Brazil
- Not named
- Duty at the border
- Proceed via a border post within its hours and present yourself to an officer
- Bilateral instrument with France
- Police cooperation, two kilometres each side of the Marowijne
- Bilateral instrument with Guyana or Brazil on borders
- None found
What crossing a land frontier is, legally
The Vreemdelingenbesluit treats entry and exit as one subject and defines leaving to include being aboard a vehicle, vessel or aircraft bound out of Suriname and being in a border area with the evident purpose of leaving. A driver must stop on demand, cooperate with the control, and of his own motion report any alien in the vehicle whom he knows or may reasonably suspect does not meet the border-crossing obligations. There is no separate land-border regime and no lighter rule for a short hop across a river: the same entry control applies at a river ferry as at an airport, and the same obligation to present a document for crossing the border and to show means of subsistence.
What the law says
«1. In het belang van de controle op de binnenkomst worden door de Minister doorlaatposten
op daartoe aangewezen plaatsen ingesteld.»Our translation - not official
In the interest of entry control, border posts are established by the Minister at places designated for the purpose.
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
«1. Een vreemdeling die Suriname in- of uitreist, is verplicht zich te begeven langs een
doorlaatpost, binnen de tijd dat deze is opengesteld, en zich aldaar te vervoegen bij een
ambtenaar, belast met de controle op de binnenkomst.»Our translation - not official
An alien entering or leaving Suriname is obliged to proceed via a border post, within the time it is open, and to present himself there to an officer charged with entry control.
Sub-section (2) lifts the duty in cases the Minister determines to implement a treaty or a binding decision of an international organisation, and for aliens he exempts. The derogation exists; we found no instrument using it.
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
«- Fysieke betaling bij de onderstaande grensposten:
- Het Consulaat Generaal van de Republiek Suriname te Cayenne en de Dependance van de Republiek Suriname te Saint Laurent, indien u vanuit Frans Guyana afreist
- De Canawaima Management Company bij South Drain, Nickerie indien u vanuit Guyana afreist»Our translation - not official
Physical payment at the following border posts: the Consulate-General of the Republic of Suriname at Cayenne and the Dependance of the Republic of Suriname at Saint Laurent, if you are travelling from French Guiana; the Canawaima Management Company at South Drain, Nickerie if you are travelling from Guyana
The page calls these grensposten, border posts, which is the regulation's own word for the places article 3 establishes. It is the nearest thing to a published list of crossings that we found.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The ministry responsible for visas, consular affairs and the PSA status. Its page on travelling to Suriname is the only published statement of the unilateral visa waiver in force since 1 July 2022, of the twenty-one nationalities excluded from it since 1 May 2023, of the entry fee and its exempt groups, and of the two land border posts at which the fee can be paid in cash. It also issues the PSA document under the Wet PSA.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: Everything on the travel page is published as a measure, not as an instrument: there is no Staatsblad reference for the waiver, for the exclusion list or for the entry fee, and we found none in the National Assembly's collections. The two dates on the page are different - the waiver from 1 July 2022, the exclusion list from 1 May 2023 - so the list is a later narrowing rather than part of the original measure, and a reader has no way to tell when either last moved. The ninety days it states is not a period the Vreemdelingenwet uses. Its list of land payment points is the only published list of Surinamese border crossings we found, and it is a list of places to pay a charge rather than the ministerial designation of doorlaatposten that article 3 of the Vreemdelingenbesluit calls for; Brazil, with which Suriname shares a land frontier, is not on it. The entry fee is collected by a commercial contractor whose own site answers 403.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«Deze Overeenkomst is van toepassing in het grensgebied dat als volgt wordt omschreven:
a. de Marowijnerivier,
b. een strook van twee kilometer breed op het grondgebied van elk der partijen, gerekend vanaf de oever van de Marowijnerivier.»Our translation - not official
This Agreement applies in the border area described as follows: (a) the Marowijne river, (b) a strip two kilometres wide on the territory of each of the parties, counted from the bank of the Marowijne river.
This instrument is published only as an image. The wording above was read off that picture and checked by eye, so it did not pass the machine verbatim check the other quotations passed. Treat it as accurate but re-read the scan before relying on it.
Practical notes
The absence of a published list of crossings is a gap in our reading of what the Minister has designated, not a finding that no crossings are designated. The crossings exist; the designation is not in the National Assembly's collection, which carries Acts, amendments and treaties rather than ministerial designations.
Suriname has unresolved boundary questions with both neighbours it shares a river with. The approving Act for the French police agreement says in terms that the disputed area in the south is outside its scope, and the Guyanese dispute over the New River area is not addressed in anything we read.