Studying in Suriname: No Student Permit, a Visa Requirement the Tourist Waiver Does Not Reach

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the Income Tax Act's consolidated text carries amendments only to S.B. 2003 no. 30, prints its rate table in a currency withdrawn in 2004, and has ten later amending entries in the portal's own list.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.

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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.

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The sub-directorate that decides residence, extension, settlement and naturalisation applications under the Vreemdelingenwet 1991, the Vreemdelingenbesluit 1995 and the Wet op de Nationaliteit en het Ingezetenschap. Its site publishes the categorisation of aliens it works to (Surinaamse origine, CARICOM staatsburgers, overige vreemdelingen), the application types it accepts, the authorisation-for-short-stay procedure, document lists, announcements and a register of granted residence permits.

Standing: Applies the rule

Cannot be cited for: It states practice, not law, and the two diverge in both directions. It gives CARICOM nationals a six-month short stay where the Vreemdelingenwet gives a visa-free visitor three months, and it gives a recognised skilled citizen an indefinite stay the Wet Bekwame Burgers does not confer at all. It describes the marriage option right as open to any alien married to a Surinamese national for two years, where article 12 of the nationality law covers only a wife and states no duration. It attributes the Presidential naturalisation power to article 16 of that law when the power is in article 16a. Its page on categories of aliens announces that the Caribbean Community has fifteen member countries and then lists fourteen, omitting Haiti. It cites instruments it does not publish - the beschikking S.B. 2016 no. 17 on aliens of Surinamese origin and the resolution S.B. 2004 no. 120 on charges - so a figure or a condition found only here has no readable source behind it. Its own announcements page is stale: the latest dated notice is 15 November 2021. It serves a self-signed certificate on https, so a plain client rejects it; it reads over http and through the extraction service.

We re-read it every 60 days. More 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