Studying in Trinidad and Tobago
Students are permitted entrants, not residents. Section 9(1) of the Immigration Act has two separate student paragraphs: paragraph (f) for people entering to attend, and after entry actually attending, a university or college authorised by statute or charter to confer degrees, and paragraph (g) for people accepted by an educational or training establishment recognised by the Permanent Secretary or the Chief Immigration Officer. Both depend on actual attendance, so the status falls away when the attendance does. The Immigration Division issues a student permit online and charges TT$400, halved to TT$200 for a CARICOM national - which is exactly what the Fourth Schedule to the Immigration Regulations prescribes since 1 January 2026, so the agency and the instrument agree. The Division adds one thing the Regulations do not: full-time registered students of the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies do not require student permits at all. Time as a student counts towards the five years section 6(1)(a) needs, because a student is a permitted entrant and only time under a Minister's permit is excluded.
At a glance
- Student permit fee
- TT$400as of 2026-01-01
Fourth Schedule item (v) as substituted by LN 493 of 2025. It was TT$200 before.
- Student permit fee for a CARICOM national
- TT$200as of 2026-01-01
Half the fee, under paragraph B of the Fourth Schedule, which names item (v).
- UWI St Augustine full-time students
- No student permit required
Stated by the Immigration Division. No instrument we read carries this exemption.
- Duration
- The full duration of study
- Passport validity required
- At least one year
- Does student time count towards residence
- Yes
A student is a permitted entrant under section 9(1); only time under a section 10 permit is excluded by section 5(2)(c).
Requirements
- Acceptance by a university or college authorised by statute or charter to confer degrees, or by an establishment recognised by the Permanent Secretary or the Chief Immigration Officer
- Actual attendance after entry - the paragraph requires it in terms
- A student permit for the full duration of study, applied for online
- A passport valid at least one year
- A visa as well, if your nationality requires one
In detail
Two kinds of student, and the word actually
The Act splits students in two. Paragraph (f) covers a degree-granting university or college authorised by statute or charter; paragraph (g) covers any other educational or training establishment, but only one recognised by the Permanent Secretary to the Minister or by the Chief Immigration Officer, which makes recognition an administrative act with no published register. Both paragraphs say the same thing twice: the person must be entering for the purpose of attending and, having entered, must be in actual attendance. That is not decoration. A permitted entrant who stops attending falls outside the paragraph he was admitted under, and section 9(4)(k) then lets the Minister declare that he has ceased to be a permitted entrant for breaking the conditions of his certificate.
A fee the agency and the instrument agree about
This is worth recording because it is rare. The Immigration Division's student permit page states two figures, TT$200 for CARICOM nationals and TT$400 for everyone else. The Fourth Schedule to the Immigration Regulations, as substituted with effect from 1 January 2026, prescribes TT$400 for a Student's Permit at item (v) and provides at paragraph B that citizens of CARICOM countries pay one-half the fees at items (i), (iv), (v), (vii) and (ix). Item (v) is the Student's Permit. The agency charges exactly what the instrument prescribes, in both branches, which is not what this comparison usually finds.
Country-level policy
Every page of the Laws of Trinidad and Tobago published on the Ministry of the Attorney General's site carries two lines of its own: UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016. Both are true and both matter. The Law Revision Act makes the Law Revision Commission responsible for preparing, publishing and maintaining the revised edition; section 5 says the Laws shall be published in loose-leaf form or in such other form as the Commission may determine; section 6 provides that every page must be authorised for inclusion by Order and that every page so authorised, and no other, shall form part of the Laws; and section 15 makes those authorised pages, in all Courts and for all purposes, the proper Statute Book. The web PDFs do not claim to be those pages. Their Current Authorised Pages table has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. and the column is empty. In May 2026 Parliament passed an Act to fix this - the Law Revision (Amendment) Act, which would let the Minister designate a website as the sole official website and make a download from it deemed official and authoritative, prevailing over the loose-leaf where they differ. It was assented on 15 May 2026 and comes into operation on such date as is fixed by the President by Proclamation. No such Proclamation appears among the 822 legal notices of 2026.
The Immigration (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2025 revoked and substituted four Schedules to the Immigration Regulations with effect from 1 January 2026. Set against what they replaced, every figure that survived is exactly twice what it was. The work permit application went from TT$600 to TT$1,200 and the monthly charge from TT$450 to TT$900 with the minimum from TT$1,350 to TT$2,700; the Certificate of Residence from TT$400 to TT$800 for a CARICOM national and from TT$1,000 to TT$2,000 for everyone else; the Student's Permit from TT$200 to TT$400; the Visa Waiver from TT$400 to TT$800; the Change of Status from TT$100 to TT$200; ship clearance from TT$100 to TT$200 for the first three hours. One item did not double: the Certificate for Facilitation of Entry, which had cost TT$100 for a CARICOM national and TT$500 for anyone else, was dropped from the Schedule entirely and the remaining items renumbered. The half-rate for citizens of CARICOM countries survived, and its cross-references were correctly updated to the new numbering.
Exceptions by origin
Half the Immigration Fees, Written into the 2025 Regulations
The fee schedule halves for Community citizens and says so in a note at the foot of the form rather than in the body of the Regulations. It reaches the student permit among several other items, so what a CARICOM student pays is half of what everyone else pays for the same document.
What the law says
«(f) students entering Trinidad and Tobago for the
purpose of attending, and who having entered
Trinidad and Tobago are in actual attendance at,
a university or college authorised by statute or
charter to confer degrees;»About this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«(g) persons who have been accepted as students by
an educational or training establishment
recognised by the Permanent Secretary to the
Minister, or the Chief Immigration Officer, and
who, after entering Trinidad and Tobago are in
actual attendance at such educational or
training establishment;»About this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«(c) is in Trinidad and Tobago under a permit.»Read with section 5(2) opening words, which exclude the period from the acquisition of resident status. A student permit is issued under the Regulations, not under section 10, so this does not reach it.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«(v) Student’s Permit … … … … 400.00
(vi) Visa Waiver … … … … … 800.00
(vii) Change of Status … … … … 200.00»About this source
The Government's legislative database at laws.gov.tt. It carries three things nothing else does: a chronological list of Legal Notices and Government Notices from 1838 to 2026, each downloadable as the Government Printer's PDF of the Legal Supplement; an alphabetical and chronological register of Acts and Ordinances from 1838 to 2026 with commencement dates; and lists of Acts by status, including unproclaimed Acts. This is where the Proclamation bringing parts of the 2022 CARICOM Act into force, the 2024, 2025 and 2026 Immigration Regulations amendments, the work permit exemption Orders and every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 were read. Documents are reached by a numeric download identifier rather than by name.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Its consolidated Acts are the same edition as the Law Revision Commission's, updated to 31 December 2016, and it labels its own post-2006 versions Unofficial Update; it must not be cited for the current text of any Act. Its Unproclaimed Acts page is captioned Acts not in operation as at December 2015 and must not be read as current. Its download addresses are opaque numeric identifiers with no relation to the Act or Notice number, so an instrument cannot be reached without going through a listing first, and the year filter on the legal notices page works only by HTTP POST - a year in the query string is silently ignored and the current year is served instead, which is how a reading can appear to cover 2023 and in fact cover 2026. Its full-text search returns results in a sidebar without the document, so an apparently empty result is not evidence of absence.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«B. Citizens of Caricom countries shall pay one-half the fees
stipulated at (i), (iv), (v), (vii) and (ix).”.»Item (v) is the Student's Permit. The half-rate also reaches the Landing Certificate variation, the Certificate of Residence, the Change of Status and letters confirming citizenship or residence.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government's legislative database at laws.gov.tt. It carries three things nothing else does: a chronological list of Legal Notices and Government Notices from 1838 to 2026, each downloadable as the Government Printer's PDF of the Legal Supplement; an alphabetical and chronological register of Acts and Ordinances from 1838 to 2026 with commencement dates; and lists of Acts by status, including unproclaimed Acts. This is where the Proclamation bringing parts of the 2022 CARICOM Act into force, the 2024, 2025 and 2026 Immigration Regulations amendments, the work permit exemption Orders and every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 were read. Documents are reached by a numeric download identifier rather than by name.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Its consolidated Acts are the same edition as the Law Revision Commission's, updated to 31 December 2016, and it labels its own post-2006 versions Unofficial Update; it must not be cited for the current text of any Act. Its Unproclaimed Acts page is captioned Acts not in operation as at December 2015 and must not be read as current. Its download addresses are opaque numeric identifiers with no relation to the Act or Notice number, so an instrument cannot be reached without going through a listing first, and the year filter on the legal notices page works only by HTTP POST - a year in the query string is silently ignored and the current year is served instead, which is how a reading can appear to cover 2023 and in fact cover 2026. Its full-text search returns results in a sidebar without the document, so an apparently empty result is not evidence of absence.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The exemption for full-time registered students of the University of the West Indies at St Augustine is published by the Immigration Division and appears in no instrument we read. The Immigration Regulations contain no such exemption and section 9(1)(f) draws no distinction between universities.
The Division requires a passport valid for at least one year for a student permit, which is longer than the six months it requires for a visa.
There is no post-study work route. A graduate who wants to stay and work needs a work permit like anyone else, unless he is a CARICOM national with a skills certificate.
This record rests on section 9(1) of the Immigration Act as published in the Revised Laws updated to 31 December 2016, on the Fourth Schedule to the Immigration Regulations as substituted by LN 493 of 2025, and on the Immigration Division's student permit page.
- consolidatesImmigration Act, Chapter 18:01
Law Revision Commission, Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs of Trinidad and Tobago · consolidated to 2016-12-31
About this source
The Commission established by section 3 of the Law Revision Act, Chap. 3:03, whose statutory function under section 4 is to prepare, publish and maintain the revised edition of the written laws of Trinidad and Tobago. It serves the whole statute book as one PDF per Chapter from a flat path, each file carrying the Chapter number as its name, together with the subsidiary legislation made under that Act printed behind it and an index of it on the front. The Constitution is served separately. This is where every consolidated Chapter cited for this country comes from: the Immigration Act 18:01 with the Immigration Regulations, the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act 18:03, the Citizenship Act 1:50, the Income Tax Act 75:01, the Caribbean Community Act 81:11 with the whole Revised Treaty as its Schedule, the Customs Act 78:01, the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act 48:50 with the 1986 driving exemption Notice, the Foreign Investment Act 70:07, the Exchange Control Act 79:50, the Proceeds of Crime Act 11:27 with the Financial Obligations Regulations, the Health Surcharge Act 75:05 and the Regional Health Authorities Act 29:05.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It says on every page that it is not the law. Each page carries the words UNOFFICIAL VERSION and UPDATED TO 31ST DECEMBER 2016, and the Current Authorised Pages table on the front of each Chapter has a column headed Authorised by L.R.O. which is empty. Under sections 6 and 15 of the Law Revision Act only pages authorised by a Law Revision Order form part of the Laws and are the proper Statute Book, so these files are a copy and not the edition. It must therefore never be cited as the authentic text, and never for the law after 31 December 2016: the Immigration (Caribbean Community Skilled Nationals) Act printed here is the pre-2022 text, in which sections 3 and 4 are the other way round from the sections now in force, and the Income Tax Act printed here states a personal allowance of seventy-two thousand dollars that has twice been raised since. It must also not be used for commencement after that date, because no instrument later than the cut-off appears in it at all. Its layout sets each section's marginal note inside the text column rather than in a margin, so a section number usually sits in the middle of a line and a sentence is interrupted by the note's words; quotations have to reproduce that, and our own check for sections an edition lists and does not print reports these Chapters as incomplete when they are not. Its server sends an incomplete TLS chain, so a plain client rejects it until the GeoTrust intermediate is supplied.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
- issuesImmigration (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations, 2025 (Legal Notice No. 493 of 2025)
Digital Legislative Library, Trinidad and Tobago
About this source
The Government's legislative database at laws.gov.tt. It carries three things nothing else does: a chronological list of Legal Notices and Government Notices from 1838 to 2026, each downloadable as the Government Printer's PDF of the Legal Supplement; an alphabetical and chronological register of Acts and Ordinances from 1838 to 2026 with commencement dates; and lists of Acts by status, including unproclaimed Acts. This is where the Proclamation bringing parts of the 2022 CARICOM Act into force, the 2024, 2025 and 2026 Immigration Regulations amendments, the work permit exemption Orders and every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 were read. Documents are reached by a numeric download identifier rather than by name.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: Its consolidated Acts are the same edition as the Law Revision Commission's, updated to 31 December 2016, and it labels its own post-2006 versions Unofficial Update; it must not be cited for the current text of any Act. Its Unproclaimed Acts page is captioned Acts not in operation as at December 2015 and must not be read as current. Its download addresses are opaque numeric identifiers with no relation to the Act or Notice number, so an instrument cannot be reached without going through a listing first, and the year filter on the legal notices page works only by HTTP POST - a year in the query string is silently ignored and the current year is served instead, which is how a reading can appear to cover 2023 and in fact cover 2026. Its full-text search returns results in a sidebar without the document, so an apparently empty result is not evidence of absence.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- administersStudent Permit Online Services
Ministry of Homeland Security of Trinidad and Tobago - Immigration Division
About this source
The ministry that applies the Immigration Act. It took the immigration portfolio from the Ministry of National Security, whose address now redirects here. Its pages set out the work permit process, including the requirement that applications for one to nine permits go through the TTBizLink portal and that applications for ten or more use a single group form, the eVisa and eStudent Permit services with the fees charged for each, the list of countries whose citizens do not require entry visas, and the passport fees and documents.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It states practice and not law. Its visa-free list carries no date on its face - only the upload directory in its address - and two different lists are served from the site at once, a longer one from February 2024 and a shorter one from September 2024, with nothing saying which supersedes which. Neither includes the United States or any European Union state, so neither is a complete answer to who needs a visa, and the exemption those travellers use is in regulation 13(8)(b) for countries with Visa Abolition Agreements, which the Division does not publish. Its statement that full-time registered students of the University of the West Indies at St Augustine do not require student permits appears in no instrument. The link it labels Immigration Act of Trinidad and Tobago Chapter 18:01 on its work permit page does not serve the Act: it serves Legal Notice No. 493 of 2025, the fee regulations. Its Minister's Permit page publishes weekly collection lists and no statement of what is required to obtain one.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source