Barbados’ foreign exchange permits jumped from 586 in 2019 to 2 465 last year, Minister of Business Senator Lisa Cummins said yesterday.
The Leader of Government Business was leading off debate on the Foreign Currency Permits Bill, 2025 that will repeal and replace the Foreign Currency Permits Act, 2018. It will make better provision for the granting of the permits to qualified entities earning 100 per cent of their annual income in foreign currency, as some had been omitted in the previous legislation.
She explained that when the regime started in 2019, Barbados had 586 and in 2020, there were 264 new entrants and 449 renewals, bringing the number to 713. In 2021, there were 1 892 new foreign currency permit holders, 585 renewals for a total of 2 077; 2022 added 259 new foreign currency permit holders for a total of 2 352; and in 2023 there were 288 new applications for 2 550 total permits.
“The expectation is that by 2025 with the amendments that we have just made, as it relates to the Customs Duty, inclusion of trusts, removing or including the shipping sector, the expectation from my ministry is that we will see an increase in the foreign currency permit regime for the year 2025,” Cummins said.
Government, she added, needed to change the wording of the trust legislation, the exchange control legislation, the value added tax legislation
and the Property Transfer Tax Act.
Yesterday’s amendment was to regularise the international business sector and address two segments of the market that qualified the holders for foreign currency permits, after they were not incorporated under the other legislation, even though they earned 100 per cent of their revenue from outside Barbados and their earnings were 100 per cent in foreign currency.
The changes are designed to make Barbados competitive with other domiciles as the trusts that were originally set up as international trusts had become ineligible to have the benefit of exemptions from exchange controls, stamp duty and indirect tax. The legislation, the minister said, had to be amended as a consequence of actions by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“By making these changes to offer a currency permit legislation and including trust, they allow Barbados to compete in that space as well, whereas others typically would have held a competitive advantage. This is a competitiveness measure,” Cummins pointed out. ( AC)
