Oranjestad, St. Eustatius- The Public Entity St. Eustatius has a new Airport tax ordinance which was established on December 7th, 2020.

The new ordinance does not bring about an immediate increase of the taxes levied, but establishes clear guidelines for the amounts to be paid, exceptions to the tax and also rules and procedures related to the Airport Tax.

The amount for the tax stands unchanged at 15 dollars per departing passenger with destination one of the islands of the former Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. Children under the age of two are exempt, as are transit passengers, members of the Royal family and some other categories such as military or medical personnel.

The fare to travel to other destinations outside of Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire, St. Maarten or Saba is -also unchanged- 18 dollars.

Catching up

According to Monique James-Brown from the Legal Department of the Public Entity, the publication of the Airport Tax Ordinance and other ordinances is part of a plan to deal with a backlog in outdated ordinances, which existed since the change in constitutional status on 10/10/10.

“The vast majority of our regulations needed to be updated. The local government received over these past years assistance through BZK in a joint effort with the office of Legal Affairs of the public entity of Sint Eustatius to have this done”, according to James-Brown.

James Brown also explained that there were in total 90 regulations, of which only 18 are now left to be still updated and published.

Pleased

Acting Government Commissioner Alida Francis showed herself positive with the progress made at the Legal Department. “We came from a situation of the biggest backlog of all three BES-islands and we have made a lot of progress in actualizing the various ordinances”.

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