Sending money from the UK to the Caribbean is almost always a US dollar transaction, whatever currency the island itself uses. That single fact decides what you should be comparing, and getting it wrong means paying a margin twice: once in London, and again at a bank in the islands that is not competing for your business.
The other thing people assume is that the islands work alike. They do not. Barbados has a registration step that decides whether you can ever bring your money home again. Buying in Tobago needs a licence that buying in Trinidad does not. Bermuda restricts foreign buyers by the rental value of the house rather than the price.
This page covers the currency side island by island, and the ownership rules that go with it, because on several of these islands those rules decide whether the money can come back out. How transfers are priced in general, and the payment fraud that catches buyers out at completion, is in our guide to currency when moving abroad.
The one currency rule that applies everywhere
Almost every Caribbean transfer from the UK is sent in US dollars, not in the local currency. That is not a workaround. It is how the region works, because most of these currencies are fixed to the dollar rather than traded against sterling.
What follows from that is the thing worth knowing before you send anything.
Where the local currency is pegged to the dollar, your only currency risk is sterling against the dollar. The second leg is fixed by law and does not move. So if you are buying in Barbados, the rate to watch and the rate to fix is GBP to USD. Nobody frames it that way, and it changes what you should be asking a broker for.
The pegs, and they have held for decades:
- Barbados dollar, 2 to the US dollar
- East Caribbean dollar, 2.70 to the US dollar, used across Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Anguilla and Montserrat
- Bahamian dollar and Bermudian dollar, both 1 to 1 with the US dollar
- Cayman Islands dollar, fixed above the US dollar at roughly 1.20 US dollars to 1 Cayman dollar
Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana are different. Those currencies float or are managed, so when your dollars land the receiving bank converts them at its own rate, and that rate is set by the bank rather than by anything you agreed in London. You have not avoided the margin. You have moved it from one bank to another, and the second one is not competing for your business.
Two practical answers to that. Ask the receiving bank what rate it gives on incoming dollars before you choose where to send. And for a large sum, a local US dollar account lets the money arrive and sit in dollars until you choose to convert, rather than being converted automatically on arrival at whatever the rate happens to be that morning.
Barbados
Barbados is the one with the step that catches people, and it is not a tax.
Every foreign buyer has to register the purchase funds with the Central Bank of Barbados under the Exchange Control Act, on Form FI. The money must arrive in Barbados in foreign currency, and that inflow is what gets registered.
Miss it and the purchase still completes. The problem arrives years later, when you sell: registration is what gives you the legal right to take the proceeds out of the country. Without it, the money is in Barbados and it is staying there. This is the single strongest reason on this page to care how a payment is made rather than just what it costs.
The rest is comparatively gentle. There is no licence fee on foreign buyers, unlike much of the Eastern Caribbean. The seller pays property transfer tax at 2.5% and stamp duty at 1% on the conveyance, with the first BDS$150,000 exempt from transfer tax where the land includes a dwelling. As the buyer you pay your own legal fees, generally 1% to 2.5% of the price plus 17.5% VAT on the fees, the cost of obtaining Central Bank permission, and any survey. There is no capital gains tax in Barbados for residents or non-residents.
Jamaica
Jamaica is the most open of the islands covered here and the cheapest to buy into.
There is no alien landholding licence of the kind used across the Eastern Caribbean. Foreign buyers are not treated differently from Jamaican buyers, and there is no limit on foreign ownership.
Transfer tax is 2% of the market value or the price, whichever is higher. Stamp duty is a flat J$5,000 per document, which is about US$32, rather than a percentage of the price. On a house that costs a quarter of a million dollars, that is a rounding error, and it is a genuinely different picture from Antigua, where the licence alone can be 5% to 7% of the purchase price.
Custom has the vendor bearing the transfer tax with stamp duty and attorney fees split, but the tax schedule sets amounts rather than who pays them. Treat the split as negotiable and get it into the agreement.
On the money: the Jamaican dollar floats, so the point made above applies. Ask what rate the receiving bank gives on incoming US dollars. The UK is a significant source of money into Jamaica, at around 11% of the country's remittance inflows, so the banks there handle sterling-origin payments constantly. That does not mean they give a good rate on them.
Trinidad and Tobago
One country, two sets of rules, and this is the detail that surprises people.
In Trinidad, a foreign buyer may acquire up to one acre of land for residential use without a licence under the Foreign Investment Act, and up to five acres for commercial use.
In Tobago, any land purchase by a foreign investor needs a licence, whatever the size. That has applied since February 2007. A quarter-acre plot in Tobago needs permission that the same plot in Trinidad would not.
If you are buying on Tobago, the licence is not a formality to sort out after you have agreed a price. Build it into the timetable before you commit to anything.
The Eastern Caribbean
Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines share a currency, a central bank and a broadly similar approach to foreign buyers. Anguilla and Montserrat use the same currency as British Overseas Territories.
The common feature is the alien landholding licence. A non-citizen needs permission before a purchase can complete, and it is a real cost rather than an administrative fee. In Antigua and Barbuda the licence runs at 5% to 7% of the purchase price and takes roughly three to six months through the Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs. St Kitts and Nevis requires the same permission.
Three to six months is the number to plan around. It is long enough that a rate agreed when you shook hands will have moved by completion, which is exactly the gap a forward contract exists to close.
Citizenship by investment
Five of these countries run programmes granting citizenship in return for investment, and the thresholds are public. Since 1 July 2024 all of them have been bound by a US$200,000 floor agreed across the Eastern Caribbean, which ended the price war that had been running between them.
As at 2026 the entry contributions are US$200,000 for Dominica, US$230,000 for Antigua and Barbuda, US$235,000 for Grenada, US$240,000 for St Lucia and US$250,000 for St Kitts and Nevis. Real estate routes sit higher, from around US$300,000 in Antigua.
We are movers, not advisers on citizenship, and these programmes have due diligence requirements and ongoing obligations that belong with a specialist. The reason they appear here is simpler: sums of that size moved in one payment are precisely where the exchange rate stops being a detail.
The Bahamas
The Bahamas is straightforward for a residential buyer and tightens above a threshold.
Under the International Persons Landholding Act, a foreign buyer acquiring a residential property of under five acres needs no government approval, but registration with the Investments Board is compulsory. Above five acres, or for anything commercial, a permit is required.
Foreign buyers pay the same single rate of stamp duty as Bahamians. That was not always so, and it is worth checking against older guidance that still describes a double rate.
Cayman Islands
Cayman places no restriction on foreign ownership at all. There is no licence and no permit, which makes it one of the simplest places in the region to buy.
The cost sits in stamp duty instead. As at 2026 it is 7.5% where the price is below CI$2,000,000 and 10% above that. The concessions that reduce it are available to Caymanian buyers only, so a foreign buyer should budget the full rate.
The Cayman dollar is fixed above the US dollar, at about US$1.20 to CI$1. It is the one currency in this region where a dollar is worth more than a dollar, and it catches people out when they read a price.
Bermuda
Bermuda is the most restrictive place covered on this page, by a distance, and the restriction is unusual: it is based on the rental value of the property rather than on the price.
Non-Bermudians may only buy homes above a minimum Annual Rental Value. As at 2026 that is an ARV of $126,000 for a freehold house and $25,800 for a condominium. In practice this confines foreign buyers to the upper end of the market by design.
On top of that there is a licence fee, and it is substantial: 12.5% of the purchase price for a house and 8% for a condominium.
If Bermuda is on your list, get the ARV of any property confirmed before anything else happens. A house you like that falls below the threshold is not a house you are permitted to buy, and no amount of paperwork changes that.
Moving the household itself
Everything above is about the money. The shipping has its own rhythm in this region.
Household goods travel by sea in a container, either your own or shared space in one. Sailings to the smaller islands are less frequent than to Jamaica or the Bahamas, and a shared load to St Vincent or Dominica can wait for enough volume to fill a box. Ask how often that route actually departs rather than how long it takes once it sails.
The climate does the rest. A container crossing the Atlantic into the tropics heats by day and cools by night, and the moisture the air picked up on a damp British loading day condenses on the steel and falls back onto the load. Pack nothing damp, keep books tightly packed with desiccant, and ask for desiccant poles in the container. Leather wants breathable covering rather than plastic.
Hurricane season runs from June to November. It rarely stops a shipment but it does delay them, and a delivery date agreed in August is a date with weather attached.
Common questions
Can I send pounds, or does it have to be dollars?
In practice, dollars. Most Caribbean banks handle US dollars as a matter of routine and sterling far less often, and a sterling payment usually gets converted by an intermediary at a rate nobody quoted you. Sending US dollars keeps the conversion where you can see it.
If the local currency is pegged, does the exchange rate still matter?
Yes, but only on the first leg. Sterling to dollars is where the whole of the movement sits, because dollars to the local currency is fixed. That makes the question simpler than it looks: you are buying dollars, so compare rates on GBP to USD.
Which islands need a licence before I can buy?
Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis and the wider Eastern Caribbean require an alien landholding licence. Tobago requires one for any size of plot, while Trinidad does not below an acre. Bermuda requires a licence and restricts what you may buy. Barbados, Jamaica, Cayman and Guyana do not require one, and the Bahamas requires registration rather than approval for ordinary residential purchases.
How long does a licence take?
In Antigua and Barbuda, roughly three to six months. Long enough that the rate you had in mind when you agreed a price will not be the rate at completion, which is the argument for fixing it forward rather than hoping.
Can a foreigner buy in Guyana?
Yes, and on the same terms as a Guyanese citizen for private land. There is no restriction on foreign ownership. State land is different and generally needs a formal proposal or proof of residency.
Why is the Cayman dollar worth more than the US dollar?
Because it is pegged above it, at roughly US$1.20 to CI$1. It is fixed rather than floating, so it does not move, but it does mean a price quoted in Cayman dollars is larger in US dollars than it first appears.
Do you handle the currency as well as the move?
We introduce you to a currency firm and they take it from there. We are movers and we do not hold anybody's money. How that works, and what we checked before introducing anyone, is set out in our currency guide.
What about hurricane season?
June to November. It seldom cancels a shipment and it regularly delays one. If your dates are fixed by a completion, say so early so the sailing is booked with that in mind.
Next steps
Dates and access first, because they decide the shipping. Then the licence position, because on several of these islands it decides the timetable. The rate comes last, and it is the one you can fix in an afternoon once you know the sum and the date.
Get a removals quote for the move itself, or a currency quote for the money. If you need both, say so on either form and we will deal with them together.
Figures on this page were checked in September 2026. Tax rates, licence fees and investment thresholds change, and the primary sources are the Central Bank of Barbados, Tax Administration Jamaica, the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Finance, the respective citizenship by investment units, and the Bermuda and Cayman government registries. Check anything you are about to act on.
The move itself, and how it travels, is covered on our international moving services page.