- Joined
- Jun 6, 2005
- Messages
- 3,066
- Reaction score
- 3,242
- Location
- Moonstone, ON
- Resorts Owned
- The Beach Club at St. Augustine Beach, FL (1 floating week, purchased in 1982)
77,000 RCI points (Sunrise Ridge Resort, TN)
When people enter Belize for an extended vacation (you are asked at Immigration how long you are staying) your passport is stamped allowing you to stay for up to 30 days for free. Before that 30 day period ends, you must go to the local Immigration office and apply for another 30, 60 or 90 day stamp which had a fee of $50.BZ ($25US) per person (kids incl), per month. People who stayed longer than 6 mos had their fee jump to $100.BZ ($50.US) for each month after 6 months for the duration of their stay. Yesterday the Govt of Belize announced that as of May 1st the new fee will be $200.BZ ($100.US) per month with no increase after a 6 month stay. We often had to pay for another month when we were only going to be staying a week or so due to the way they calculate the days, and the fact that if your day to renew falls on a weekend you must get stamped before the weekend. They also counted the month of Feb. as 30 days even when it only has 28!
That is a huge increase (now $140 Cndn./mo each for us) so when planning next winters stay, if we can even go, we will be carefully planning our return flight date so we don't have to renew our stamp with just a few days left before our departure. We didn't mind paying around $30-35Cndn. each but an additional $100 each on top of that is a bit much for a few days or a week! The total cost of our visitors stamps for the winter is now getting close to the cost of 1 months rent for our apartment down there. The fees for applying for permanent residency and citizenship have also increased greatly. Belize depends on tourists, especially expat snowbirds, for much of their revenue and it seems like they have just shot themselves in the foot.
~Diane
That is a huge increase (now $140 Cndn./mo each for us) so when planning next winters stay, if we can even go, we will be carefully planning our return flight date so we don't have to renew our stamp with just a few days left before our departure. We didn't mind paying around $30-35Cndn. each but an additional $100 each on top of that is a bit much for a few days or a week! The total cost of our visitors stamps for the winter is now getting close to the cost of 1 months rent for our apartment down there. The fees for applying for permanent residency and citizenship have also increased greatly. Belize depends on tourists, especially expat snowbirds, for much of their revenue and it seems like they have just shot themselves in the foot.
~Diane