Doing Business in Sint Maarten: A Tax Guide

Sint Maarten taxes company profits at 34.5 percent, charges 5 percent turnover tax on goods and services supplied on the island, and levies no withholding tax on dividends, interest or royalties. Personal income is taxed progressively from 12.5 to 47.5 percent. This guide sets out the rules that decide what you pay when you set up, invest or relocate here.

The country and the currency

Sint Maarten is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and shares a small 37 square mile island with French Saint-Martin. It has its own tax legislation, its own tax administration and its own courts. Dutch is an official language and English is the working language of business.

Taxation is a country matter under the Charter for the Kingdom, so Sint Maarten legislates for itself. Its tax law was inherited from the Netherlands Antilles on 10 October 2010 and has been amended locally since. That history explains two things a newcomer notices quickly. The ordinances are often old, some dating from the 1940s, and they are related to but increasingly different from those of Curaçao and Aruba. Dutch tax law is a source of interpretation, not of binding rules: a Sint Maarten court will follow a Dutch judgment only where the provision and the underlying concept are the same.

The border with Saint-Martin is open, with no customs or immigration control, and there is no tax treaty between the two sides of the island. People live on one side and work on the other, businesses supply customers across the border every day, and the two systems tax residence and source independently. Anyone operating on both sides should have the position analysed under each system separately, because an open border does not mean a coordinated tax treatment.

The currency is the Caribbean guilder (Xcg), which replaced the Netherlands Antillean guilder (Ang) on 31 March 2025 and is pegged to the United States dollar (USD). Dollars circulate freely and most commercial contracts are written in dollars. The currency change was monetary, not fiscal: statutory amounts were not renominated and the substitution did not trigger any taxable event.

The limited liability company is the usual vehicle, in the form of either a (in Dutch) naamloze vennootschap or a besloten vennootschap. A foreign company can also operate through a branch. A business licence and a director's licence are required. IFRS, Dutch GAAP and US GAAP are all accepted accounting standards. Whether a company is resident here is decided on the facts, in particular where the directors actually take their decisions, so a company incorporated locally but run from abroad is exposed on both sides.

Tax rates at a glance

Profit tax is 34.5 percent. Turnover tax is 5 percent. Wage and income tax runs from 12.5 percent to 47.5 percent. Real estate transfer tax is 4 percent. There is no Property tax. Room tax is 5 percent of the accommodation price. There is no withholding tax on dividends, interest or royalties, and no import duty.

Two of those figures deserve a second look. The 34.5 percent profit tax rate is the highest in the region, but it applies to a base that is narrowed by accelerated depreciation, an investment allowance, a full exemption for qualifying foreign branch profits and a participation exemption, so the effective rate of an operating company is usually well below the headline. And the absence of import duty means Sint Maarten functions as a free port, which is one of the reasons the retail and yachting sectors on the Dutch side compete on price.

Profit tax

Companies resident in Sint Maarten pay 34.5 percent profit tax on worldwide profit. Non-resident companies pay on Sint Maarten source income, which in practice means profit attributable to a permanent establishment here, income from real estate located here and interest on loans secured by a mortgage on property here. 34.5 percent is the highest rate in the area, however many deductibles are available, lowering the effective profit tax rate significantly.

A Sint Maarten company is deemed to conduct a business with the whole of its capital. It therefore has no private sphere: every asset is business capital and every result, including a capital gain, is profit. That is the single most important difference between holding an asset personally and holding it through a company, and it is why the choice of vehicle for real estate is dealt with separately below.

Profit earned through a foreign permanent establishment is exempt, not merely credited, which is a structural attraction of the system for a company operating in several countries. The exemption is reduced where the foreign profit consists mainly of passive dividends, interest or royalties that were taxed abroad at a nominal rate below 10 percent. For foreign tax on other income a credit is available, limited to the Sint Maarten tax on that income.

A permanent establishment is a fixed place of business, including a branch, an office, a workshop or a place of management. Construction and assembly work creates one only after twelve months, which is generous by modern standards and relevant on an island where large projects are serviced from abroad. Working through an independent agent does not create one.

Transactions between related parties have to be at arm's length. Losses carry forward for ten years and are set off in the order in which they arose. There is no carry-back.

Start-up losses sit outside that ten year limit. Where a business qualifies under the incentive legislation for industry or for hotel construction, the losses of the first four years after operations begin are carried forward without a time limit and are set off from the first profitable year onwards. The same applies to the first six years for shipping and aviation companies. Carry-forward is lost where the activities have been all but discontinued, unless the later profit still reaches substantially the same people. The rule is written around the cessation of activities rather than a change of shareholders, so it produces different answers from the loss restrictions many investors know from elsewhere.

The tax is owed by the company, but managing directors and local representatives are jointly and severally liable for it. A director who can show that he was unable to arrange payment in his capacity, for example because he had resigned or was kept away from the finances, has a defence, and it has to be raised in writing and promptly.

Deductible and non-deductible costs

Profit tax is levied on the net profit of the business, and how that net profit is computed matters at least as much as the headline rate. Sint Maarten does not prescribe a detailed tax accounting code. Instead, taxable profit is determined according to sound business practice (goed koopmansgebruik), applied consistently from year to year. That gives a company real room in the timing of income and expenses, as long as its method is prudent, realistic and applied the same way each year. A change of method is possible, but not simply to obtain a tax advantage.

In practical terms, sound business practice means that profit is recognised when it is realised rather than when it is merely expected, that foreseeable losses and obligations may be provided for before they materialise, and that inventory, work in progress and receivables are valued on a consistent basis. Provisions for warranty claims, doubtful debts, pending litigation and similar risks are accepted where the underlying obligation already exists at year end and can be estimated with reasonable accuracy.

The general rule on the expense side is that all costs incurred to obtain, collect and preserve business income are deductible. Salaries and social premiums, rent, utilities, insurance, professional fees, marketing, interest on third-party debt at arm's length terms, and the ordinary running costs of the business all fall in that category. Formation costs and the costs of raising capital are deductible as well.

Expenditure on assets that serve the business for more than one year is not deducted at once but depreciated over the useful life of the asset. Sint Maarten is relatively generous here: part of the acquisition cost of a business asset may be written off at an accelerated pace, and for buildings, ships and aircraft an annual percentage may already be deducted before the asset is taken into use. Write-downs on receivables that have become uncollectible are deductible in the year the loss becomes apparent.

On top of depreciation, investments in business assets above a modest threshold in a given year qualify for an investment allowance: a percentage of the amount invested is deducted in the year of investment and again in the following year, at a higher percentage for improvements to buildings. The allowance is clawed back if the asset is sold within a set number of years, and land, private residences, passenger cars, pleasure craft, securities and small items are excluded. For a company that is building out its premises or fleet, this allowance and the accelerated depreciation together explain a large part of the gap between the 34.5 percent nominal rate and the effective rate actually paid.

Not every cost that is booked commercially is accepted for tax purposes. The main categories that are excluded or limited are:

• Profit tax itself, whether Sint Maarten or foreign, and profit distributions to shareholders in whatever form.
• Interest on the company's own equity, and interest and related costs on loans from related parties where the terms are not at arm's length.
• Fines, penalties and comparable settlement payments imposed by a court or authority, costs connected with criminal offences, and bribes.
• Representation costs, gifts, meals and drinks, staff training and business travel are only partly deductible: a fixed percentage of these mixed costs is disallowed regardless of how well documented they are.
• The costs of a company yacht or comparable representative vessel.
• Housing provided to employees beyond what the employee could have deducted personally.
• Additions to general reserves, as opposed to specific provisions for identified risks.

Charitable donations sit in a separate regime. Gifts to religious, charitable, cultural or scientific institutions established in Sint Maarten are deductible where they are voluntary, supported by written evidence and exceed a small percentage of profit, up to a ceiling of a few percent of profit.

The dividing line between a deductible business expense and a non-deductible one is where most profit tax disputes arise, in particular around related-party interest, mixed costs and provisions. We review the cost structure of a company before the return is filed, so that positions are documented while the facts are still fresh rather than reconstructed after an audit.

Filing and payment deadlines

Profit tax is paid on filing: the return and the payment are a single act, and the company computes its own liability. The cycle has two steps.

The provisional profit tax return has to be filed and paid within three months after the end of the financial year, so 31 March for a calendar year. No extension is available for the provisional return. The amount declared must be at least the tax due according to the most recent final return. A company that expects a lower result can ask the Inspector in writing for a lower provisional amount; if the request is not rejected in writing within fifteen days it is deemed granted, which makes it worth filing early in a year when profits have fallen.

The final return is due within six months after the end of the financial year, so 30 June for a calendar year. An extension can be requested for the final return, and it is routinely granted, but it postpones the filing only. The payment obligation and the interest on any unpaid balance continue to run, which clients find counter-intuitive. The final return must be accompanied by the balance sheet and income statement signed off by the board, the annual report to shareholders and, the first time, the deed of incorporation; a return filed without the accounts is treated as incomplete.

Late filing and late payment carry penalties, and the administration applies them. A failure to file attracts a fixed fine, a failure to pay a higher one, and where too little tax was declared through gross negligence or intent a penalty of 25, 50 or up to 100 percent of the shortfall. A company that cannot pay should still file, because the filing default is the cheaper one and filing preserves other positions.

The forms themselves are published by the Tax Administration. Sint Maarten Tax Forms and Filing Deadlines lists where each one is found and when it has to be in, for profit tax, wage tax, turnover tax, room tax and the personal income tax return alike.

Participation exemption

Dividends and capital gains from a qualifying shareholding are exempt at the level of the parent company. A shareholding qualifies as a participation where the company holds at least 5 percent of the paid-up capital or of the voting rights of a subsidiary; a smaller holding still qualifies where its cost price is substantial. The exemption prevents profits that have already been taxed at the subsidiary from being taxed a second time on the way up.

The exemption is conditional for dividends. Only 70 percent of a dividend is exempt where the subsidiary is both passive, meaning that more than half of its gross income consists of dividends, interest or royalties earned outside a real business, and low taxed, meaning that it is not subject to a profit tax at a nominal rate of at least 10 percent. Both conditions have to be met before the limitation bites, so a subsidiary that carries on a genuine business, or that pays profit tax at 10 percent or more anywhere, obtains the full exemption. Capital gains on the disposal of a participation are not subject to the limitation at all, and dividends from a subsidiary whose assets consist almost entirely of real estate are fully exempt regardless of the tests.

The mirror image is that costs connected with a participation, including interest on debt taken up to acquire it and currency results on it, are in principle not deductible. That is easily overlooked in an acquisition structure and should be modelled before the financing is settled. We test each participation annually against the thresholds and the two conditions, and record the outcome in the tax file, because the burden of showing entitlement rests on the company.

Fiscal unity

Affiliated companies can, on request and subject to conditions, be treated as one taxpayer for profit tax, so that profits and losses are consolidated and transactions between them are eliminated. The parent has to hold at least 99 percent of the shares in the subsidiary, both companies have to be resident in Sint Maarten and have the same financial year, and both have to request it. The unity starts at the earliest in the year of the request, so it cannot be formed retroactively. Turnover tax has no equivalent.

Within a fiscal unity, interest on a group loan used to acquire the shares in the subsidiary is deductible only up to the standalone profit of the borrowing company. Interest that cannot be deducted is carried to the next year rather than lost, so the rule defers the deduction rather than denying it, but where the target's own profit is modest the deferral can run for years. It is the local answer to debt push-down and should be modelled before an acquisition structure is settled. The termination of a unity is where most difficulties arise, particularly where assets have moved between the companies during the unity, so the standard conditions are worth reading before the unity is formed rather than when it is broken.

A separate facility exists for business mergers. Where a company transfers its business, or an independent part of it, to another company in exchange for shares, the gain on the transfer can be rolled over on conditions, the main ones being that the shares are held for three years and that the acquiring company is not in a position to use its own losses against the transferred profit. The facility should be applied for in advance so that any conditions are agreed before the transaction closes.

Shipping and aviation

A genuine preferential regime exists for companies whose object is the operation of ocean going vessels or aircraft, including the leasing and chartering of freight capacity. Eighty percent of the profit from that business is deemed to be earned outside Sint Maarten and is taxed at one tenth of the ordinary rate, while the remaining 20 percent bears the full rate. On the current rate that produces a blended effective rate of just under 10 percent on qualifying profit, against 34.5 percent on ordinary profit. Transport between ports within Sint Maarten is excluded, and conditions apply to the formation of the company and the conduct of the business.

Transportation services by seagoing vessels and aircraft, and the supply of fuel and services to them, are also exempt from turnover tax. Pleasure craft are excluded from that exemption, so a charter operation does not qualify merely because it operates at sea.

Insurance business

Insurance companies can elect, for five years at a time, to have their taxable profit fixed at a percentage of the premiums received rather than on actual results, with lower percentages for risks insured outside Sint Maarten. No deduction is then allowed for commissions, reinsurance or other costs. Whether the election pays depends entirely on the loss ratio and expense ratio of the portfolio, and because the election locks in for five years it should be modelled across a cycle rather than a single year.

Withholding taxes

Sint Maarten levies no withholding tax on dividends, interest or royalties. A dividend withholding tax ordinance exists on the statute book, but it has never been brought into effect, and no tax is withheld on a distribution today. A dividend withholding tax of 10 percent was announced for 1 January 2026, but it was withdrawn under public criticism before it was introduced. The measure is still on the list of legislation the government intends to bring forward, so the position is worth confirming at the time of a transaction, and it should not be assumed from the statute book or from country guides that still describe it as in force.

Because nothing is withheld at source, profit earned through a Sint Maarten company bears profit tax at 34.5 percent and then leaves the company untaxed. For a non-resident shareholder that is the end of the matter in Sint Maarten. For a resident individual the distribution is taxed as income from movable capital, and where the shareholder holds a substantial interest the reduced rate of 18.75 percent applies on request. The combination of no withholding, an exemption for foreign branch profits and a participation exemption is what makes Sint Maarten attractive for holding and financing activity, subject to the deduction restrictions on related-party interest and to the international standards described below.

Where a Sint Maarten resident receives dividends or interest from abroad, foreign withholding tax is relieved by credit rather than by exemption, and only up to the Sint Maarten tax on that income.

Turnover tax

Turnover tax of 5 percent applies to goods and services supplied in Sint Maarten. It cascades, which means it is charged at every link in the chain, including between affiliated companies. There is no input credit and no fiscal unity, so the number of steps in a supply chain has a direct effect on cost. A product that passes through an importer, a wholesaler and a retailer bears the tax three times, and the effective burden on the final consumer is higher than the nominal rate suggests.

The tax is due from any person who carries on a business or profession independently, and also from anyone who exploits an asset to obtain income from it on a sustained basis. That second limb catches the private owner who lets a property, who is an entrepreneur for turnover tax without being in business in any ordinary sense. Non-resident suppliers are taxed on deliveries made and services enjoyed in Sint Maarten.

Where a foreign supplier delivers to a Sint Maarten entrepreneur, the charge can be shifted to the local customer. That normally requires a joint written request from both parties. The local customer can also be held liable where the foreign supplier simply fails to pay, so the tax position of a foreign contractor is the local customer's concern as well.

The list of exemptions is longer than most businesses assume and each of them has to be proven by the entrepreneur. The ones that matter most in practice are the letting of residential property to residents for permanent occupation; the delivery of real estate on which transfer tax was paid; medical and dental services; transportation by seagoing vessels and aircraft and supplies to them; hotel rooms and apartments on which room tax has been paid on the entire proceeds; conventions attended predominantly by non-residents; a list of basic foodstuffs; and certain financial services. Exports of goods are exempt where the customer is abroad and the goods actually leave the island, and the evidence has to include proof of arrival at the destination, not just proof of shipment.

One rule surprises almost every business on the Dutch side: for the export exemption, the French side of the island is treated as part of Sint Maarten. A delivery to a customer in Saint-Martin is therefore not an export and bears turnover tax in the ordinary way. Because there is no border control, the error is easy to make and is usually discovered for several years at once.

Turnover tax is a monthly tax paid on filing, due within fifteen days after the end of the month. By default it falls due when the consideration is received; a business can obtain a licence to account on the invoice basis instead, which is a cash flow decision rather than a tax saving. A private individual who lets property can ask to file once a year instead of monthly, and that request has to be made rather than assumed. Amounts paid to third parties in the name and for the account of a customer are outside turnover, but a cost paid in the business's own name and recharged is not, and the difference is decided by the contract rather than by the way the invoice is laid out.

Replacement of the turnover tax by a value added tax has been discussed for years without result, and the open border with Saint-Martin makes a consumption tax difficult to enforce. Structuring decisions should be based on the cumulative system as it stands rather than on anticipated reform.

Wage tax, income tax and social premiums

Personal income tax is progressive. It starts at 12.5 percent and reaches 47.5 percent above roughly 158,000 guilders of taxable income. The bracket limits and the tax credits are indexed annually. Wage tax is withheld by the employer and counts as an advance on the income tax due; for most employees the withholding is final in practice, because no assessment is issued unless the difference exceeds a small threshold or the employee files a return.

Residents are taxed on their worldwide income. Residence is a question of fact, decided on where a person actually lives and maintains the ties that constitute a home, not on a day count. Non-residents are taxed only on Sint Maarten sources: real estate located here, a business carried on here through a permanent establishment, employment exercised here, and the remuneration of a director of a Sint Maarten company, which is taxed in full wherever the work is performed. That last rule catches many internationally mobile individuals who assume that physical absence protects them.

The income tax is source based, and a gain that cannot be attributed to a recognised source is not taxed. Gains realised by a private individual on the sale of assets held outside a business, including real estate and shares below the substantial interest threshold, are therefore outside the charge. Profit from a substantial interest is taxed at 18.75 percent on request, and interest on local bank deposits at 6.25 percent. Losses of an individual carry forward for five years, against ten for a company, which is one factor in the choice between operating personally and incorporating.

Employment is defined widely. Directors of local companies are employees for wage tax whether or not there is a relationship of authority, and a person who contracts to carry out work personally outside a business of his own can be treated as an employee as well. Whether a contractor is in truth an employee is a question that arises constantly on an island with a large services economy, and the consequences of recharacterisation extend beyond wage tax to the social premiums.

On top of wage tax, employers withhold and pay social security and health insurance premiums: the general old age and widows' and orphans' insurances, the insurance for special medical expenses, and the employee health and accident insurances administered by SZV. The rates are set by decree and the income ceilings are indexed annually and published by the implementing bodies rather than in the legislation, so a payroll running on last year's figures is wrong from January. Their combined weight is a material part of the cost of employment and belongs in the calculation before anyone is hired. Two packages with the same gross cost can produce materially different net positions depending on how they are composed.

Individuals who have to file use Form A (residents) or Form B (non-residents). Our page on the Sint Maarten personal income tax return explains the forms, the deductions and the requests that have to be made in the return, such as the request for the reduced rate on a substantial interest, which is routinely forgotten and cannot be repaired afterwards.

The penshonado regime

A new resident who has lived abroad for the five preceding years can, on conditions, be taxed at 10 percent on foreign source income. As an alternative the taxpayer can elect to be taxed at the ordinary progressive rates on a fixed taxable income of 500,000 guilders. That alternative becomes attractive at higher income levels, because nothing above that amount is taxed. Both variants are claimed by request in the return, and there are restrictions on switching between them.

The conditions are cumulative and are applied as written. The taxpayer must have lived outside Sint Maarten for at least sixty consecutive months before the first year of application, must have reached the age of 50 when registered in the population register, must report to the Inspector within two months of registration, and must within eighteen months own and take into use an unlet home in Sint Maarten worth at least 450,000 guilders at acquisition. The taxpayer must also be admitted to Sint Maarten other than for a temporary stay.

Foreign source income covers pensions and earnings from work performed abroad, foreign business profits, foreign real estate, foreign bank balances, dividends and gains from foreign companies, and foreign annuities and life insurance benefits. Income that does not qualify is taxed under the ordinary table, with a floor of 10 percent. Employment or professional activity performed in Sint Maarten disqualifies the taxpayer, and that exclusion is wider than clients expect: it catches consultancy and services of any kind performed on the island, and remuneration as director of a local company is expressly not foreign income. Employment is permitted only in a company in which the taxpayer holds a substantial shareholding, and the current text of that carve-out should be read before any structure is built on it.

The regime can be lost. Failing to file a complete return on time for two consecutive years, or failing to meet the housing condition for more than six months, ends it. Because every condition is objective, the sequence of a move should be planned before it happens rather than reconstructed afterwards. We plan the relocation timeline, the property purchase and the notification to the Inspector as one file.

Employees recruited from abroad

An expatriate arrangement is available for employees brought in from abroad with expertise that is scarce on the island. The employee must have lived outside Sint Maarten for at least five years immediately before taking up the employment, and must either hold a higher education qualification with at least three years of relevant experience, or have at least five years of relevant experience at that level and earn at least 100,000 guilders a year.

The benefits work by excluding items from taxable wage. Allowances and benefits in kind are excluded up to a fixed annual amount, and school fees, the travel costs of deployment and repatriation, hotel costs for the first two months, relocation costs and a rental car for the first two months are excluded within their own limits. Where a net salary has been agreed in writing and the employer bears the tax, no gross-up takes place; the words in writing are operative, and an oral net arrangement will be grossed up.

The status is granted for five years and can be extended once for a further five. The procedure is where most applications fail. The employer, with the employee co-signing, has to apply within three months after the start of the employment, with the curriculum vitae, diplomas, permits, employment contract and an overview of the package. An application made within the three months takes effect from the first day of employment; a late application takes effect only from the following month and the intervening months are permanently lost. Restructuring a package after the fact to fit the regulation rarely succeeds, so the employment contract should be drafted with the categories in mind.

Remote workers and short assignments

A non-resident who works in Sint Maarten for no more than 183 days in a twelve month period, and is not paid by a Sint Maarten employer or permanent establishment, is exempt from income tax on that work. The exemption applies by law and needs no application. It reaches only a person who has not become resident: it is not a regime for individuals who move to the island and keep working for foreign employers or clients. Non-resident employees of contractors and subcontractors in the construction sector are excluded, and a foreign contractor whose work on the island lasts longer than thirty days is treated as having a permanent establishment here for wage tax purposes.

Tax holidays and investment incentives

Sint Maarten grants tax holidays for investments that broaden the economy. Two routes matter in practice: the regime for new businesses and hotel construction, and the regime for land development. A separate regime exists for the renovation of hotels and for designated economic zones.

For a new production business the minimum investment is 250,000 guilders, and the business has to provide lasting employment for at least five Dutch nationals born in Sint Maarten. For a hotel or comparable tourist accommodation the minimum is 1,000,000 guilders for construction and first furnishing, extensions included. Relief runs for up to eleven years and can consist of an exemption from property tax together with a reduced profit tax rate, which cannot fall below 2 percent. The profit tax relief runs from the year in which the premises are taken into use, not from the grant, so delay in commissioning erodes the benefit without extending the term.

The element most often overlooked is the shareholder side. Dividends paid out of profits that were taxed at the reduced rate are exempt from income tax in the hands of the shareholder, provided they are distributed within two years after the end of the year in which the profits were made. That two year window is a hard condition and should be built into the distribution policy from the start.

Land development has its own regime. The minimum investment is 2,000,000 guilders excluding the value of the land, it has to be spent within five years, and relief runs for up to fifteen years in the form of a reduced profit tax rate on the profit from the sale of developed land or leasehold rights.

Both routes need a decision from the Minister, a locally incorporated company and continuing compliance. Relief can be withdrawn with retroactive effect where the conditions are not kept, and a breach of the ordinary tax legislation counts as a breach of the incentive conditions, so ordinary compliance becomes a condition of the holiday. A business under a tax holiday is excluded from the accelerated depreciation and the investment allowance, and it should be checked whether the reduced rate actually saves more than those reliefs would have. For capital intensive hotel and construction projects the answer is usually favourable; for a service business with modest fixed assets the general regime is often the better outcome. An objection against a decision on an incentive request goes to the Minister, not to the Inspector, and within two months.

Groups with consolidated revenue of at least EUR 750 million should also test a holiday against the global minimum tax. For such a group a reduced rate that takes the effective rate below 15 percent does not reduce the tax, it relocates it to another treasury, subject to the substance based safe harbours.

Real estate

Transfer tax of 4 percent is due on the transfer of immovable property, and of rights over it such as long lease, and on ships registered here. It is calculated on the value and settled through the notary on execution of the deed. A price stated below value in the deed does not reduce the charge, and transfers between related parties are examined. Exemptions exist for a limited set of situations. Turnover tax does not stack on the same transaction: a delivery of real estate on which transfer tax was paid is exempt from turnover tax. The transfer of shares in a company that owns property is, on the face of the legislation, not the transfer of the property, but that position should be tested rather than presented as settled.

Property tax is not levied. The legislation still exists and provides for an annual charge of 0.3 percent of the value, but no assessments are issued, and its abolition has been proposed together with the inheritance tax.

A private individual who sells a property held privately is not taxed on the gain. That is a real and durable feature of the system and one of the reasons private property investment is attractive on the island. Rental income of a resident individual is taxed on 65 percent of the gross rent, with only the financing costs deductible on top; actual costs above the fixed 35 percent deduction are lost, and depreciation is not available. Living in your own home produces nothing to tax, and mortgage interest, maintenance and hurricane insurance on the home are deductible within limits.

The gain stays untaxed only for as long as the owner stays on the private side of the line. An owner who buys, holds, lets through an agent and sells is managing wealth. An owner who buys derelict units, renovates them and sells them on, repeatedly, is running a business, whatever the documents say, and both the rents and the gains then fall into the charge. The difficult cases sit in between, and the analysis should be done and recorded at the outset.

A company that holds property is taxed at 34.5 percent on rent and on gains, with depreciation and actual costs deductible. A company can also claim the investment allowance on the building, at 12 percent in the year of investment and again in the following year, provided the land element is separated out and the building is held for the fifteen year clawback period. Which of the two applies and is most beneficial is a question of structure and of how the property is used, and it is settled preferably before the sale. For a property expected to appreciate and be sold, personal ownership leaves the gain outside the charge; for a development or letting business with real activity, the company's deductions frequently outweigh the tax on the gain. There is no 'one-size fits all' when it comes to real estate structuring.

A non-resident who owns property here is taxed on the net rental income whether or not the rent ever touches the island, and the increasing availability of platform and payment data to tax administrations has made non-declaration a poor risk rather than a low one. A non-resident who does not file faces an estimated assessment with the burden of proof reversed. Long lease remains a common form of tenure, and the remaining term, the ground rent and the conditions of the lease should be verified on any acquisition, because a leasehold with a short unexpired term is a different asset from a freehold.

Room tax

Room tax is charged on guests who are not registered residents of Sint Maarten and comes to 5 percent of the price of the accommodation. It turns on registration in the population register, not on nationality or length of stay. Timeshare occupancy is charged at a fixed amount per week instead, collected in practice through the annual maintenance charge of the resort.

The operator collects the tax and has to remit it before the fifteenth day of the following month, with a signed statement. Late payment triggers a surcharge of 10 percent. An annual return follows before 1 February. Room tax and turnover tax are alternatives on the same accommodation rather than cumulative charges: where room tax has been accounted for on the entire proceeds, the letting is exempt from turnover tax. Where it has not, or has been paid on only part of the proceeds, turnover tax is due on the balance without any input relief. Failing to register for room tax therefore does not save 5 percent, it costs 5 percent, because the unpaid room tax takes the letting out of the turnover tax exemption as well.

The two levies stack on everything else a hotel or villa sells. Food and beverage, spa treatments, excursions and equipment hire are ordinary taxable turnover. An owner letting a single condominium through an international platform is a collector for room tax, an entrepreneur for turnover tax and a taxpayer for income tax at once, and a platform remittance does not discharge those obligations unless it covers the entire proceeds. We set up the registrations and the annual filing option so that a rental property bears one 5 percent levy rather than two.

Inheritance tax

Sint Maarten does not actively levy inheritance tax even though the legislation is in place. Nothing is being collected under it, its abolition has been proposed together with the property tax, and that is not expected to change. Published country guides still describe the charge as though it applied, so an estate plan drawn up on those figures starts from the wrong position.

For an estate including Sint Maarten real estate held by a non-resident, the practical position is that no Sint Maarten death duty arises. Transfer tax remains relevant on any subsequent transfer, and the position in the deceased's own country of residence is unaffected, which is usually where the estate planning question actually lies. With no death duty collected and no wealth tax, the succession of Sint Maarten assets is planned around the rules of the heirs' own jurisdictions and around the choice between personal and corporate ownership rather than around a local charge.

Private fund foundations and trusts

The private fund foundation, in Dutch stichting particulier fonds, and the trust are both used to hold and separate assets. The private fund foundation is a foundation under Sint Maarten civil law that, unlike an ordinary foundation, may distribute to private beneficiaries. It has no members and no shareholders, holds assets in its own name and distributes according to its articles. That combination of separate legal personality, no ownership interests and freedom to distribute is what makes it useful in estate planning.

In principle neither vehicle is subject to profit tax if no active business is being conducted. A foundation that holds a portfolio and receives what the portfolio produces is on the right side of that line; a foundation that develops property, trades actively or operates a business is not. Benefits from a special purpose fund outside a business are taxed at 10 percent.

Two questions decide whether the structure holds. The first is the position of the founder: where the founder has kept the ability to direct what happens to the assets, through the articles, a power to appoint and dismiss the board, a letter of wishes that is in fact followed or an informal understanding, the transfer may be disregarded and the assets treated as still his. A founder who wants the separation to hold must accept that it is real. The second is the position of the beneficiaries, who have nothing to tax until a distribution is made, and whose treatment then depends on the character of the distribution and, decisively, on the rules of their own country of residence. Several jurisdictions attribute the income of a foundation of this kind to the founder or the beneficiaries regardless of what Sint Maarten does.

Under the international reporting standards a private fund foundation is treated as a passive entity in most cases, so the controlling persons and the beneficiaries are identified and reported to their own jurisdictions. The vehicle provides succession planning, not confidentiality. It must also actually operate as a foundation, with minuted decisions, accounts and a board that meets; a file consisting of articles and nothing else does not survive examination. Both have to be tested against the position of the founder and the beneficiaries in their own countries of residence, and advice given without input from those countries is incomplete.

International

Sint Maarten has a limited treaty network. The Kingdom concludes treaties on behalf of its countries, and a treaty concluded for the Netherlands does not extend to Sint Maarten unless it says so. The most significant arrangements are those with the other countries of the Kingdom. The relationship with the Netherlands, including the BES islands, is governed by a bilateral tax arrangement in the form of a modern treaty, with a residence tie-breaker for individuals, conditions and limitation of benefits provisions for dividends, and detailed rules on pensions, which is the most litigated category in that relationship. The relationships with Curaçao and Aruba are still governed by the older Tax Arrangement for the Kingdom of 1964. A bill to bring the arrangement with the Netherlands into line with the international anti-abuse standards was submitted in October 2025, and any structure that depends on the present text should be tested against its progress.

Beyond the Kingdom there are tax information exchange agreements. Those allocate no taxing rights and confer no relief from double taxation, and the presence of one is regularly mistaken for the presence of a treaty. Domestic law contains its own rules for the avoidance of double taxation, and those rules carry most of the weight where no treaty applies: for companies an exemption for foreign branch profits and a credit for other foreign tax, and for individuals a credit under administrative practice, limited to the Sint Maarten tax on the foreign income and available only where foreign tax was actually paid. Income that escaped tax on the French side of the island is taxed here in full, as the Court confirmed in 2024.

The international standards constrain what a structure can do even where domestic law does not. Sint Maarten participates in the automatic exchange of financial account information, so accounts held here by non-residents are reported to their home jurisdictions and entities that are passive are looked through to their controlling persons. The exempt company regime was withdrawn after it was found to require no substantial activity, and the incentives that remain depend on demonstrable local substance: premises, personnel, expenditure and decisions genuinely taken in Sint Maarten. Sint Maarten has no general transfer pricing regime, no controlled foreign company rules and no earnings stripping rule beyond the arm's length principle and targeted interest restrictions, which means the constraints on a cross-border structure operate mainly through the law of the counterparty jurisdiction. We therefore analyse a structure from both ends.

If you disagree with an assessment

The period to object is two months and it runs from the date printed on the assessment, not from the day it reaches you. For taxes paid on filing, such as profit tax, wage tax and turnover tax, the two months run from the date of payment, which is a trap for a taxpayer waiting for an assessment that will never arrive. A late objection is inadmissible unless the delay was excusable, and that threshold is high.

The objection has to state its grounds and should ask, in the notice itself, for a hearing; a taxpayer who has not asked in writing has no right to be heard. Lodging an objection does not suspend the obligation to pay. Where the Inspector has not decided within nine months, the taxpayer may take the matter to the Court of First Instance directly, and the prospect of that frequently produces a decision. Appeal from the Court lies to the Joint Court of Justice and, on points of law, to the Supreme Court in The Hague. Where the taxpayer did not file a return, the burden of proof is reversed and an estimated assessment is very difficult to displace. Objecting to a Sint Maarten Tax Assessment sets out the deadlines, the route to the Court and the penalty regime in detail.

The Inspector may raise an additional assessment within five years after the end of the year concerned, extended by any filing postponement that was granted. Payment arrangements are available from the Receiver, and interest and collection measures run independently of the dispute, so the collection position should be managed alongside the objection rather than after it.

How we work

Aalbers Private Tax Advisory is a boutique firm that advises private clients, entrepreneurs and property owners on Sint Maarten. The practice covers international structuring, relocation, estate planning and tax disputes, and every file is handled personally by Marco Aalbers, who served as a tax inspector on the island for five years and practised at a Big Four firm before that. He writes the Sint Maarten part of the Wolters Kluwer tax encyclopaedia, edits the annual Tax Legislation Sint Maarten and is the author of The Tax System of Sint Maarten, a book on the principles, practice and international context of taxation on the island; our publications page lists the books and where they can be bought. Our tax advisory services in Sint Maarten and frequently asked questions describe what we do and how an engagement starts.

This guide is general information, current for 2026, and it is not advice on any particular situation. Contact us to discuss yours.