St Lucia - Customs & immigration Clearance on a Sailboat

St Lucia Clearance Process 2024

The British have departed St Lucia, but they left their bloated bureaucracy behind! So if you are a cruiser arriving into St Lucia, be patient and be prepared for a pretty cool reception.

Check-In Process

Pre arrival preparation; The following should be completed online to speed the process. You can find more information here.

1. For customs St Lucia uses Sailclear, this is an online pre-clearance service used by several Caribbean islands. You have to register and there is an annual fee for this service ($25 if memory serves me correctly). After competing the form, you will get an email with your "Sailclear Number". You will need to present this to the Customs officer.

2. Online Electronic Immigration Form for each crew member. After submitting each person will get an email with a PDF file that includes a QR Code. You will need to present these to the Immigration officer.

3. Maritime Declaration of Health Form (although the Health offices seems to redo this on a hand written form anyway)
   

Our Experience Checking in:

We arrived into Rodney Bay Marina late on the evening of the 11th December. Next morning I went to the marina offices to get clearance. All the offices are in the same building. It is only a four step process that must be completed in this order (note that there are fees for checking in, in our case the fees were waved because we were with the ARC):

What to bring:

• Passports

• Sailclear number

• Immigration PDFs with QR code for each person

• Maritime Declaration Health Form

• Boat Registration Boat Insurance

Visit in this order

• Health Services Office - Lower level

  • Polite reception. The officer completed a hand written version of the form which I signed. Was given a copy to take to Customs

• Customs office - Upper level

  • Exceptionally rude young man. I go to the empty counter, say "good morning", no acknowledgement. He starts starts repeating one word that I could not understand. Eventually I figure out that he is saying "Sailclear" - he wants my Sailclear Number. I provide this, passports, registration and insurance. he does his thing, has me sign four coppies of a document, then leaves them on his side of the counter. I wait for a while and eventually ask, "Are you complete, are these for me?", "YES!" he says. This was just a childish mind game. If I had reached in and taken them I'm sure I would have got in trouble. For whatever reason he did not want to make the effort to pass them to the counter. He gave no indication on what next! Note, I did not get special treatment, I watched others being served with equal contempt. So unnecessary. This was particularly ironic as the St Lucian government sent a large delegation to Las Palmas in the Canaries to say how pleased they are to pre-welcome the ARC to St Lucia. Anyway, I left with three copies of an the customs form and lined up for Immigration.

• Immigration Office - Access from the customs area

  • The lady at the immigration desk was a refreshing, she greeted me kindly, I passed the passports with the printout of the PDF with the QR code. She thanked me for completing the online process, saying that made it easier. She asked for one of the forms that the Customs guy had given me. She then directed me to the adjacent Port Authority guy who's office was right there.
    

• Port Authority - Right next to the Immigration Office

  • Another polite reception. He simply took one of the forms that the Customs guy gave me. No questions.
    

With that I was checked in - I was left with one copy of the forms that I got from the customs officer.

Crew Change Process:

We had some of the crew fly home from St Lucia. I asked at the immigration desk and there is no special process required for this. They will get processed at the airport when they leave.

Check Out Process

For check-out you go back to Sailclear to fill out the check-out form. Once compete you will get an email with your clearance number. Back to Customs for 8.00am opening:

• Same rude guy - Stamps your exit form

Next stop Immigration

• Door is closed

• Ask the Customs guy "Is the Immigration office open?", Answer "YES, but she is not here yet". I ask "When will she be here?", Answer, "I do not know".

• She eventually shows up after 9.00am (by now there is a line up)

• Stamps the form and we are good to go.