Grenada answers a work permit in 12 working days. Finding the employer takes longer.
An American pays EC$3,000, about $1,110, for each year of employment, plus EC$100 for the form. Your employer files it, and the permit covers one job at one company.
This page is for Americans holding a Grenadian job offer, or expecting one. The permit is real, the rules are published, and the Ministry of Labour is unusually clear about them. Here's the catch: the law exists to protect Grenadian jobs first, so the part you control is the small part.
The four numbers on this permit
EC$3,000
Permit fee, per year of employment
about $1,110 on a US passport
EC$100
The application form
never refunded, even on a refusal
12 working days
The decision window in the regulations
once the file is complete
3 weeks
Local advertising before you can be hired
your employer runs it
One employer, one job, one year
A Grenada work permit is issued under the Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens (Employment) Act, Cap. 115. It names a company, a person and an occupation, and it runs 12 months. You can't lend it to a colleague. You can't carry it to a better offer down the road either, because moving companies means a fresh application rather than a transfer.
The Minister for Labour grants or refuses it, in the words of the Act, in his absolute discretion, with or without conditions. Nobody under 18 gets one. You're given a work permit card with your photograph on it; an inspector can ask to see it at your desk, and a joint Labour and Immigration team does visit workplaces.
One line is worth reading twice. Permanent residents still need a work permit. Residency in Grenada buys the right to live there, not the right to earn there.
Work Permit
US citizens must secure a job offer and obtain a work permit before entering Grenada for employment; the employer typically initiates the process.
- Government cost
- $100
- Processing time
- ~30 days
- Timeline
- 1 month
- Difficulty
- Moderate
Key requirements
- Valid US passport
- Job offer from a Grenadian employer
- Work permit application approved by Grenada's Ministry of Labour
- Police clearance certificate
- Medical certificate
About that data card
The $100 on that card is the application form. It's in Eastern Caribbean dollars, so about $37 USD. The permit itself is priced by your passport: EC$3,000 a year for North American, UK and EU nationals, EC$1,000 for a listed group that includes Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Cuba, EC$5,000 for everyone else. The card is also gloomier than the law, which gives the Ministry 12 working days rather than 30 once your file is complete. Two documents missing from that list stop files dead: notarized copies of every qualification certificate, and two letters of professional reference. No medical certificate appears on the Ministry's own published list.
Three weeks of advertising, then twelve working days
Your employer advertises, and keeps the proof
Before anything reaches the Ministry, the job runs locally for three consecutive weeks and the evidence goes in the file. A missing advert is its own listed ground for refusal. Employers are also asked what they are doing to train Grenadians for the same work and to break their staff down by nationality on the form itself.
Two departments, then one signature
Labour screens the file, Immigration runs due diligence, and the Minister decides. Then the phone rings; payment has to reach the Treasury within 48 hours of that call. The card is printed, you collect it about five days later, and you take your passport to the Immigration and Passport Office for the stamp that finishes the job.
Not on a visitor stamp
The Ministry doesn't process applications from people holding a visitor's permit, and holding one is a listed reason to refuse. Americans land with 90 days visa-free, which makes it easy to assume you may start. Sort your status out with Immigration before the file goes in.
Conditions that travel with the card
Renew three months early
A late renewal draws an EC$100 fine on top of the fee.
A new job means a new permit
Changing employer or occupation restarts the whole application.
Keep the card on you
Not producing it for an inspector carries an EC$1,000 fine.
Nothing is refundable
Leave early and the fee stays; your replacement is charged in full.
A spouse needs their own
Dependents may work, but each permit is weighed on its own merits.
It ends when the job ends
Termination cancels the permit that day, and the card goes back.
The wage floor, and the deductions under it
EC$1,200 a month is the legal minimum
Grenada set a general floor of EC$1,200 a month, or EC$60 a day, on 1 January 2024. It was the first revision since 2011, and it reaches part-timers and trainees as well. That floor is about $444, against the roughly $1,700 a month our own data puts on one person's costs here. Professional salaries clear it comfortably. It still tells you where the bottom of this job market sits.
Social security comes off your pay, too
Every employee in Grenada contributes to the National Insurance Scheme, non-nationals included. For 2026, the total is 13.5 percent of insurable earnings: 6.25 from you and 7.25 from your employer, on pay up to EC$5,200 a month. That rate is on a legislated climb to 16 percent by 2031, so the deduction grows every January. Grenada pools credits with CARICOM and with Canada, though it's got no such arrangement with the United States.
Grenada's biggest private employer is exempt
St George's University is the largest private employer on the island, and a 2015 Order exempts foreign nationals employed as its faculty from holding a work permit at all. Administrative and support jobs aren't covered, so check the Order before assuming. It's an odd thing for a jobs page to admit: the likeliest American employer in Grenada is the one place this permit does not reach.
The routes people try instead
Unemployment fell to 7.5 percent by October 2025, the lowest Grenada has recorded. A tight job market is exactly when an employer will argue that nobody local applied. It's still a country of about 125,000 people, and permits are approved only for skills in short supply.
Working for yourself is still working
The Act counts self-employment, consultancy, commission work and full-time volunteering as employment. A freelancer needs the same permit, and would have to advertise their own job for three weeks to get it.
The nomad visa is a different animal
Grenada runs a one-year remote-work visa for people paid by companies outside the country. It costs $1,500 and bars local work entirely. If your income is already American, that's the cleaner door, and our Grenada guide sets all four routes side by side.
Help with the parts that go wrong
Legalize That Doc
Document Preparation
Every qualification certificate has to be notarized as true and correct, and the police record has to be an original covering your last six months. They assemble that stack so it does not bounce.
Flamingo Compliance | Tax Residency and Visa Tracker Platform
Tax Residency and Visa Tracker Platform
Grenada can make you tax resident on 183 days in one year, or on 122 days a year across three. Their tracker is built for rules that have more than one trigger.
Bianca Lynch
Career Coach: Self-employment
The honest fallback in a job market this small is income that does not depend on a Grenadian employer. She coaches people through building work that travels with them.
Questions before you take the job
Can I apply while I am in Grenada as a visitor?
No. You cannot apply from a visitor's permit, and arriving as a tourist sits on the Ministry's own list of grounds for refusing a file. Change your status at the Immigration and Passport Office before your employer submits anything. The 90 days Americans get at the airport are for visiting.
What happens to my permit if I lose the job?
It is canceled the day the employment ends, automatically, and the card goes back to the Ministry. Cancellations are referred to Immigration, so your right to stay is in play as well. Weigh that before you move a family across.
Do I need a job offer before I apply?
Yes, and your employer applies rather than you. The file has to carry a genuine offer with the job title, duties, hours and salary in it. The company also has to prove it ran the vacancy locally for three consecutive weeks before filing.
Does permanent residence let me work in Grenada?
No. The Ministry states it twice in its own guidelines: permanent residents must still hold a work permit to work. Residence and the right to earn are two separate permissions here.
Can my spouse take a job in Grenada too?
Yes, though not on your permit. A dependent files a separate application in their own name, and it stands or falls on its own facts. Budget for two files and two fees.
How much does a Grenada work permit cost?
EC$3,000 a year, roughly $1,110, if you hold a US, Canadian, UK or EU passport. Add EC$100 for the application form, which you do not get back if the answer is no. The fee is charged for each year of employment you ask for, so a two-year contract costs twice.
How long does a Grenada work permit take?
The 2017 regulations set 12 working days for new applications and renewals, provided every document is attached, and the Ministry says it routinely decides inside two weeks. Advisers report three to five weeks in practice, mostly because files arrive incomplete.
See where you actually fit
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