Antigua and Barbuda’s Cabinet approved a policy on February 14, 2026 to centralize work permit approvals under a single authority, a move the government framed as protecting local jobs by prioritizing Antiguan and Barbudan employment opportunities.
The change takes effect immediately for new applications filed as of February 14, 2026, and it shifts a process that previously ran through multiple agencies into one approval channel intended to apply tighter, more consistent checks on foreign hires.
Centralization means employers and foreign workers will face one set of decision-makers for permits, with the government aiming to ensure employers first look locally and can show that no qualified nationals are available before a permit is granted.
Vivian Michael, a journalist at the Antigua Observer, reported that the Cabinet-backed shift also seeks to streamline a decentralized system that often produced inconsistencies across different agencies.
Cabinet members involved included Prime Minister Gaston Browne, who presided, along with Attorney General Steadroy Benjamin and Labour Minister Daryll Matthew, who were cited as key proponents of the policy, emphasizing “job security for nationals amid 12.5% youth unemployment.”
The new model transfers oversight to a unified body, described as likely the Ministry of Labour or a designated committee, putting more of the review burden in one place and allowing the government to apply the stricter vetting it wants across sectors.
Officials framed the policy around a core local-first objective: employers must still obtain work permits for non-nationals, and they must still justify those hires, but they now do so under centralized oversight that aims to test the local recruitment effort more closely.
One stated aim targets sectors where the government believes local labor is sufficient, including tourism, construction, and services, with the goal of reducing the foreign worker influx into those areas when nationals can fill openings.
Employers now must advertise vacancies locally for at least 14 days through the Labour Department’s job portal before pursuing foreign applications, a requirement designed to document the attempt to hire locally and to create a paper trail for the centralized reviewers.
The government also directed employers to submit applications through a centralized online portal, shifting the practical flow of filings toward one digital entry point and away from the previous system that involved multiple agencies.
Employers and applicants can expect the government’s “stricter vetting” to translate into heavier documentation demands, particularly around proof of local recruitment and the logic for selecting a non-national for a specific role.
That scrutiny will likely turn on whether job advertisements ran for the full 14 days, whether the position details in the ads match the details in the permit request, and whether the employer can show that qualified locals were not available for the job as described.
Incomplete advertising records, missing proof, or inconsistent job details can slow processing in systems that prioritize compliance checks, and the Cabinet’s decision explicitly links the new process to stronger enforcement of local-first hiring expectations.
Under the policy’s timeline, existing permits remain unaffected until renewal, a transition approach that separates the immediate tightening for new applicants from the continuing status of workers already holding valid approvals.
Work permits typically carry 1-3 years validity, meaning the centralized model will reach many current permit holders when they come up for renewal and employers need to refresh documentation and re-justify continued employment.
The government set a processing-time target of 21 days, which it described as an improvement from 45+ days previously, and employers will likely weigh that stated speed against the additional steps involved in meeting the new recruitment and documentation expectations.
For companies that recruit internationally, the Cabinet’s changes can reshape time-to-hire planning even if the official processing target holds, because recruitment steps come earlier and must be documented before the employer can even move to a foreign application.
Antigua and Barbuda also expects work permit fees to rise under the new centralized system, though the final amounts depend on official publication, with figures tied to an official gazette or notice.
Sources indicated a 25-50% increase from prior EC$500-1,500 annual rates, a change that can affect budgeting not only for first-time filings but also for renewals, especially in workforces where permits come due on a rolling schedule.
For employers, the financial impact extends beyond the headline fee range, because timing and compliance costs can rise when a process tightens, including internal time spent compiling advertisements, ensuring document consistency, and preparing clear job-need explanations that align with local recruitment results.
Centralization can also concentrate decision-making risk: a single authority may deliver more predictable outcomes across cases, but it can also apply a uniform standard that leaves less room for informal variation between different agencies that previously touched the process.
In governance terms, the Cabinet’s approval puts political ownership squarely at the top of government, while day-to-day adjudication flows through labour authorities whose priorities now explicitly include protecting local jobs and testing employer efforts to hire nationals first.
Employers may respond by tightening internal coordination between hiring managers, human resources teams, and any legal or compliance staff involved in assembling work permit applications, because a centralized reviewer can compare the recruitment narrative, job description, and supporting documents more easily when the file is routed through one channel.
In practical terms, firms may also need to align the timing of job postings with business needs, since the 14 days of local advertising now sits as a defined step before foreign hiring can proceed, potentially affecting start dates in seasonal sectors such as tourism and project-driven industries such as construction.
The policy arrives as Caribbean governments pursue localization efforts tied to post-COVID labor recovery, and Antigua and Barbuda’s Cabinet framed its approach as part of that wider direction without specifying any numerical quota for foreign workers.
Without a quota, approvals hinge on case-by-case judgments of employer justification and local labor availability, placing more weight on the recruitment record and the coherence of the employer’s explanation for why the role could not be filled by Antiguans and Barbudans.
Employers and foreign workers will watch for official guidance that clarifies the centralized authority’s procedures, including any updates to forms, portal workflows, and fee schedules as the government implements the Cabinet-approved model.
Applicants and employers can file through the government’s online system, using the Labour Department job portal, and the policy ties compliance to that centralized submission route and the required local advertising period.
For status questions, the government directed inquiries to the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Department at +1 (268) 462-1119 or [email protected], channels that may become more important as employers adjust to the new routing and the government’s promised processing-time target.
The Cabinet’s move contrasts with U.S. trends of backlog reductions in work authorizations, but Antigua and Barbuda’s policy focus remains on centralization, local recruitment, and the promise of faster decisions alongside tighter scrutiny for new work permit approvals.
