Landlord surcharge registration deadline extended to June 30

Land­lords and rent-col­lect­ing agents now have un­til June 30, 2026, to com­plete manda­to­ry reg­is­tra­tion un­der the Land­lord Busi­ness Sur­charge af­ter the Min­istry of Fi­nance an­nounced an ex­ten­sion fol­low­ing pub­lic en­gage­ment by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued to­day, the min­istry said the ex­ten­sion is in­tend­ed to give cit­i­zens ad­di­tion­al time to com­plete reg­is­tra­tion, or­gan­ise re­quired doc­u­ments and avoid penal­ties.

The min­is­ter re­cent­ly vis­it­ed Board of In­land Rev­enue of­fices in San Fer­nan­do, Port of Spain and Tu­na­puna, where he ob­served land­lords com­ing for­ward to com­ply with the new re­quire­ments.

"We lis­tened to the pub­lic, met with stake­hold­ers and heard what they had to say. This ex­ten­sion to June 30th, 2026 will al­low for a more ef­fi­cient process while giv­ing cit­i­zens ad­di­tion­al time to get their doc­u­ments in or­der," Tan­coo said.

He said many land­lords were not at­tempt­ing to avoid the law, but were mak­ing gen­uine ef­forts to com­ply.

"What I saw was not re­sis­tance to com­pli­ance. I saw many per­sons mak­ing the ef­fort to do what is re­quired. Where cit­i­zens are try­ing to com­ply, the State must al­so en­sure that the process is clear, ef­fi­cient and rea­son­able."

Tan­coo said the ex­ten­sion strength­ens im­ple­men­ta­tion rather than weak­ens the mea­sure.

"This ex­ten­sion strength­ens the im­ple­men­ta­tion, while en­sur­ing that the rental sec­tor is bet­ter reg­u­lat­ed and po­si­tioned for fur­ther growth."

The Land­lord Busi­ness Sur­charge was in­tro­duced un­der the Fi­nance Act, 2025 as part of Gov­ern­ment rev­enue re­form mea­sures aimed at im­prov­ing com­pli­ance, strength­en­ing rev­enue ad­min­is­tra­tion and bring­ing greater struc­ture to the rental sec­tor.

The sur­charge ap­plies on­ly to ac­tu­al gross quar­ter­ly rental in­come col­lect­ed. Land­lords earn­ing TT$20,000 or less in gross quar­ter­ly rental in­come will pay 2.5 per cent, while those col­lect­ing more than TT$20,000 quar­ter­ly will pay 3.5 per cent.

The Min­istry said the sur­charge will be cred­itable against fi­nal an­nu­al tax li­a­bil­i­ty and is there­fore not a dou­ble tax.

Tan­coo urged non-ex­empt land­lords to use the ad­di­tion­al pe­ri­od to com­plete reg­is­tra­tion.

"We there­fore im­plore land­lords to be­come com­pli­ant and avoid be­ing pe­nalised. The ad­di­tion­al time is be­ing pro­vid­ed so that per­sons can reg­u­larise their po­si­tion and com­plete the process prop­er­ly."