Govt’s new penalty fines, taxes to kick in from Jan 1

A se­ries of Gov­ern­ment no­tices pub­lished on Christ­mas Day will see changes to traf­fic fines, cus­toms du­ties, ve­hi­cle im­port rules, and reg­is­tra­tion fees tak­ing ef­fect on Jan­u­ary 1, 2026.

Guardian Me­dia re­caps the biggest changes tak­ing ef­fect in the new year.

Fees for reg­is­ter­ing births and deaths will in­crease. Reg­is­tra­tion for a child over three months but un­der 12 months will cost $40, while reg­is­tra­tion of a child over 12 months with writ­ten au­thor­i­ty from the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al will range from $100 to $150.

Oth­er fees in­clude $20 for de­clar­ing a birth in an­oth­er dis­trict, $30 for cor­rect­ing er­rors in the reg­is­ter, $25 to $30 for cer­ti­fied copies of en­tries, $50 for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of birth or death cer­tifi­cates, and $100 for re-reg­is­tra­tion of a wrong­ly reg­is­tered birth.

Cus­toms du­ty up­dates

Stan­dard cus­toms fees have been dou­bled. Charges pre­vi­ous­ly set at $40 will rise to $80, while fees at Con­tain­er Ex­am­i­na­tion Sta­tions are al­so in­creas­ing sharply, with one cat­e­go­ry mov­ing from $375 to $750 and an­oth­er from $525 to $1,050.

These in­creas­es ap­ply to goods en­ter­ing the coun­try and to con­tain­er in­spec­tions, di­rect­ly af­fect­ing im­porters, lo­gis­tics com­pa­nies, and busi­ness­es that re­ly on ship­ping ser­vices.

New rules al­so tar­get ve­hi­cle im­ports. Com­mer­cial com­pressed nat­ur­al gas (CNG) ve­hi­cles with en­gines up to 1,599 cc, both new and used, will re­ceive full ex­emp­tion from cus­toms du­ty, pro­vid­ed used ve­hi­cles are no old­er than eight years. Pri­vate elec­tric ve­hi­cles val­ued at TT$400,000 or less will re­ceive a 10 per cent re­duc­tion on cus­toms du­ty, while ve­hi­cles above that thresh­old re­main sub­ject to the stan­dard du­ty.

At the same time, the max­i­mum age for im­port­ed ve­hi­cles in cer­tain cat­e­gories has been raised from three years to eight years, ex­pand­ing el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for used im­ports. How­ev­er, du­ty re­lief for elec­tric ve­hi­cles is now strict­ly lim­it­ed to those un­der the $400,000 thresh­old.

Mean­while, in one of the few con­ces­sions, agri­cul­tur­al im­ports will al­so ben­e­fit from full du­ty re­mis­sion on a wide range of items used in crop pro­duc­tion, live­stock man­age­ment, and agro-pro­cess­ing.

The ex­emp­tions cov­er spe­cif­ic equip­ment and in­puts, in­clud­ing plas­tic mulch, UV-treat­ed high-den­si­ty poly­thene, seed­ing trays, grow bags, plant con­tain­ers for hy­dro­pon­ics and pro­tect­ed farm­ing, as well as sharp sand and bricks for grow box­es. Bee­keep­ing and small-scale pro­cess­ing sup­plies, such as hon­ey buck­ets, spouts, and choco­late-mak­ing moulds, are al­so in­clud­ed, along­side live­stock care items like hoof trim­mers, shear­ing ma­chines, hair clip­pers, and nose rings. Post-har­vest and pro­cess­ing equip­ment, such as mo­bile re­frig­er­a­tion and chill­ing units, con­tact-freez­ers, grind­ing ma­chines, and com­mer­cial-grade juicers, will al­so qual­i­fy. Grow lights im­port­ed specif­i­cal­ly for agri­cul­tur­al pur­pos­es are cov­ered as well.

The Gov­ern­ment dou­bled most traf­fic fines un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cles and Road Traf­fic Act, ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2026. The changes af­fect more than 60 of­fences, in­clud­ing speed­ing, dan­ger­ous dri­ving-re­lat­ed breach­es, doc­u­men­ta­tion of­fences, and oth­er traf­fic vi­o­la­tions.

Un­der the new sched­ule, fines pre­vi­ous­ly set at $1,000 have in­creased to $2,000, $750 fines rise to $1,500, $300 fines jump to $600, and $450 fines go up to $900. Some high­er penal­ties have al­so been raised, in­clud­ing $2,000 fines now set at $4,000.

Re­peat of­fences now car­ry tiered penal­ties that have been in­creased across the board, with sev­er­al fines more than dou­bling.

Sep­a­rate­ly, the toll for maxi-taxis op­er­at­ing on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route has dou­bled from $300 to $600 per quar­ter. Per­mits re­main payable in ad­vance and non-re­fund­able, with re­new­al re­quired each quar­ter.