Duty Free shopping in Barbados is basically, shopping without the importation tax. When luxury items are brought into Barbados there is an importation tax imposed on them, however, if these items are not being consumed by Barbadians, or are leaving the country, the importation tax does not apply. Hence "duty-free" shopping.
All of Barbados' shopping districts have duty free stores, duty free areas or duty free prices listed on the specific items.
Luxury items such as those shown below are usually tagged with three different prices on them. The prices are listed as "LP BDS$" which means local price in Barbados dollars, "DF BDS$" meaning duty free price in Barbados dollars, and the third is "DF US$" which means duty free price in US dollars.
- Jewellery
- Clothing
- Cosmetics
- Appliances
All you need to be able to purchase merchandise at the duty free price is your passport and ticket showing when you are leaving the island. A receipt form is printed up in triplicate so that the merchant has a copy, and you get two; one of which is to be deposited into a box at the airport when you are leaving. This copy then goes to the government agencies responsible for refunding the merchant with the tax he or she has already paid for the item you have bought.
There are certain things that cannot be purchased duty-free these include spirits and wines, cigars, cigarettes, video sets, home computers and food.
All in all, it works out very well for everyone. For duty free shopping in Barbados you can check out our capital city of Bridgetown as well as Holetown and Speightstown, not to mention other stores scattered island wide.
Basically it's a good idea to carry your passport and ticket with you whenever you are going shopping since you never know when the opportunity for duty free may pop up and nobody likes to miss a discount.
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