On the eve of the final registration deadline for Trinidad and Tobago’s new Landlord Business Surcharge, dozens of property owners crowded the Inland Revenue Division (IRD) office at the Ministry of Finance in Port of Spain, scrambling to complete their required paperwork before midnight. Throughout the entire morning on June 29, a snaking line of landlords wrapped around the exterior of the IRD building, with many waiting hours to submit their forms and pay the mandatory registration fee.
Interviews with several registrants on the ground painted a mixed picture of the process: while most acknowledged the line moved at a steady pace despite its length, many criticized the IRD’s outdated organizational system and inconvenient requirements. One woman who successfully completed her registration after waiting noted that the facility only offers seating for 20 people inside, forcing staff to admit applicants in small batches. Instead of using a modern digital ticketing system to manage queue order, staff rely on a clunky manual process that has people skipping empty chairs to count their place in line – a system she described as thoroughly archaic.
Like many last-minute registrants, this woman said she deliberately chose to beat the June 30 deadline a day early, explaining she had no choice but to come early to avoid what she expects will be an even bigger chaotic nightmare on deadline day. She also pointed out that the large crowd included not just surcharge registrants, but also members of the public completing other routine tax transactions, which contributed to the longer wait times.
Other landlords expressed frustration with the new levy itself, calling the added financial and administrative burden unfair. One woman who had already paid $800 in property tax last year said she was now forced to pay an extra $2,500 just to complete registration for the new surcharge. She added that she had already made one trip to the IRD office earlier, only to find she was missing a required document, forcing her to return a second time on the busy pre-deadline day.
One male registrant explained his last-minute visit stemmed from a packed work schedule that left him no time to complete the process earlier. Another local observer noted that long queues outside the Port of Spain IRD office are extremely uncommon, echoing the point that the large turnout is a combination of routine tax business and the surcharge registration deadline. Notably, the original registration deadline was May 30, before officials extended the cutoff to June 30 in a prior adjustment.
The Landlord Business Surcharge was first introduced as a core measure in the government’s 2026 national budget, codified under the 2025 Finance Act, and is set to officially go into effect starting January 2026. The levy applies to all gross quarterly rental income earned by both residential and commercial landlords operating in the country. Under the tax structure, landlords pay a 2.5% surcharge on quarterly income up to TT$20,000, and a higher 3.5% rate for any quarterly rental income that exceeds that threshold.
