Immigration

Every thirty days we have to go to the local Immigration office and have our passports updated.  It needs to be done exactly on day thirty.  If you are late they slap your hands and give you a little speech—we’ve only been late once and then only by one day.  If you are early, they stamp your passport for that day and you lose days.

The process is that you first go to the Immigration office.

 The officer there looks at your passport and writes a note on a scrap piece of paper saying you have to pay $50 Belize each.  (We have been told it is double that, $100 Belize per person per month, after six months.)

Then you go outside, across the veranda, to the cashier's office.

You wait in line there since many people are paying for many different things.  You hand the cashier your handwritten note, your passport, and $100 Belize.  She gives you a receipt. 

You then have to go across the street to the Mail Boxes, Etc. store and have them make a copy of the receipt the cashier just gave you.

Then you go back to the same Immigration Officer you started with and give him the receipt, the copy of your receipt, and your passport. 

He asks where you are staying and enters that along with your names in a ledger, stamps your passport, and says he’ll see you in thirty days.

One couple here did not go through this routine and when they left the country they had to pay all of the back fees plus a fine.  (You also have to pay $37.50 US per person to leave the country.)

Sounds like something the US should consider doing.  It’s a great money maker.