As of 1 October 2025, four CARICOM nations: Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, launched full free movement under an Enhanced Cooperation agreement. Citizens of these four countries can now enter, live, work, and remain indefinitely in any of the four states without a work permit or CSME skills certificate, and have access to primary healthcare and schooling in the host country.
The arrangement operates under a provision in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that allows a subset of member states to deepen cooperation ahead of the wider bloc. It does not yet apply across all CARICOM nations; other member states are at varying stages of legislative preparation. The Bahamas, for example, does not participate in the CSME and is not part of the arrangement. For businesses operating across these four participating states, the change widens the available talent pool and removes the administrative overhead of work permit applications. Full bloc-wide implementation remains a work in progress.
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