GREAT BAY, Sint Maarten (DCOMM) – The Department of Economic Licenses from the Ministry Tourism, Economic Affairs, Traffic and Telecommunication (Ministry TEATT), is hereby informing the general public that approved licenses to operate a business in the country will only be kept on file for a maximum of six (6) months.
If the license is not picked up by the applicant, it will be destroyed. This new measure takes effect as of August 1st 2015, and is part of the departments ‘clean up project.’
Other measures effective as of August 1st are that the Department of Economic Licenses will only be accepting complete applications to operate a business.
In the event that additional information or documentation is required from the applicant, the application will be deemed incomplete and kept for a maximum of six (6) months from the date of application before being discarded, if the requested information is not received. The applicant will then receive a letter from the department informing them that the application has expired and must be re-submitted.
The aforementioned is applicable to requests for all licenses processed by the Department of Economic Licenses including: business, branch, director, amendments to licenses already issued, vending and operational licenses.
Applications for business licenses must be submitted together with the application for operational licenses (in the case of bars, restaurants, hotels and other establishments regulated in the National License Ordinance“Vergunningslandsverordening”).
The reason for this is because presently, the department cannot proceed with the processing of the business license, without having received the complete application including the reports from the relevant inspection departments confirming that the location of the establishment meets the requirements for an operational license.
The department is faced with many requests being submitted for business licenses, where the application for the operational license is not submitted.
The department is aware that the process of getting establishments inspected can be lengthy, so to avoid any inconvenience as it relates to documents expiring, the department will validate the required documents, before sending the applicant to the relevant departments to arrange inspections of their businesses.
The applicant has to then return to the department after receiving all inspection reports, with the complete application for the business (& director’s) license as well as the operational license. This is to ensure that both requests are handled simultaneously.
In the case of Public transportation licenses, specifically car rental licenses, which do not fall under the existing moratorium established as of February 18, 2014, the request for a business license must also be submitted together with the request for the Public transportation/Car Rental license.
A moratorium is still in effect for Bus, Taxi, T and G licenses.
The department will strive to respond to all requests within six weeks. If the processing of the license takes longer than 6 weeks, we will strive to update the applicant as to the reasons why and give a new timeline.
For more information you can visit the department at Zoutsteeg #3, Philipsburg or call 542-2986.
