Today, we will briefly examine new laws passed by Guyana’s National Assembly since my last roundup last August and new bills that have been introduced but have yet to be passed.
Various news stories have covered the passage of most, if not all, of these new laws. However, stakeholders often miss these developments. In any case, it would be helpful to have articles that gather these news laws together and offer them as a future research tool.
The following bills have been laid:
1. The Caricom Arrest Warrant Bill 2025 (Bill 6 of 2015);
2. The Regional Security System Act 2025 (Bill 5 of 2025);
3. The Advance Passenger Information and Passenger Name Record
Act 2025 (Bill No. 4 of 1015);
4. The Court of Appeal (Amendment) Act 2025 (Bill No. 3 of 2025);
5. The Guyana Horse Racing Authority Act 2024 (Bill No. 23 of 2024);
6. The Financial Institutions (Amendment) Act 2024 (Bill 22 of 2024);
7. The Engineers Act 2024 (Bill No. 21 of 2024);
8. The Apostille Act 2024 (Bill No. 20 of 2024); and
9. The International Measures for the Protection of Children (Hague
Convention) Act 2024 (Bill No. 15 of 2024).
Meanwhile, the following acts have been passed and have become law.
1. The Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2025;
2. The Appropriation Act 2025;
3. The Value-Added Tax (Amendment to Schedule 1) Order 2025;
4. The Criminal Procedure (Plea Discussion, Plea Agreement and
Assistance Agreement) Act 2024 (Commencement) Order 2025;
5. The Wills (Amendment) Act 2024;
6. The Security Interests in Movable Property Act 2024;
7. The Acquisition of Lands for Public Purposes (Amendment) Act
2024;
8. The Deceased Persons Estates’ Administration (Amendment) Act
2024; and
9. The Open Data Act 2024 (Act No. 16 of 2024).
I will briefly explain the purpose of the laws that have been enacted. As the bills mentioned above may be amended before being passed or potentially abandoned altogether, I shall refrain from discussing them until they are officially passed.
Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2025
The Government of Guyana (GoG) announced several income tax changes in 2025, and this law is intended to effect those changes.
For example, under section 8 of the Income Tax Act, aged and incapacitated people whose income from all sources is less than $1,200,000 a year are exempt from taxes on interest accrued on savings accounts. Section 2 of this amendment increases the threshold to $1,500,000 annually.
Additionally, section 3 of the Amendment Act amends section 20 of the Principal Act to allow certain tax deductions, including $120,000 per annum for each child under 18 years of age that a person had living the year before the year of assessment. This means that for an assessment in 2025, you had to have a child under 18 years in 2024.
Notably, only one parent may apply for the deduction, and there is no specificity on whether the parent with whom the child lives has priority. However, a guardian can apply for the deduction, as the act allows “a person” instead of “a parent.”
The Appropriation Act 2025
The Appropriation Act is, in essence, a law authorising the Executive to spend sums of money from the Consolidated Fund. It is the legal form of what is commonly referred to as “The Budget”. If you did not know this before, no need to be ashamed. Though I graduated with a BSc in International Relations in 2010, I never learned this until I became a news reporter in 2012.
The Value-Added Tax (Amendment to Schedule 1) Order 2025
This Amendment merely adds items that are exempt from value-added tax. These include electricity generators, machinery used in the agriculture sector, automated poultry pens, and veterinary supplies.
The Criminal Procedure (Plea Discussion, Plea Agreement and Assistance Agreement) Act 2024 (Commencement) Order 2025
This Order brings the Criminal Procedure (Plea Discussion, Plea Agreement and Assistance Agreement) Act 2024 into effect. I provided a brief introduction to this Act in a previous article.
The Wills (Amendment) Act 2024
The key change effected by this amendment allows any witness to a Will to execute an “affidavit of due execution of the will” and affix his signature to a Will to indicate that he witnessed its execution by the testator.
This amendment permits the affidavit to serve as evidence that the Will was duly executed by the testator, mainly when the testator has passed away and none of the witnesses can be located or are not readily accessible.
In the past, questions have been raised about whether Wills were duly executed, and neither witness could appear to say what they witnessed. This provision is expected to simplify the resolution of disputes concerning whether the Will was executed correctly.
The Security Interests in Movable Property Act 2024
This act requires the Commercial Registry to generate and maintain a register for any interests a person (legal or natural) may create in movable (not land, houses or similar items) property as security.
As such, if a bank or a car dealership grants a loan to a person to purchase a vehicle, and then uses that vehicle as security for the loan, the bank or car dealership can register that security with the Commercial Registry.
This act is intended to, among other things, give lenders better protection against being dispossessed of that security. Given the enormous volume of loans that financial and other institutions grant to purchase movable property, this act will affect a broad cross-section of Guyanese. For this reason, this is one of the laws I plan to cover in greater detail soon.
The Acquisition of Lands for Public Purposes (Amendment) Act 2024
The key change in this amendment is section 2 (c) of the Amendment Act, which amends section 7 (1) of the Principal Act.
Previously, that section stated that a month after an order is made to acquire land for a public purpose, the land vests in the state, subject to the payment of the purchase price or any compensation required under the act.
Last year, the GoG moved to the High Court seeking immediate possession of certain lands acquired under the Principal Act after the landowner disputed the adequateness of the compensation offered by the state.
In September 2024, Justice Jacqueline Josiah-Graham ruled that the GoG’s application for immediate possession before the negotiation and acceptance of adequate compensation would breach section 7 (1) and violate Article 142 of the Constitution, which protects the right against the compulsory acquisition of land without adequate compensation. Consequently, the GoG’s attempt to acquire these lands was thwarted.
Section 2 (c) of the amendment now adds the words “but without prejudice to the state’s right to vacant possession of the land” to section 7 (1) of the Principal Act. This amendment therefore seems aimed at allowing the GoG to obtain vacant possession of lands before compensation is agreed upon.
The Deceased Persons Estates’ Administration (Amendment) Act 2024
This amendment is quite helpful.
Usually, if a person dies leaving more than $250 in a bank account (this is obviously an old law), the surviving spouse or guardian must first produce letters of administration (where the deceased died without a will) or letters of probate (where the deceased died with a valid will) to access the funds in the accounts.
Since obtaining either letter can take months to a year (and even longer), funeral and related expenses would have to be paid using relatives’ personal funds instead of the deceased’s available funds.
The act amends section 20 (1) of the Principal Act to allow the surviving spouse or heirs of a deceased person (who died without a will) who left money in a bank account to apply to the bank and receive up to $700,000 of any funds in that account before applying for letters of administration.
The executors of a deceased person’s estate may also apply for and receive the same amount of funds before obtaining letters of probate.
In both circumstances, the applicants must provide relevant documentation to the bank, including a valid form of identification, the deceased’s death certificate, and, if the deceased left a will, a copy of a valid will.
Importantly, the amendment states that this application can be made to any body or persons, corporate or unincorporated, including financial institutions or insurance bodies. The law also applies to the state and, therefore, to credit union schemes.
This amendment is likely aimed at simplifying the process to allow the release of funds from a deceased person’s estate to handle funeral and other expenses related to the death before the formal processes to obtain letters of probate.
The Open Data Act 2024 (Act No. 16 of 2024)
The Open Data Act was passed to ensure that state entities make available public data they possess to ensure transparency, effective governance, and innovation.
The act, among other things, requires all public authorities to create and maintain a public register of all data assets created, collected, and controlled by the respective authority.
Data is defined by the act to mean recorded information, regardless of the form of media in which it is recorded.
