A Delivered Price Is a Stack, Not a Number
Ask three suppliers what paving costs delivered to a site above Cole Bay and you can get three numbers that are not comparable at all, because each one bundles a different set of costs into a single figure. The only way to read them fairly is to unbundle. A delivered stone package is built from these parts:
- The stone itself, priced by format, thickness and finish.
- Sea freight, terminal handling and clearance at the quay.
- Inland haul, offload and any machine hire at the site.
- Bedding, jointing and edge restraint materials.
- A cutting waste allowance, and the labor that lays it.
Some of those lines you control at the ordering stage. Others you cannot, and telling them apart is much of the skill in buying stone here.
The Line That Is Not There
Sint Maarten is a free port. Customs describes itself as mainly a law enforcement agency rather than an import-duty collecting organization, and states that the only tax it levies is excise on unleaded gasoline. A container of paving does not attract an ad valorem tariff at Point Blanche. If a budget carries a duty allowance because a neighboring island charges one, that allowance is spare money sitting in the wrong column. Move it to the base course, the edge restraint or the drainage, where it will still be doing useful work long after the surface is laid.
The Line People Misread
Turnover tax is charged at a standard five percent on a local business’s realized revenues from selling goods or providing services, and it is expressly not levied on imports. It is a tax on the seller’s turnover, not a charge on your container at the quay. The practical consequence is simple: if you are buying through a local reseller, that tax lives inside their pricing as a business cost; if you are importing directly for your own project, it is not a border line item at all. Either way, line items behind a paving price should never show it as an import charge.
Freight Is the Biggest Variable
With no tariff to argue about, the freight line does the heavy lifting in your budget, and it is the line most affected by how you buy:
- One full container is usually cheaper to move than several part loads.
- Stone is dense, so a box reaches its weight limit long before it looks full.
- Direct discharge at Point Blanche avoids paying for a second sea leg.
- Consolidating pavers, setts and curb units into one booking spreads fixed costs.
- Terminal free time is finite, so a plan for collection protects against storage charges.
Waste Is a Real Cost Line
Cutting waste is easy to leave out of a comparison and easy to blame at the end of a job. Every radius, step, threshold and diagonal course removes usable area from a crate. A running bond across a rectangular terrace wastes very little. A fan layout around a curved pool edge wastes considerably more, and no supplier can make that arithmetic go away. Decide the pattern before you price the order, because a layout chosen after delivery is the most expensive way to buy the extra stone you will need:
- Rectangular terraces in running bond waste the least material.
- Radial and fan layouts around curves take a good deal more.
- Steps, thresholds and upstands each generate cuts of their own.
- A border course in a second format keeps cutting out of the field.
The Cheapest Square Foot Is Rarely the Cheapest Job
A thin unit over a weak base on an island where the wettest months are the storm months is not a saving; it is a deferred cost with interest. The lines that protect a paving investment here are unglamorous ones. Base course thickness, compaction, joint material, edge restraint and drainage capacity all sit below or beside the stone, and all of them cost more to correct later than to build correctly the first time. Judge an offer on what it includes beneath the surface, not only on the rate for the surface itself. That is usually where a delivered price either holds up or quietly stops being a bargain.
Comparing Two Quotes Fairly
- Confirm whether the price is at the quay, at the gate or at the working area.
- Check the area quoted is net laid area, not gross crate coverage.
- Ask who pays for offload equipment and who bears terminal storage.
- Compare thickness and finish, not just format and tone.
- Ask what happens if a crate arrives short or damaged.
Two quotes that answer those five questions the same way can finally be compared on price. Our published ranges give a starting point before any of that is settled, and the benchmark ranges we maintain are there to be checked against whatever else you have been offered.
Build the Budget From the Quay Inward
The most reliable way to budget a stone package here is to start at the Captain David Cargo Quay and work in both directions: out to the loading port for freight, and inland to the site for haul, offload and laying. Every cost on the job sits somewhere along that line, and once each one has a name it stops being a surprise. Price the whole chain from quay to yard and the delivered number stops moving.