The four numbers in a sett price
A sett price that arrives as a single figure is hiding its own structure. There are four numbers inside it, and they behave differently: the stone itself, the ocean freight to Willemstad, the clearance and tax at the border, and the hours it takes to lay. Move the format and the first number changes. Move the depth and the first two change together, because depth is weight. Move the pattern and the fourth changes without touching the first three at all. A budget that separates them can be steered; a budget that does not can only be accepted or refused. Bedding and base materials sit alongside those four as a fifth line, but they are bought and priced on the island, so they move on a different clock.
Stone: format, depth and sale unit
The unit rate for the stone itself is a function of a few decisions taken early, and most of them are specification decisions rather than commercial ones.
- Depth drives both price and shipping weight, so specify duty honestly.
- Sawn on six sides costs more than a split or hand-dressed face.
- Calibrated units lay faster, moving cost from the stone line to the labor line.
- Single-size orders sort and pack more predictably than mixed-format ones.
Freight: Willemstad takes it direct
The Port of Willemstad is run by Curacao Ports Authority N.V., with cargo terminals operated under concession by Curacao Port Services. The container terminal handles roughly 100,000 TEU a year across two gantry cranes, with around 1,000 m of berth in total, a maximum single berth of 460 m, a maximum depth of 12.2 m, and a 24-hour operation taking both Ro/Ro and Lo/Lo.
- Willemstad takes ocean freight directly, with no transshipment leg required.
- Brion Wharves handle bulk, vehicles and other non-containerized cargo.
- Grote Werf handles break-bulk for vessels under 100 MT and has a weighbridge.
- The Curacao Harbor Free Zone beside the container terminal runs to 91,000 square meters.
Clearance: what Douane Curacao expects
The CARICOM Common External Tariff does not apply here. Curacao is an EU Overseas Country and Territory, which the European Commission describes as neither part of EU territory nor of the EU single market, and it sits outside the EU customs union as well. It runs its own national tariff, published as the Tarief van invoerrechten and built on the Harmonized System. That is the frame within which cobblestone lots sized to each stage get valued and declared.
- An import declaration is mandatory for goods entering Curacao.
- Douane Curacao states that it prefers clearance through ASYCUDA World.
- Customs value is the goods plus costs such as freight and insurance.
- A douane-expediteur, or customs forwarder, can file the declaration for you.
- Ask for the duty position on your own HS heading before committing a budget.
Turnover tax, anti-cumulation and XCG
Turnover tax, omzetbelasting or OB, applies on import. The published general rate is 6%, with 7% on insurance and short-term lodging and a 9% band for listed luxury goods such as motor vehicles, yachts, prepared foods, alcohol, tobacco and mobile phones. Paving stone does not appear on that luxury list, but the rate that applies to a particular HS heading is a question for your customs agent and should be confirmed rather than assumed. One rule is worth knowing about: an importer of trade goods may apply to the Inspector for permission to deduct 50% of the OB paid on imported trade goods from the OB owed in the same period, the anticumulatieregeling. Since 31 March 2025 the official currency has been the Caribbean guilder, XCG, pegged at USD 1 to XCG 1.79, and from 1 July 2025 only XCG is accepted for cash payments.
Laying: the hours left out
Labor is the line that moves most and gets estimated least. A sett surface is assembled unit by unit, so the pattern, the amount of cutting and the geometry of the area drive the hours far more than the total square meters do. A straight running bond across an open rectangle is one thing; a fan around a curved court with a cut border is another entirely. Ask your stratemaker, the paving contractor, for hours against your own drawing and your own pattern rather than a general rate, and ask separately for the preparation, because excavation, base, compaction and edge restraint are their own body of work. Access counts as well: a crate that has to be broken down and barrowed through a house costs hours that never appear on a stone quote.
Phasing the money in stages
Not every site needs the whole area on day one, and phasing is easier to arrange when it is planned rather than improvised part way through.
- Split by function: entrance and apron first, terrace and garden afterward.
- Keep areas that will be seen together within the same production batch.
- Order border and closer material with phase one, even if it is laid later.
- Ask your agent whether the free zone beside the terminal suits staging a later phase.
What to send for a number
A useful quote needs a drawing, an area, a pattern, a depth and a delivery address; without those, any figure is a placeholder. Send the layout with the arcs and borders shown, say which vehicles cross which surface, and state whether you want the stone priced to the quay at Willemstad or through to the site. For a sense of where ranges sit before your own numbers exist, the index we keep on stone rates is the place to start. Break the price into stone, freight, clearance and hours, and every one of them becomes something you can manage.