The lines that make a sett budget
A sett price is never one figure. It is the stone, the freight leg into Hamilton, the duty assessed on arrival, the ground works underneath and the hours it takes to lay a small unit by hand. Move any one of those and the total moves with it, which is why a square-foot number quoted in isolation tells a Bermuda buyer very little about what the job will actually cost. Build the budget from its parts and it behaves predictably. It also lets you see which lines you can influence and which you cannot: the duty rate and the sailing schedule are fixed by other people, while format, depth, layout complexity and delivery pattern are all yours to decide.
What changed on 1 July 2025
Bermuda funds itself largely through customs duty rather than through VAT or income tax, so the duty line has always carried more weight here than in most places. From 1 July 2025 duty on building materials and supplies was reduced to 10 percent, explicitly covering items previously charged above that rate, including tile, paint, steel, rebar, drywall, doors and windows. The standard rate has historically sat considerably higher. Confirm the classification of your own shipment with your broker, since that is what the assessment follows. The practical effect for a paving budget is that the duty line is now a smaller share of the landed figure than older guidance suggests, and any estimate carried over from a previous project is worth rebuilding rather than adjusting.
Freight is short and schedulable
The supply line into Hamilton is among the shortest we serve, and it runs to a published rhythm rather than a guess. Weekly sailings from the New Jersey ports leave on a Friday evening and berth on a Sunday afternoon, with cargo collectable from early on the Monday. A service out of Fernandina Beach in Florida runs several times a month, covering roughly 880 nautical miles in about three and a half days port to port, and handles break-bulk as well as containers. Confirm the current rotation with the carrier before planning around it. A short, regular line is worth more to a paving schedule than a cheap one, because it lets you order against a laying week instead of stockpiling a whole scheme on a site that has nowhere to put it.
The last mile is a real line item
Moving stone from the quay to the yard is where a Bermuda job differs most from a mainland one, and it is an easy line to leave out of an early estimate.
- Road widths and vehicle-size limits favor smaller trucks and planned drops.
- A pallet that cannot reach the work gets barrowed, and barrowing is billed in hours.
- Sites with no storage need staged deliveries rather than one large drop.
- An access check before ordering costs less than a re-handle afterward.
Labor is the larger half
Small units are laid one at a time. That is their advantage on curves and gradients and their cost on open areas, so an honest sett budget puts more weight on hours than on the material line. A quote that shows the stone and stays silent on everything under it is describing part of the job rather than the job.
- Complex layouts, tight radii and heavy cutting all add hours per area laid.
- Base preparation and edge restraint often take longer than the paving itself.
- Consistent unit depth saves shimming, so calibration is a labor saving.
- Four real seasons and damp winter spells make the calendar part of the price.
Phasing without paying twice
Splitting a scheme across seasons or budget years is a reasonable way to work, and it goes cleanly as long as the material side is planned as a single order. Ask what a Bermuda sett order covers before you divide it, then hold the balance rather than re-ordering the same format months later.
- Reserve the full quantity up front so tone and batch stay consistent.
- Schedule deliveries against phases rather than against the first invoice.
- Finish drainage and edge restraint in phase one wherever they cross phases.
- Keep a labeled reserve of units for repairs after the job closes.
What to fix in writing
Most cost arguments on a sett job trace back to something assumed rather than written down. A short schedule agreed before anything ships removes almost all of them, and it takes far less time to write than the first disagreement takes to settle.
- Unit size, depth and finish, with a signed-off sample against them.
- Quantity by area plus a stated allowance for cuts and breakage.
- Crate or pallet counts and the delivery pattern they arrive on.
- Who offloads, who stores and who moves stone around the site.
- What the quoted price includes and at what point duty is applied.
Getting a number you can build on
Start from published ranges, then narrow them with your own dimensions. Check the index we keep updated to see where formats sit against one another, then send the area, the depth you need and the access constraint so the quote reflects your site rather than an average one. Invoicing stays simple, since the Bermuda dollar runs at par with the US dollar. A sett budget built from its parts is the only kind that survives contact with the ground.