The Slab Price Is the Smallest Number
Ask what paving costs in Grenada and you will usually be given a rate per square foot. It is the least useful figure in the whole exercise. By the time stone reaches a site at Westerhall or Gouyave, that opening rate has been joined by crating, ocean freight, insurance, duty, tax, port charges, haulage and the material you cut and throw away. None of those are hidden, but they are rarely presented together, and a buyer comparing two suppliers on the opening rate alone is comparing the smallest component of the job.
What Sets the Ex-Works Figure
Before anything moves, four decisions set the base price of the stone itself, and they are the only ones fully in your control.
- Material, since density, hardness and yield differ between limestone and basalt.
- Thickness, which is set by traffic duty and drives weight, and weight drives everything downstream.
- Finish, because every extra pass across a surface is another operation to pay for.
- Format and tolerance, where calibrated units cost more to produce and far less to lay.
The last of those is the one people underestimate. A cheaper uncalibrated unit transfers cost from the invoice to your crew, and island labor is not cheap.
Crating, Weight and Cube
Stone is sold by area and shipped by weight, and that mismatch is where budgets drift. The practical planning unit is tonnage rather than pallets.
- A stone container reaches its weight limit long before it fills, so plan by tonnage.
- Thicker units mean fewer square feet per box, raising the freight cost of each one.
- Confirm crate weights early, because the yard and your unloader both plan around them.
- An unneeded thickness increase is paid for three times: in stone, in freight and in handling.
The Ocean Leg
Grenada has direct service from Florida, with Tropical Shipping running out of the Port of Palm Beach and King Ocean operating an Eastern Caribbean service. Freight is quoted per container and moves with fuel, season and space, so a rate quoted in March is a guide rather than a promise in September. Ask for the rate and the validity window in the same sentence, and ask again if your laying date slips a month. Remember too that freight and insurance sit inside the value duty is assessed on, so the sailing you choose has a tax consequence as well as a cash one. A part-load shared with another buyer can look cheap per pallet and expensive per square foot once handling is counted, so compare full-container and consolidated options on the same landed basis before deciding.
Duty, Tax and the Charges Beside Them
This is the part of the stack governed by rules rather than negotiation, which makes it the easiest part to get exactly right. Get your tariff code confirmed and the whole section turns into arithmetic instead of guesswork.
- Duty is assessed under the CARICOM Common External Tariff on the CIF value, so freight and insurance sit inside the taxable base.
- Value Added Tax is charged at 15 percent on CIF plus duty, never on CIF alone.
- A Customs Service Charge also applies to imported merchandise; confirm the current rate with your broker rather than budgeting from a number found online.
- Whether any environmental levy reaches your tariff code is a question for that same conversation.
- Broker fees, delivery orders and storage sit outside the tax stack and still have to be paid.
Port, Storage and the Truck
After clearance the costs are physical and local, and they are the ones that vary most between two otherwise identical jobs.
- Terminal handling and any delivery order fee charged by the port.
- Storage, which begins the moment free time ends, so an unready site is expensive.
- Haulage across the island, priced by access rather than by distance.
- Offloading plant, whether that is a truck-mounted crane, a telehandler or hired hands.
- The separate cargo boat leg if any of the stone is bound for Carriacou or Petite Martinique.
What the Quote Never Shows
Then there is the material you buy and never lay. Waste is real, and on the falls, curves and boundaries of a Grenadian hillside site it is higher than on a flat rectangle. Add an allowance for cuts, keep some stone back for later repairs, and account for the base build-up and bedding beneath the surface, which is a genuine cost line and not an afterthought. Sub-base, compaction and edge restraint are frequently priced by a different trade on a different sheet, which is how they end up missing from the comparison entirely. Laying labor deserves the same honesty: a hillside terrace with falls in two directions takes longer than a flat rectangle of the same area, and the difference is measured in days. Clear stone quantities and delivered pricing at the quoting stage is what turns all of this from a surprise into a plan.
Comparing Two Quotes Honestly
Put both offers on one page, in one currency, with the same four headings: stone, freight and insurance, duty and tax, and everything after the gate. Insist that the tariff code appears on both. If one quote omits a heading, that cost has not disappeared, it has simply moved to you. Benchmarking against wholesale ranges by stone type tells you quickly whether an opening rate is genuinely competitive or merely incomplete. Compare landed figures, never opening rates, and the cheaper quote stays cheaper.