The Number Behind the Number
Every client asks what paving costs per unit area, and every honest answer starts by pointing out that the stone is one line in the figure. In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines the delivered cost is a stack, and the last two items in that stack often move it further than the choice of material does. Build the stack once at design stage and the budget stops drifting through the job. It also gives you something to negotiate with, because each line has a different owner and a different lever. A rate quoted without the chain behind it is a guess wearing a suit, and most disputes late in a project trace back to exactly that kind of number agreed early.
From Quarry to Quay
The first block of cost is settled before the box moves:
- The stone itself, priced by thickness, format and finish
- Cutting, calibration and specials such as steps, copings and drainage pieces
- Packing: crates, pallets, banding and corner protection
- Ocean freight to Kingstown, plus marine insurance on the load
Packing is the line people trim and then regret, because a pallet that fails on the second leg costs far more than the banding ever saved. Ask for these as separate lines rather than one delivered rate, because a bundled figure hides the item you could actually change.
What the Entry Adds
At the border, several charges land on the same entry, and they have different bases:
- Duty under the CARICOM Common External Tariff, set by classification
- VAT at the standard rate published by the Inland Revenue Department, currently sixteen percent and under government review
- A Customs Service Charge that applies broadly, including on duty-free lines
- The agent fee for filing the entry, priced by how much work it creates
Rates and classification should be confirmed by your agent against your own packing list, and SVG Customs publishes a general import duty calculator for exactly that purpose. Never budget a duty figure you cannot source, and never carry one over from another island.
Port, Agent and Paperwork
Commercial entries are filed in ASYCUDA by an authorized agent, so the agent fee, port charges and any storage sit on top of tax. The new Kingstown cargo terminal has been handed over in stages from September 2025, so allow a little extra time in the first schedule of a new project. If you are moving the cut stone we ship into a phased build, remember that bonded warehousing runs for two years and defers the tax until material is drawn down. Ask the agent early what documents they want and in what form, because a clean file moves faster than a fast vessel.
The Last Leg Changes Everything
The stone can be identical, the drawings identical, and the two budgets a long way apart, purely because of where the material has to finish its journey:
- Main-island sites pay a road leg from Kingstown or Campden Park, over steep ground
- Grenadine sites pay an inter-island vessel leg on top of everything above
- Some landings have limited cargo handling, so labor and gear cost more
- Oversized pallets can be refused, forcing a repack nobody budgeted for
- Weather can hold a small vessel, and held material still has to be stored
Ask the vessel operator what a pallet may weigh and how it will come off at the other end before the crates are built, not after they are standing on the wharf.
Site Costs That Belong in the Budget
The material invoice is not the paving cost. Add the base and bedding, most of which will be Rabacca bought locally, plus laying labor, cutting and waste, edge restraint, jointing and drainage. On a Grenadine villa, add the cost of getting a crew and their tools to the island and keeping them there. A useful discipline is to price the base and the surface as two separate packages, so nobody quietly cuts the layer doing the structural work. Waste is the line most often forgotten; cutting to a curved pool edge or a stepped terrace consumes far more than a rectangular yard would suggest.
Where Money Is Genuinely Saved
Real savings in this market are logistical rather than commercial:
- Consolidate phases into one container and bond it rather than shipping three times
- Buy base and bedding locally and ship only the wearing surface
- Choose a section the base can support instead of over-specifying depth
- Fix the design before packing, since changes after sealing cost a whole sailing
- Order specials with the main load rather than as an afterthought
None of those savings require a cheaper stone, which is why they tend to survive value engineering intact.
Getting a Figure You Can Trust
Send the drawings with zones marked, the destination island, and the offload conditions at the landing. We will price the material, the packing and the shipping legs as separate lines so your quantity surveyor can see exactly which numbers are able to move. Before any of that, hold a sample before ordering and check it in the light and water the site actually gets. Then hold that structure through the job, so a change in one line never quietly rewrites the others. A delivered price built line by line is one you can defend all the way to handover.