🇧🇿Belize

Belize is the CA-4 reset, and that is why people come here

Belize is not part of the CA-4 agreement that ties Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua to one shared 90-day allowance.

• Leaving CA-4 for Belize resets that clock. Come back across at Melchor de Mencos and Guatemala starts you at 90 days again.
• This is legitimate, not a loophole being tolerated - the four countries share an allowance with each other and not with Belize.
• A few days is enough, and Caye Caulker is a more pleasant place to spend them than a border town.

How long you get

• Your passport must be valid at least 3 months beyond arrival. Airlines commonly apply a 6-month test regardless.
• Extensions cost BZ$200 for each further 30 days, arranged at an immigration office before the current stay expires.

If your passport needs a visa

• A valid multiple-entry US or Canadian visa, or a valid Schengen visa, exempts you from needing a Belize visa. This is the route most people on visa-required passports actually use, and it is stated by Belize Immigration itself.
• Otherwise apply in advance. A Belize visa grants 30 days maximum.

The departure tax nobody budgets for

• Leaving by land, or by boat to Guatemala or Mexico, costs BZ$40 or US$20, in cash, at the border.
• It is not in your bus or boat ticket and there is no card machine. Keep the money back deliberately - people arrive at the border having spent their last Belize dollars and it is a genuine problem.
• Leaving by air, it is normally already in the ticket price.

The declaration

• Arriving at Philip Goldson airport you complete an immigration and customs declaration. There is a digital version at , and paper forms are still accepted.

• Coral, turtle products and marine curios may not be exported. The barrier reef is a World Heritage site, and dive bags are checked at Philip Goldson airport.
• Archaeological objects from the Maya sites are national property and may not leave the country, whatever the seller at the roadside says.
• The allowance is a carton of cigarettes and a small quantity of spirits per adult, plus personal effects, declared on the form handed out before landing.
• Cash above the declarable threshold must be reported. Belize dollars and US dollars both circulate, and both count.
• Leaving by land or by boat costs BZ$40, or US$20, paid in cash at the border. That applies to both the Guatemalan and the Mexican crossings, and to the water crossings - so the Melchor de Mencos run that resets your CA-4 clock costs this in each direction. It bundles the exit fee, the PACT conservation fee and a border development fee.
• Leaving by air, the equivalent is usually already in your ticket. Non-Belizeans pay about US$73.50 in airport charges, PACT included, and airlines normally collect it with the fare - check rather than assume, because you cannot leave without it.
• Rosewood and other protected timbers need a permit, which affects carved souvenirs more than people expect.

The thing that matters most

• Medical facilities in Belize are limited, and the FCDO says plainly that a serious case usually means evacuation to the United States, at the patient's expense.
• An air ambulance from Belize to Miami costs tens of thousands of dollars. This is the country where medical evacuation cover stops being a box you tick and becomes the actual reason to have insurance.
• Check your policy covers evacuation, and diving if you are diving. Standard travel policies frequently exclude it below a certain depth.

Medicines

• Availability of prescription medicine is unreliable. Bring what you need for the whole trip plus a margin, in original packaging.
• Do not plan to fill a prescription here.

Mosquitoes

• Dengue, Zika, chikungunya and malaria are all present. Dengue is the common one, and the mosquito bites in daylight.
• Malaria risk is rural, chiefly in the south and west, not on the cayes.
• Repellent day and night, and a fan or net where there is no screen.

Water and sun

• Drink bottled or filtered water. It is universally available.
• The sun on the reef is brutal and reflects off the water. Reef-safe sunscreen is required by some operators and is the decent thing regardless.

Numbers

• 911 for an ambulance.
• The hyperbaric chamber is on Ambergris Caye, which is a reason divers base themselves there rather than further south.

The four Belizes

• Caye Caulker - small, sandy, cheap, no cars, backpackers and a "go slow" sign. The best value in the country.
• Ambergris Caye (San Pedro) - bigger, busier, golf carts, resorts, the diving base. More expensive.
• Cayo, around San Ignacio - jungle lodges, Maya sites, caves, the Guatemala border. Green, cheap, and a completely different holiday from the cayes.
• Placencia and Hopkins - southern mainland beaches, quieter, Garifuna culture, a long drive or a short flight.

Belize City

• Almost nobody stays here and there is little reason to. The FCDO's gang violence warning centres on the Southside, south of Haulover Creek.
• If you have an early flight, there are hotels near the airport rather than in the city.

Practical

• On the cayes, the FCDO warns about theft - avoid dark alleys at night and keep valuables out of sight. This is opportunistic, not violent.
• Air conditioning versus fan is the main price difference on the cayes, and in April and May the difference matters.
• Check for a generator. Power cuts happen on the islands.
• Book ahead for Easter and Christmas, when Belizeans holiday on their own cayes and everything fills.

The local SIM

• Belize Telemedia (BTL/Digi) and Smart are the two networks. Digi has the wider coverage.
• Data is expensive here compared with Guatemala or Mexico next door - Belize is a small market and prices reflect it.
• A SIM needs the passport and is sold at the airport, in Belize City and in San Pedro.

An eSIM instead

• Worth it for a short trip, which most Belize trips are. The saving on a tourist SIM is smaller than usual here because the local prices are high.
• Check the provider actually covers Belize rather than assuming a Central America regional plan includes it - several do not.

Coverage and wi-fi

• The mainland corridor and the cayes have signal; the jungle interior, the Cockscomb Basin and much of Toledo do not.
• On the cayes, wi-fi is the real network. Hotels, bars and dive shops all have it, and it is often better than mobile data.
• Boats and the reef have nothing. A day trip to the Blue Hole is a day offline.

Sockets in Belize are Type A, B and G at 60 Hz, with both 110 V and 220 V in domestic use - the only country in Central America wired two ways.

• The British Type G socket is the legacy of British Honduras, and it sits alongside American two- and three-slot outlets, sometimes in the same building.
• Check the voltage before plugging in anything that heats. A 110 V appliance in a 220 V socket is destroyed instantly, and the shapes do not tell you which is which.
• American plugs fit the American sockets, and British plugs the Type G ones. Everyone else needs an adapter.
• Cayes and jungle lodges run on generators or solar, with sockets live only for part of the day.
• Guatemala and Mexico next door are American-standard only, at 120 V and 127 V.

The basics

• English is the official language and the language of daily life - the only country in Central America where that is true, and it makes the first day here far easier than in any neighbour.
• Belize Kriol is what you will actually hear between locals, and Spanish is widely spoken in the north and west.
• Plugs are the American flat two-pin, type A and B, at 110 V - but British type G outlets on a 220 V supply survive from British Honduras and turn up in the same building. The shapes do not tell you the voltage, so check the label beside the socket before plugging in anything that heats.
• UTC-6 all year. Dialling code +501, six-digit numbers, no area codes.

Rhythm

• "Go slow" is not a joke. Buses leave late, boats leave when full, and a 20-minute errand takes an hour. Plan half of what you would elsewhere.
• Sunday is genuinely quiet, and in the villages so is much of Saturday afternoon.
• Businesses close early. Outside San Pedro, dinner at 21:00 is optimistic.

Climate

• Hot and humid year round, with the dry season roughly December to May.
• Hurricane season June to November.
• The Cayo highlands are marginally cooler and the jungle is wetter than the coast.

Small things

• Cash in small notes. Nobody on a bus or in a village can break a BZ$100.
• Bring insect repellent from home; what is sold locally is expensive and not always effective.
• The reef is a UNESCO World Heritage site and touching coral is both damaging and, in the marine reserves, an offence.
• Belize is small. Under 400,000 people in a country the size of Wales, which is why one hospital, one chamber and two airlines cover it.

The peg

• BZ$2.00 = US$1.00, fixed since 11 May 1976. It does not move, and every price converts in your head by halving.
• US dollars circulate freely alongside Belize dollars and are accepted almost everywhere.
• Always ask which dollar. "Twenty dollars" from a tour operator may mean BZ$20 or US$20, and the difference is double. This is the single most common money mistake in Belize and it is usually an honest misunderstanding rather than a scam.
• Change from a US note comes in Belize dollars, at 2:1 if you are lucky and worse if you are not.
• The Central Bank's own selling rate is BZ$2.0175, so a bureau's spread comes out of the difference. For small sums it is not worth optimising.

Cash and cards

• Cards work in hotels, dive shops and restaurants in San Pedro, Placencia and San Ignacio, and often carry a surcharge of several percent.
• Cash rules elsewhere, and completely in villages and on buses.
• Cash machines are on the mainland and the two main cayes, and not much else. Use a machine inside a bank or a lit, busy place - the FCDO specifically advises using secure machines on the cayes.
• Bring US dollars as backup. They are the one thing accepted everywhere here.
• Keep BZ$40 in cash for the land departure tax if you are leaving overland.

Costs

• Belize is expensive for the region. It imports nearly everything, and prices sit closer to the Caribbean than to Guatemala an hour away. Budget accordingly rather than being surprised.

Tipping

• 10% is normal in restaurants where service is not added.
• Dive guides and boat crews are tipped, and it is a meaningful part of their income.

Buses

• Belize has four highways and the bus network follows them. Converted American school buses, cheap, frequent on the main routes, no air conditioning, pay the conductor on board.
• They stop everywhere on the local runs; the express services are worth the small extra.
• They stop running in the early evening. Plan to be where you are sleeping before dark.

Planes

• Tropic Air and Maya Island Air connect everywhere that matters on 12-seat aircraft, and it is not a luxury option - a flight to Placencia costs a fraction of what the equivalent hop would cost anywhere else and saves five hours on a bad road.
• Baggage limits are real on those aircraft.

Boats

• Water taxis link Belize City, Caye Caulker and San Pedro several times a day. They stop in the late afternoon.
• Book the return in high season rather than turning up.

On the cayes

• Golf carts are the transport. San Pedro has roads and traffic; Caye Caulker has sand streets and a sign that says "Go Slow", which is both a speed limit and the local philosophy.
• Walking covers Caye Caulker entirely.

Driving

• The FCDO is direct about the roads: potholes, unpaved sections, poor lighting, common accidents and no emergency services to speak of.
• Do not drive at night. Unlit vehicles, animals and speed bumps that arrive without warning.
• Rentals are expensive and four-wheel drive is genuinely needed off the highways.

What exists

• Tropic Air and Maya Island Air both book online and their apps work.
• The water taxi companies - San Pedro Belize Express and Ocean Ferry - sell tickets online, which is worth doing in season.
• for the arrival declaration.

What does not

• There is no Uber, Grab or Bolt in Belize. Taxis are hailed, called, or arranged by the hotel, and the price is agreed in advance.
• Do not expect app-based anything outside San Pedro. This is a country of about 400,000 people.

Before you book a dive

• The FCDO's warning about injuries and deaths in snorkelling and diving comes down to operators and weather. Use a registered, licensed operator, ask to see the certification, and take a weather forecast seriously - the Blue Hole is 80 km offshore and the sea between here and there is not always kind.

Free roads, a network of four highways, and speed bumps that will end a hire car's suspension.

• Roads are free and the four highways - Philip Goldson, George Price, Hummingbird and Southern - are the whole network.
• Speed bumps (sleeping policemen) are unmarked and brutal, particularly through villages on the Western Highway.
• The alcohol limit is 0.08 %.
• Traffic drives on the right, unlike most other former British territories, but the cars are a mix of left- and right-hand drive imports.
• The cayes have no cars. Golf carts do the work on Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker, and the car stays on the mainland.

The number, and what it actually means

• Belize has one of the highest per capita murder rates in the world. That is the FCDO's phrasing and it is accurate.
• It is also almost entirely gang violence in one part of one city - the Southside of Belize City, south of Haulover Creek. Visitors are not targeted.
• Most crimes go unsolved because the police lack capacity, which is the practical reason to prevent rather than report.
• The cayes and Cayo are a different country statistically. The realistic risk there is theft from a room or a bag.

Practical precautions

• Do not walk the Southside. There is nothing there for a visitor.
• On San Pedro and Caye Caulker: avoid dark alleys at night, use cash machines that are inside or busy, and keep valuables out of sight. Bicycles and phones disappear.
• Do not travel by road at night. The roads themselves are the bigger risk - potholes, no lighting, and no emergency services if something happens.

The water

• There have been injuries and deaths in snorkelling and diving here, and the causes are inadequate safety precautions and bad weather.
• Use registered, licensed operators only. Ask; a real operator will show you.
• The Blue Hole is a technical dive at 40 m, not a novelty, and it is 80 km offshore.
• Check the forecast before an offshore day. The crossing is exposed.

Hurricanes

• The season runs June to November, peaking August to October, and Belize is low-lying with cayes barely above sea level.
• Evacuation of the cayes happens when a storm approaches, and it happens with limited notice.
• Travel insurance that covers weather disruption matters more here than in most places.

Drugs

• Possession carries a fine and a prison sentence. Cannabis is decriminalised in small amounts for personal use on private property only - that is not the same as legal, and it does not extend to a beach or a boat.

The numbers

• 911 works nationally and the operators speak English, which removes the usual barrier.
• Response times outside the towns are long, and in some places there is effectively no ambulance service - the FCDO says so about the roads directly.

The call that actually matters

• Your insurer's 24-hour assistance line. If something serious happens, the decision is not which Belizean hospital but how fast you get to Miami, and the insurer arranges that.
• Have the policy number and the assistance number saved offline, not in an email you need signal to open.
• Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital in Belize City is the main public hospital and the point of stabilisation before an evacuation.
• The hyperbaric chamber is on Ambergris Caye - relevant to every diver in the country.

If something goes wrong

• Report crime to the police and get the report for insurance, accepting that most cases are not investigated.
• Tourism Police operate in the main visitor towns and are the more useful first contact there.
• In a hurricane, follow the evacuation instruction. The cayes are a metre or two above sea level and the order to leave comes with limited notice.