Money in the U.S. Virgin Islands

The two allowances, and they are not interchangeable.

Customs and Border Protection publishes two figures that bear on a trip here, and a reader who merges them will budget wrongly.

• Where unaccompanied purchases are from an insular possession and are imported within 30 days and sent directly to the United States, up to 1,600 dollars in goods will be duty-free under your personal exemption.
• Otherwise a returning resident is eligible for the 800 dollar duty-free personal exemption every 31 days, having remained for no less than 48 hours beyond the territorial limits of the United States, with an express exception for the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The larger figure applies to goods shipped home separately. The smaller one is the ordinary exemption you carry with you. Our entry and customs guide works through what the exception in the second bullet actually means.

A published fee, with its year attached.

The National Park Service publishes that Trunk Bay charges an Expanded Amenity Fee, listed in a table headed 2024 at 5 dollars for an individual day pass for visitors 16 years and older.

That is what the published table says. It is not a promise about what you will pay on the day, because fees are reviewed, and a guide that drops the year turns a dated record into a claim about the present. Check with the park before you rely on it.

What this guide does not publish.

No exchange rate, no card acceptance survey, no tipping percentage and no daily budget. None of those appears in any source here, and both of the territory's tourism websites refuse every request from this environment, so there is no local authority to close the gap.

Ask your bank what it charges on a transaction before you travel. That is a question with an answer you can verify, which is more than an invented percentage would give you.

The cost that would dwarf all of them.

The figures above are small. The exposure that is not small is medical, and it is worth making the insurance decision before you travel rather than costing it afterwards. Our travel safety guide sets out what the Park Service publishes about emergencies here and what it does not.

A working waterfront, then and now.

The photograph on this page is of the Christiansted wharf on St Croix and was taken in 1941. It shows cargo schooners worked alongside, which is what the harbor front of this territory did for most of its history. It is on a money page because trade is the reason these towns are shaped the way they are, and it is dated because a reader deserves to know they are looking at a record rather than at this morning.

Sources

• U.S. Customs and Border Protection: Customs duty information for returning residents: that up to 1,600 dollars in goods will be duty-free under a personal exemption where unaccompanied purchases are from an insular possession and are imported within 30 days, and that a returning resident is otherwise eligible for the 800 dollar duty-free personal exemption every 31 days having remained for no less than 48 hours beyond the territorial limits of the United States, except the U.S. Virgin Islands. Accessed 18 September 2026.
• National Park Service: Virgin Islands National Park fees: that Trunk Bay charges an Expanded Amenity Fee, published in a table headed 2024 at 5 dollars for an individual day pass for visitors 16 years and older. Accessed 18 September 2026.