Environmental rules for business

Since July 2024 the National Environmental Authority (NMA) has enforced the Environmental Framework Act (S.B. 2020 no. 97). Large and medium projects need an environmental impact assessment (MEA) before they start, and since 15 May 2025 you pay a fee for it. If you work with chemicals, oil, waste or noise, you usually also need an environmental permit, a hazardous substances permit or a Nuisance Act permit.

On this page (15)

• Who does what
• The environmental impact assessment (MEA)
• What does it cost?
• Environmental permit and hazardous substances permit
• Waste
• Mercury and the Minamata Convention
• Water, air, noise and chemicals
• Mining, oil and gas
• Inspections and penalties
• ISO 14001:2026
• Step by step
• Checklist per type of business
• What if...
• Sources
• Frequently asked questions

Who does what

The Environmental Framework Act (Milieu Raamwet) was passed by the National Assembly on 26 March 2020 and amended in 2024 (S.B. 2024 no. 56). It created the NMA as an independent administrative body that took over the tasks of the former NIMOS. The difference: NIMOS could only advise, while the NMA can grant permits, inspect, give orders and refer cases for prosecution. The NMA has been operating since 26 July 2024.

Body	Responsible for	When you go there
National Environmental Authority (NMA)	MEA, environmental permit, hazardous substances permit, import and export of chemicals and radioactive sources, environmental complaints, enforcement	Before you build, expand or start working with chemicals
Ministry of Oil, Gas and Environment (OGM)	Environmental policy, international treaties (Minamata, Basel, Montreal), waste policy, climate	Consultations on new rules, projects such as the hazardous waste programme
District commissioner	Nuisance Act permit, business permits for food outlets and stalls, shutting down illegal businesses	If your business may cause danger, damage or nuisance to the neighbourhood
Public Works (OWRO), Public Green and Waste Management directorate	Waste collection, the Ornamibo landfill, environmental police	Disposal of business waste, questions about dumping
Public Health Office (BOG)	Environmental health inspection and hygiene	Food businesses, hospitality, complaints about smells and pests
Police, Environmental Crime Unit (ECU)	Investigating environmental offences, together with the NMA	In serious pollution or illegal dumping by others

General business permits, such as the establishment permit and the fire service advice, are covered in Business licences. All contact details: Business resources.

The environmental impact assessment (MEA)

The Environmental Impact Assessment Decree (S.B. 2025 no. 23) was published on 28 March 2025 and has applied since the following day. It contains two tables: table I sets out per project type when category A or B applies, table II lists the projects in category C. If your activity is not listed but may harm the environment, the NMA can still require an MEA.

The categories

• Category A: projects with serious, possibly irreversible effects. Always a full MEA.
• Category B: effects depend on location and scale. Track 1: extra environmental information. Track 2: a limited study, for example an environmental management plan, waste management plan or ecological study. Track 3: a full MEA as for A.
• Category C: known, small and manageable effects. No MEA, but a permit application (see below).

Examples

Activity	Category
Hair or beauty salon, panel beating and spray shop, gold and silversmith, timber market, mobile sawmill	C
Shop selling fuel in drums or agricultural chemicals	C
Non-industrial bakery; hotel or resort with fewer than 10 rooms; housing with fewer than 10 units and under 1 ha	C
Farming up to 1 ha on land already in use or secondary forest; small-scale intensive livestock; power plant under 5 MW	C
Industrial bakery, brewery, cemetery, building or rehabilitating bridges	B
Aquaculture of 1 to 10 ha (semi-intensive)	B
Aquaculture over 10 ha or with exotic species; biomass power projects	A

This is a selection from the tables. Check your own project type in the annex to S.B. 2025 no. 23 or ask the NMA at mea@nmasuriname.org. An expansion of an existing business can also fall into a category.

How it works

1. Screening application to the NMA, with proof of payment of the phase 1 fee. You provide, among other things, the location with GPS coordinates, a site map showing the wind direction, a non-technical description and the possible environmental effects. If you also need another permit, that authority refers you to the NMA.
2. Category decision within 14 working days of a complete application. The NMA publishes the decision.
3. Scoping (for A, B3 and the limited B2 studies): you publish a notice of intent, consult authorities, NGOs and neighbours, and submit a scoping report. The NMA decides within 14 working days, and within 7 working days on a revised report.
4. The study by an independent, qualified consultant. For A and B3 the project leader needs at least a master's degree and five previous MEAs as project leader.
5. Public comment: within 7 working days you announce in a newspaper that the report (MER) is open for inspection; the public has 30 to 90 days to respond. You also hold a public meeting, announced at least 14 days in advance.
6. Review within 95 working days of submitting the MER. If it is incomplete, you have 12 months to complete it; the NMA then decides within 30 working days.

The NMA itself warns that a full MEA can take more than a year. Build that time into your planning and your financing. Reports from other projects are in the NMA's public MEA repository: useful to see what will be expected of you.

What does it cost?

Until May 2025 an MEA application was free. Since 15 May 2025 the NMA has charged the fees in article 18 of the MEA Decree. You may pay in SRD at the Central Bank rate on the day of payment.

Item	Fee to the NMA	When to pay
Phase 1: screening	USD 100 to 1,000, based on hours spent	With the screening application
Phase 2: scoping up to the MER, project of USD 6 million or more	0.1% of total development cost (USD 6,000 for USD 6 million)	With the scoping report or the environmental management plan
Phase 2, project under USD 6 million	At least USD 1,500	Same
External expert hired by the NMA to review your MER	Paid by the applicant	Announced in the scoping phase

The biggest cost is usually not the NMA but your own consultant, the measurements (water, air, noise, biodiversity), the publications and the public meeting. Get two or three quotes and check that the consultant meets the requirements of article 7. To work out the total investment: ROI and payback.

Environmental permit and hazardous substances permit

Besides the MEA, the Framework Act has two NMA permits: the environmental permit (article 28) for activities that burden the environment, and the hazardous substances permit (article 35) for anyone who stores, handles, uses or processes hazardous substances. The MEA Decree states explicitly that category C projects must also apply for such a permit, and that existing projects which already did a study under the old NIMOS guidelines still need the permit.

In practice the NMA is introducing this step by step. What already applies:

• Import and export of chemicals and radioactive sources through the Suriname Electronic Single Window (SESW), with an NMA procedure and checklist. Questions: vergunningen@nmasuriname.org.
• Registration of gold processing chemicals (Gold Dressing Agents such as Jin Chan): importers, resellers and end users had to register from 28 March to 28 April 2025. The NMA calls this the forerunner of the mandatory hazardous substances permit.
• Inventory of hazardous substance storage: in August 2026 the NMA called on businesses to report their storage facilities.

If you do not know whether your activity already needs a permit, ask the NMA in writing and keep the answer. That is your evidence during an inspection, for your bank and for a foreign customer.

Nuisance Act

The Nuisance Act (Hinderwet, G.B. 1930 no. 64, last amended by S.B. 2001 no. 61) exists alongside the Framework Act. A business that may cause danger, damage or nuisance to its surroundings, such as a workshop, sawmill, bakery, fuel storage or a business with heavy machinery, needs a Nuisance Act permit from the district commissioner. Neighbours can object. Forms, fees and validity differ per district; see Business licences.

Waste

Suriname has no separate waste act. The Framework Act does give the NMA powers: it can ban the import or export of waste, ban the disposal of recyclable waste, set rules for waste processing and order the clean-up of dumpsites. The "polluter pays" principle also applies: whoever pollutes bears the cost of remediation.

Ordinary business waste

Most waste goes to the Ornamibo landfill in Wanica, which falls under the Ministry of Public Works and Spatial Planning and regularly catches fire, most recently in August 2026. Businesses usually arrange disposal through a private collector. Since 28 September 2026 an enforcement team ("Krin Kondre") with the environmental police, the BOG environmental health inspection, the fire service, the police and the Economic Control Service has been checking for dirty premises and illegal dumping; offenders first get a warning.

Hazardous waste

There is no central storage for hazardous waste such as used oil, chemical residues, medical waste and batteries yet. Under the GEF ISLANDS programme, OGM is working with the Basel Convention Regional Centre for the Caribbean (BCRC-Caribbean) on a national roadmap and a feasibility study for a central storage facility and better practices at Ornamibo. Workshops for businesses on identification, colour-coded separation, safe storage and record-keeping took place in October 2025 and February 2026.

So do not wait for new rules. Keep hazardous waste separate, labelled and covered, on a floor that contains spills, and record what you have and to whom you hand it over. Suriname is a party to the Basel Convention: exporting hazardous waste for treatment abroad is possible, but only with prior consent from the countries of export, transit and import.

Plastic

On 28 August 2024 the government announced that single-use plastic will be phased out. On 20 December 2024 the first meeting with businesses followed on phasing out single-use plastics (bags, cutlery, straws) and mercury-added products. As of 26 October 2026 we have not found a general ban on plastic bags or cutlery in the Official Gazette. The amended Negative List does, since 21 May 2026, ban imports of certain styrene polymers, including expandable polystyrene, the raw material for styrofoam. According to the SUWAMA foundation, more than 15,000 tonnes of plastic waste were generated in 2023. A policy paper on producer responsibility and deposits on PET bottles and cans was discussed with businesses in 2025.

Mercury and the Minamata Convention

Suriname is a party to the Minamata Convention and is working to eliminate mercury, especially in small-scale gold mining. Since the amendment of the Negative List Decree (S.B. 2026 no. 39, in force 21 May 2026):

• importing mercury is banned (it was previously on the list of goods needing a licence);
• mercury-added products, such as certain batteries and electrical elements, need an import licence;
• gold processing chemicals (Gold Ore Dressing Agents) need a licence;
• appliances with CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances are banned. The National Ozone Unit at the NMA keeps track, per refrigerant, of what is banned or needs a licence.

For shops and importers this means: check the HS code of lamps, batteries, thermometers, cosmetics and cooling equipment before you order. More on the Negative List in New laws and rules and Importing goods. Gold mining and mercury-free methods: Mining and gold.

Water, air, noise and chemicals

• Discharges. The NMA has the legal task of setting national environmental quality requirements and standards. We have not found published general discharge limits for wastewater; the NMA can set requirements in your MEA decision or permit. Many businesses that work for foreign customers or lenders therefore use international benchmarks, such as the World Bank Group EHS Guidelines, as a minimum.
• Fish kills and incidents. After fish kills in the Upper Saramacca (June 2026) and near Creola (October 2026) the NMA took water, sediment and fish samples, together with the ECU and the Fish Inspection Institute. A discharge that triggers such an investigation can have serious consequences for your business.
• Noise and smells. Nuisance falls under the Nuisance Act (conditions in your permit) and can be dealt with by the police. Residents can report environmental complaints to the NMA by WhatsApp (8764835) or through a ticket system.
• Pesticides. Registration and use fall under the Pesticides Act (G.B. 1972 no. 151) at the Ministry of Agriculture (LVV); see Starting an agribusiness.
• Oil and fuel. Anyone managing a site, vehicle or vessel with oil, waste or hazardous substances can be required by the NMA to draw up an emergency response plan (article 36). In a spill you carry out the plan and report the incident to the NMA at once. For ships and ports the Maritime Authority Suriname (MAS) is also involved; see Shipping and logistics.

A case in Para showed how strictly this can be enforced: an illegal oil processor who ignored several warnings had to stop after a fire in his tanks, clean up the site under an NMA-approved plan and pay the laboratory costs. A new permit application under another name for the same site was only processed after the clean-up.

Mining, oil and gas

Mining, oil and gas projects almost always fall into category A or B. Large operators such as Staatsolie, TotalEnergies and the gold mines put their MERs on public display at the NMA; in 2025 these included reports for a drilling programme, an offshore geophysical survey and a solar park at a gold mine. As a supplier you get their environmental requirements in your contract: waste separation, chemical storage, drip trays, incident reporting. Sector-specific rules: Mining and gold, Gold and oil price and Oil and gas (laws: Oil and gas law).

Inspections and penalties

NMA environmental inspectors and the police have access to business premises. In August 2026 the NMA worked with the Public Prosecutor, the ECU and other supervisors on a national standard procedure for environmental offences, so that incidents are handled faster and more consistently.

What an inspector checks

• MEA decision, environmental permit or hazardous substances permit, and the Nuisance Act permit
• Storage of fuel, oil and chemicals: covered, labelled, with drip trays or a containment floor
• Safety data sheets (SDS) for the substances you use
• Waste separation and proof of disposal (receipts or a register)
• Wastewater: visible discharges into a ditch or canal, oil on the water
• Emergency response plan, fire extinguishers and absorbent material for spills
• Complaints from neighbours about noise, dust, smoke or smell

Penalties

• Deliberately breaching environmental laws or NMA requirements: up to six years in prison and a fifth-category fine.
• Being at fault for pollution or damage to the environment: up to four years and a fourth-category fine.
• Non-deliberate breach of requirements: a fifth-category fine.
• Additional penalties, including full or partial closure of the business. The NMA can also order activities to stop when there is immediate danger to the environment.

ISO 14001:2026

A new version of ISO 14001, the international standard for environmental management systems, was published in April 2026. New elements include: more attention to biodiversity, pollution and resources alongside climate, a separate clause for environmental aspects, a set process for managing change, a life cycle view from sourcing to end of life, and requirements for all externally provided products and services instead of only outsourced processes. Certification bodies expect a three-year transition period, to around 2029.

For a small business certification is not a legal duty. It pays off mainly when a foreign customer, a mining or oil company or a lender asks for it. Otherwise start with the basics of the standard: know your environmental aspects, which rules apply, who is responsible and how you improve. Standards and certification in Suriname: Standards and certification.

Step by step

1. Map what you do. Which substances, how much fuel, what waste, what wastewater, what noise? Draw your site with storage, drainage and neighbours.
2. Look up your project type in the tables of the MEA Decree. If in doubt, file a screening application: within 14 working days you have it in writing.
3. Ask the NMA in writing whether you already need an environmental permit or hazardous substances permit, and the district commissioner whether you need a Nuisance Act permit.
4. Budget time and money: NMA fee, consultant, measurements, publications. For category A or B3, count on a year or more.
5. Set up your storage: covered, labelled, drip trays, extinguishers, absorbent granules, SDS at hand.
6. Arrange your waste: separation, a regular collector, a hazardous waste register.
7. Write a short emergency plan: who does what in a spill or fire, who calls the NMA and the fire service (see Workplace safety).
8. Keep everything in one folder: decisions, permits, correspondence, waste receipts. You will also need them for customers' sustainability questions (see Sustainable business and EU rules for Surinamese suppliers).

Checklist per type of business

Garage, spray shop or metal workshop

• Panel beating and spray shop: category C, but a permit application to the NMA and a Nuisance Act permit
• Keep used oil, filters and batteries separate and covered, hand them to a regular buyer with a receipt
• Spray booth with extraction; paint residues and thinners as hazardous waste
• No oil or wash water in the drain; an oil separator if you wash cars

Food or beverage factory

• Industrial bakery or brewery: category B, so screening first; non-industrial bakery: C
• Do not discharge wastewater with fat, sugar or cleaning agents untreated; install a grease trap
• Remove or compost organic waste daily; control pests (BOG)
• Cooling plants: check whether your refrigerant is still allowed (National Ozone Unit)

Farm or livestock business

• Clearing new land or more than 1 ha: check the MEA category; deforestation also affects your EU exports (EUDR)
• Only registered pesticides, stored under lock, empty containers not burned or thrown in the creek
• Do not discharge manure and stable wash water directly into open water
• Aquaculture: from 1 ha category B, over 10 ha category A

Construction company or developer

• Housing from 10 units or 1 ha: MEA screening; roads and bridges are also covered by the decree
• Separate construction and demolition waste, treat asbestos and chemicals as hazardous waste
• Limit dust, mud on the road and noise outside working hours; inform neighbours in advance
• Fuel for machines in a container with containment, not loose on the ground

What if...

• ...my business has run for years without an MEA or environmental permit? Projects already under way, or with a study under the NIMOS guidelines, need no new MEA but must still apply for a permit. Contact the NMA yourself; waiting for a complaint or inspection costs more.
• ...there is a spill or fire? First get people to safety and call the fire service. Then contain the spill, carry out your emergency plan and inform the NMA at once. Take photos and note times and quantities.
• ...a neighbour complains about me to the NMA? The NMA registers the complaint and may inspect. Respond in writing, show what measures you are taking and meet the deadlines in any warning.
• ...I see pollution by another business? Report it to the NMA by WhatsApp 8764835 or the complaint form, with location, photo and time.
• ...my EU customer asks for environmental evidence? Send your MEA decision, permits and waste records, and read EU rules for Surinamese suppliers.

Sources

• Milieu Raamwet, S.B. 2020 no. 97
• DNA: wijziging Milieu Raamwet, S.B. 2024 no. 56
• Besluit Milieu Effecten Analyse, S.B. 2025 no. 23
• NMA: MEA-aanvragen niet langer kosteloos, vergoeding per 15 mei 2025 (7 May 2025)
• NMA: wet- en regelgeving
• NMA: vergunningverlening, in- en uitvoer van chemicaliën via SESW
• NMA: verplichte registratie gebruikers Gold Dressing Agents (2025)
• NMA: MEA-repository en bekendmakingen
• NMA: nieuws (vissterfte, standaardprocedure milieudelicten, inventarisatie opslag gevaarlijke stoffen, 2026)
• NMA: milieuklacht melden
• NMA: Nationale Ozon Unit
• Wijziging Besluit Negatieve Lijst, S.B. 2026 no. 39
• OGM: Suriname op Minamata COP-6 (November 2025)
• Regering: uitfaseren wegwerpplastic (28 August 2024)
• ROM: stakeholdersbijeenkomst wegwerpplastic en kwikhoudende producten (December 2024)
• OGM: workshop gevaarlijk afval, GEF ISLANDS (October 2025)
• OGM: training beheer gevaarlijk afval (February 2026)
• OWRO: Krin Kondre-handhavingsteam (September 2026)
• Brand Ornamibo (August 2026)
• OGM: PROMAR-project tegen marien afval (November 2025)
• Suriname Herald: PROMAR, producentenverantwoordelijkheid en plastic afval (April 2025)
• Times of Suriname: NMA over illegale olieverwerker in Para (2026)
• DQS: ISO 14001:2026, wijzigingen en overgang (April 2026)
• Verdrag van Basel en Verdrag van Minamata

Checked on 26 October 2026. General information, not legal advice. The NMA is rolling out permits step by step; if in doubt, ask in writing what applies to your business.