Antigua and Barbuda’s tax and customs systems will undergo a full digital overhaul next year, ending decades of manual, paper-based processes that Prime Minister Gaston Browne says have slowed efficiency and created opportunities for revenue leakages.

Browne announced the major administrative transformation during Thursday’s Budget 2026 presentation, describing the shift to digital operations across the Inland Revenue Department, the Antigua and Barbuda Sales Tax (ABST) platform and the Customs and Excise Division as a critical step toward modern public administration.

“We are moving to complete digitisation,” the Prime Minister said, outlining plans to replace paper files, handwritten declarations and manual assessments with fully automated systems designed to speed processing times and tighten oversight.

According to Browne, the reform will make tax administration more reliable and secure by reducing human error, cutting wait times and improving audit trails. Government officials argue the move will also strengthen anti-corruption safeguards across revenue-collecting agencies, where outdated procedures have long been associated with bottlenecks and vulnerabilities.

The digitisation programme forms part of a wider modernization drive across the public sector, including upgraded Treasury operations, new scanning technology at Customs, and stricter compliance measures to address what Browne described as chronically low tax-to-GDP ratios within the OECS.

Implementation work is expected to intensify early next year, with phased rollouts aimed at ensuring businesses and the public can transition smoothly to the new digital systems.