Articles about moving to Moengo or anywhere else in Suriname's interior tend to be built on three sentences: it is cheaper, it is slower, and the facilities are more basic. We can source none of those. What we can do is set out precisely which figures are published and which are not, and turn the gap into the questions you put to a landlord, an insurer and a utility before you sign anything.
What is published nationally, and what is not published per place
Suriname's official statistics come from the Algemeen Bureau voor de Statistiek, which publishes consumer price index and inflation figures, census material through its Redatam service, core indicators, and an availability matrix that tells you per subject what exists. That matrix is the right starting point for a question such as what is published about Marowijne, because the answer differs sharply by subject.
The pattern you will run into is this: price and tariff figures are published nationally or for the capital, and almost nothing is published for a named place outside it. That is not a claim about Moengo. It is a statement about the data, and it has a practical consequence — anyone quoting you a rent, a travel time or a service level for the interior is quoting something they did not read on a published page.
Rent: four areas, and none of them is Moengo
Our own reference data holds aggregated asking rents from five Surinamese agencies, measured between 5 and 16 October 2026. The areas covered are Paramaribo-noord, Paramaribo-overig, Paramaribo-zuid and Wanica. Read the tiers correctly, because they are not market segments: basic is the 25th percentile, comfortable the median and expat the 75th percentile of the same set of listings.
- Paramaribo-overig: EUR 950 at the 25th percentile and EUR 1,250 at the median, from 77 and 79 listings respectively.
- Paramaribo-zuid: EUR 789 at the 25th percentile, EUR 1,417 at the median, from 60 listings.
- Wanica: EUR 654 at the 25th percentile, EUR 975 at the median, from 22 listings.
Those are asking prices from the agency segment on small samples, not transaction prices, and Wanica borders the capital rather than being the interior. There is no published rent figure for Moengo, for the district of Marowijne, or for any location in the interior in the set we are allowed to publish from. So the sentence that housing is cheaper than in the capital is removed from this article rather than repeated: we have nothing to compare against.
What to do instead: ask for a written lease, ask what is included, and ask which currency the rent is stated in. That last question is not cosmetic. The Wet Controle Valutaverkeer en Transactiekantoren (S.B. 2020 no. 73) forbids stating prices of goods or services in a currency other than the Surinamese dollar and forbids cash transactions in another currency, and provides that for all money transactions the rate set and published by the Bank applies. A rent quoted to you in euros is a conversation to have before you move in, not after.
Health insurance: the premiums are published after all
The version of this article we replaced said that specific health insurance premium figures are not available. They are. Two sets are published and both are national, which is why they are usable wherever you live:
- Stichting Staatsziekenfonds, voluntary personal insurance, base premium per person per month, published by the fund under the heading Basispremie per July 2023: SRD 270 for ages 0 to 15, SRD 370 for 16 to 20, SRD 785 for 21 to 40, SRD 835 for 41 to 50, SRD 850 for 51 to 60 and SRD 1,650 for 61 and over. Note the date in the fund's own heading: July 2023.
- Assuria AZPAS Basis, monthly premium per person as published by the insurer and in force from 1 January 2026: SRD 2,450 in the 1st class and SRD 2,010 in the 3rd class for the age band 31 to 40.
Those two are not alternatives on the same scale — one is a state fund's voluntary scheme, the other a commercial policy with classes — and the premium you pay depends on age band and on the cover you take. But they are real published numbers, read on 24 October 2026, and they are a far better basis for a budget than the assumption that premiums are unknowable.
Where your insurer's providers are is a district question
This is the part that actually changes outside Paramaribo, and it can be checked rather than guessed. The Staatsziekenfonds publishes its list of contracted general practitioners organized by district, and the districts it lists are Paramaribo, Commewijne, Nickerie, Para, Saramacca, Wanica and Marowijne. Moengo sits in Marowijne, which is on that list. Brokopondo, Sipaliwini and Coronie do not appear on the page we read.
We are not going to tell you what that implies about care in any particular place — the page is a contracted-provider directory, not a map of what exists. We will tell you the three questions it makes obvious, and they are the questions to put to your insurer in writing before you commit to an address:
- Which contracted providers does my policy cover in my district?
- What does the policy do when the care I need is only available in another district — is travel covered, and under what conditions?
- Does the directory's district structure mean my district has no contracted provider, or only that it is listed elsewhere? Ask them to answer that in writing.
Electricity, fiber and fuel: tariffs published, distances not
Three published tariffs are worth having in front of you, each with its date, because two of them are older than people assume:
- Electricity, N.V. Energiebedrijven Suriname. A standing charge of SRD 211.78 per month for a single-phase domestic connection, payable before any consumption, then a stepped consumption tariff: SRD 1.971 per kWh up to 400 kWh a month, SRD 2.85 from 401 to 900, SRD 3.33 from 901 to 1,500 and SRD 4.68 above 1,500. Heavy use costs more per unit, not just more units. Our measurement date for this tariff sheet is 1 December 2024.
- Fiber internet, Telesur. SRD 1,124.96 per month excluding BTW for the Basic package and SRD 1,899.95 excluding BTW for the Streaming package, as published on the company's own pricing page and read on 5 October 2026. The exclusion matters: the amount you are billed is higher.
- Fuel, GOw2 Energy Suriname. A pump price of SRD 48.32 per liter for gasoline and SRD 53.27 per liter for diesel, as published on the company's own homepage and last changed on 25 March 2026.
What those tariffs do not tell you is whether a particular address is connected to anything. So the questions are: is this address on the electricity grid or on a local supply, is there a fiber connection at the address or only a mobile signal, and what does the nearest fueling point mean for a weekly run. We give no distance and no travel time anywhere in this article, because we found none published by an official body — and a fuel price per liter is only a budget once you know your own kilometers.
Groceries and school fees are both capital-city figures
The grocery prices we hold are shelf prices from one online supermarket in Suriname, read on 5 October 2026, and each staple is a single named product, not a basket: wheat flour SRD 55.30 a kilo, white rice SRD 46.20 a kilo, white sugar SRD 45.60 a kilo, table salt SRD 22.22 a kilo, sunflower oil SRD 82.83 for 800 ml, bottled water SRD 29.43 for 1.5 liters. Departmental medians from the same shop run to SRD 115.01 for a median item in the bread, spreads and cereal department over 32 priced products.
School fees: a mid-range private school in Paramaribo publishes monthly tuition per child of EUR 124.72 for years 1 to 5 and EUR 149.67 for year 6 in the 2025-2026 school year, read on 5 October 2026.
Both sets are Paramaribo figures from single named providers. We have no published price series for a shop or a school outside the capital, so we are not going to construct a comparison. If an employer or an agent gives you one, ask which shop, which month and how many products.
What expats should know
- No rent is published for Moengo, Marowijne or the interior. Treat any figure you are given as the quoting party's own.
- Published rents cover four areas in and beside the capital, as asking prices on samples of 22 to 83 listings.
- Basic, comfortable and expat are percentiles of one listing set — the 25th, the median and the 75th — not market segments.
- Health insurance premiums are published, by the Staatsziekenfonds from July 2023 and by Assuria in force from 1 January 2026.
- The contracted-GP directory is organized by district and lists seven of them. Ask your insurer about yours in writing.
- Electricity is a standing charge plus a stepped tariff, on a tariff sheet dated 1 December 2024.
- The published internet price excludes BTW.
- Grocery and school figures are single-provider Paramaribo figures. There is no published comparison with anywhere else.
- Get the currency of your rent in writing; stating a price in another currency is forbidden by statute.
Where to check
Official statistics, including the availability matrix and census material, are at the Algemeen Bureau voor de Statistiek. The premiums and the district-organized provider directory are published by the Stichting Staatsziekenfonds; the Assuria premium is the insurer's own published AZPAS table. The rent, utility, fuel, grocery and school-fee figures are aggregated published prices held in our own reference data, each with the measurement date and sample size given above. The currency rules are in the Wet Controle Valutaverkeer en Transactiekantoren. All read on 24 October 2026.
AI-Generated Content: This article was created with AI assistance and may contain inaccuracies. Please verify important information with official sources.
