Citizenship by Investment The 2026 Decision Guide — what you buy, and what can take it away

A Vanuatu passport bought in 2021 came with visa-free access to the Schengen area. On 4 February 2023 that access disappeared: the Council of the European Union fully suspended the EU–Vanuatu visa-waiver agreement over the country’s citizenship-by-investment scheme. Two years later, Regulation (EU) 2025/11 moved Vanuatu onto the European Union’s visa-required list outright, in force from 3 February 2025 — a permanent change of status rather than another suspension. The buyers did nothing wrong. Their documents did not change. The map attached to those documents did.

That is the part of citizenship by investment nobody quotes you a price for. The contribution amount is published, the processing time is published, and both are covered program by program in Passquire’s golden visa countries guide, which prices all 18 open residence and citizenship programs with their fees itemized. This guide covers the three things that decide whether the purchase actually works: the regional rulebook now rewriting the Caribbean, the odds your file gets refused, and the risk that the travel access you paid for is withdrawn by countries that never agreed to the sale.

Key takeaways

• Ten countries grant citizenship on a standing published threshold in August 2026, with no requirement to live there — St Kitts & Nevis, Dominica, Antigua & Barbuda, Grenada, St Lucia, Vanuatu, Nauru, Türkiye, São Tomé & Príncipe, and Cambodia. Malta’s investor-citizenship route was terminated after the EU Court of Justice ruled against it in April 2025, so no EU passport is currently for sale.
• Visa-free access is the part of the product that depreciates. Vanuatu lost the Schengen area permanently in February 2025; Dominica lost UK visa-free travel in 2023; the United States cut Antigua & Barbuda and Dominica from 10-year to 3-month visitor visas in January 2026.
• Refusal rates differ by an order of magnitude between programs, and only some governments publish them. A program with near-zero refusals is not necessarily the safest one to hold.
• The Caribbean price war is over. A US$200,000 regional floor has applied since 1 July 2024, and a five-country regulator, ECCIRA, is standing up to police it.
• Your existing nationality decides whether any of this is possible. Several countries strip citizenship automatically when you voluntarily acquire another one — check that before you shortlist a program.

What are you buying when you buy citizenship by investment?

Citizenship by investment gives you a nationality, a passport, and — as a separate, weaker thing — a travel map. The nationality is granted by the selling state and is durable. The travel map, as of August 2026, is granted by roughly 190 other governments that were never party to the transaction, can withdraw it collectively, and increasingly do. Pricing the first and ignoring the second is the standard mistake, and it is expensive.

Three assets come in the same envelope, and they have very different durability:

• The nationality itself. A naturalization certificate from St Kitts & Nevis, Dominica, Grenada, Antigua & Barbuda, St Lucia, Vanuatu, Nauru, Türkiye, São Tomé & Príncipe, or Cambodia makes you a citizen of that state with the rights of any other citizen — residence, work, property ownership, consular protection, and the ability to pass the status to children. Every one of these states can revoke it for fraud in the application, but none can revoke it because policy changed.
• The passport as a travel document. A passport is only as useful as the list of countries that will admit its holder without a visa, and that list is maintained by those other countries. It moves both ways, and since 2022 it has mostly moved down for investor-citizenship states.
• A tax and reporting status. New nationality does not end an old tax obligation. Americans remain US taxpayers after naturalizing anywhere; opening accounts on a new passport creates reporting duties rather than removing them. Passquire’s US reporting walkthrough covers the FBAR, Form 8938, and PFIC mechanics in detail.

Citizenship by investment is also not a golden visa, and the two products fail in different ways. A golden visa is a residence permit: you get the right to live somewhere, you keep your original passport, and the permit lapses if you stop meeting its conditions. Citizenship by investment skips residence entirely — most of the ten programs require no physical presence at all — and hands over a nationality in months. The trade is that a residence permit lives or dies on your compliance, while a purchased citizenship lives or dies on the selling country’s reputation with everyone else.

That last point is the through-line of this guide. Between 2022 and 2026 the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States all took action against specific investor-citizenship passports, and in every case the trigger was the program’s conduct, not the individual holder’s. When you buy a second citizenship you are buying a position in someone else’s diplomatic relationships. The rest of this guide prices that position.

Which countries sell citizenship in 2026?

Ten countries grant citizenship for an investment on a standing published threshold, with no requirement to live there, in August 2026: St Kitts & Nevis, Dominica, Antigua & Barbuda, Grenada, and St Lucia in the Eastern Caribbean; Vanuatu and Nauru in the Pacific; Türkiye; São Tomé & Príncipe; and Cambodia. Malta ran the only EU program until the Court of Justice ruled it unlawful in Case C-181/23 on 29 April 2025, so no EU passport is for sale; the only route to one runs through residence.

The ten split into three commercial types, and the type matters more than the flag:

• The five Eastern Caribbean programs are donation-first, no-residence, and now governed by a shared regional rulebook with a US$200,000 minimum. They are the closest thing this market has to a commodity — which is exactly why they compete on due diligence and travel access rather than price.
• The two Pacific programs, Vanuatu and Nauru, are the fast and cheap end. Vanuatu is among the quickest grants of the ten; Nauru launched its Economic and Climate Resilience Citizenship Program in early 2025 and runs a $25,000 discount to 31 December 2026 that puts a principal applicant at $90,000. Both are also the two programs that have lost the most access, which is not a coincidence.
• Türkiye, São Tomé & Príncipe, and Cambodia answer to no regional framework and share little else. Türkiye is the only large-economy option, and the only one where the qualifying investment is a real asset you keep: $400,000 in property, held for three years. São Tomé’s donation route opened in September 2025; Cambodia’s statutory threshold jumped to US$1 million on 1 December 2025.

Ten is the comparison set, not the whole map, and that line is an editorial judgement rather than a legal test. Two more countries sell citizenship and are not ranked here. Egypt naturalises investors from a $250,000 treasury contribution under Law 190 of 2019, but publishes no outcome data and decides each grant by Prime Ministerial decision. Jordan’s criteria, revised by Cabinet on 15 July 2026, start at JOD 500,000 of paid-up capital outside Amman and JOD 700,000 inside it, attach job-creation targets, and issue a temporary passport first; its ministry reports 685 investors since 2018. Their absence below is a data problem, not a verdict. North Macedonia is advertised by advisory firms with no verifiable throughput.

Treat “advertised” and “operational” as different words. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines announced a program in December 2025; Argentina built a framework by Decree 524/2025, then cancelled its master-agent tender on 14 April 2026 after two bidders filed challenges. Neither was selling passports in August 2026.

For the closure history — Malta, Cyprus, Montenegro and the residence programs that shut alongside them — Passquire’s dated ledger of closed programs records what shut and when. This guide assumes those doors are shut and concentrates on the ones that are open.

What is ECCIRA, and what changes for Caribbean citizenship in 2026?

ECCIRA is the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority — a single supervisor for the five Caribbean programs, created by an agreement the five governments signed in September 2025 and headquartered in Grenada. It was not yet operational in August 2026; the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank’s Monetary Council said on 10 July 2026 that launch remained on track for September 2026. Once live, one regulator sets standards for all five.

The sequence that produced it started with Washington. At the first US–Caribbean Roundtable on 25 February 2023, the five programs agreed Six Principles: shared treatment of denials so a refusal in one country blocks an application in another, mandatory applicant interviews whether virtual or in person, additional checks routed through financial intelligence units, annual independent programme audits, retrieval of revoked passports, and the suspension of applications from nationals of certain designated countries. Those principles are the operating standard the Caribbean has been implementing ever since.

Price came next. Four of the five signed a Memorandum of Agreement on 20 March 2024 — St Lucia joined later — committing to a US$200,000 minimum investment and an end to discounting. The floor took effect on 1 July 2024, and it roughly doubled the entry price in three of the five countries overnight.

St Kitts & Nevis is the flat line in that chart because it had already repriced to $250,000 in 2023, ahead of the agreement. Dominica now sits exactly on the floor at $200,000, which makes it the cheapest Caribbean passport and leaves it with no legal room to go lower. The discounting era — limited-time offers, family-of-four bargains under $150,000 — ended by treaty rather than by market forces. Passquire’s Golden Visa Report 2026 tracks the same repricing across the wider market, where supply has shrunk and US demand has not.

The ECCIRA agreement runs to 92 articles and enters into force 30 days after the fifth government deposits its instrument of ratification. Four of the five moved inside six weeks in late 2025: Dominica’s Parliament passed the enabling bill on 14 October and St Kitts & Nevis’s National Assembly on 17 October; Antigua & Barbuda’s Act No. 18 of 2025 was assented on 6 November and Grenada’s Act No. 19 on 24 November — Grenada last of the four, not second as usually described. None has published a deposit date, so the 30-day clock cannot be dated from open sources. St Lucia is the open question: parliament was dissolved on 10 November 2025 for the 1 December election, December 2025 reporting had it as the lone holdout, 2026 reporting says all five have now approved, and neither camp produces a St Lucian act. Ratification is what the September 2026 launch date depends on.

The 30-day residency rule, and the deadline that does not exist

One ECCIRA provision has generated more marketing than any other: a requirement to spend 30 days physically in the country within five years of naturalizing. It is real as a regional standard — Grenada’s drafting, the most detailed so far, lets a family meet the 30 days collectively but sets a floor of five days each in the first twelve months — and it is in force by statute nowhere as of August 2026. One state is reported to apply it anyway — Antigua, administratively and without statutory basis, on its Prime Minister’s own account to Parliament. Grenada’s amendment bill is unassented so far as Passquire can trace; St Lucia’s section 30A is in force but empty, pending regulations; St Kitts & Nevis and Dominica have nothing. The five agreed to commence together, which is the most likely reason none of them has.

Which brings up the “file before 30 June 2026 and you are exempt” deadline that circulated widely through advisory-firm content in 2026. No government, OECS, ECCB, or Investment Migration Insider source supports it. The closest sourced statement is that the rules were postponed to mid-2026 and already-approved applicants were not expected to be caught — a different claim from a hard filing cutoff. Treat pre-deadline urgency as a sales technique until a gazette says otherwise.

The deadline that is real sits further out and comes from Brussels rather than the Caribbean. On 25 June 2026 the European Commission asked all five states to phase their citizenship-by-investment programs out by 1 June 2028, with interim vetting measures due by September 2026. That request, and what it is and is not, is covered in the access section below.

Can you lose visa-free access after you buy the passport?

Yes. Between 2014 and August 2026 it happened to holders of eight of the ten passports on sale — every one except Türkiye and São Tomé & Príncipe. Visa-free travel is a privilege granted country-by-country by the destination, not a right attached to the document, and destinations withdraw it in response to the selling program’s conduct rather than the holder’s.

Nothing in the ledger below required the passport holder to do anything wrong. Each withdrawal was a judgment about a government’s vetting, applied to all of its nationals at once — including the ones born there. The seller is pricing a nationality; the buyer is valuing a travel map maintained by third parties who never agreed to the sale.

The ledger of withdrawn access, 2014 to 2026

Every one of the ten programs sold in 2026 appears somewhere in that table except Türkiye and São Tomé & Príncipe. Eight of the twelve entries date from 2025 or 2026, which is the number that matters: this is an accelerating pattern, not a historical one.

Plotted over eleven years, the damage is unevenly distributed. Most of these passports gained access between 2015 and 2026 along with everyone else’s. One collapsed.

Vanuatu is the case study the whole category should be taught from. Its passport reached 130 destinations in January 2020, more than Dominica’s or Grenada’s at the time, and 86 in July 2026 — a loss of 44 destinations, and the only passport in that chart worth less today than in 2015. Nothing about Vanuatu’s document changed. Its buyers were simply on the wrong side of a decision made in Brussels.

Two cautions about reading passport indices. First, rank and score move independently: St Kitts & Nevis scored 157 destinations in both January 2023 and July 2026 while climbing from 26th to 21st, because the field compressed around it. Always quote the score. Second, the quarterly noise is roughly plus or minus three destinations — Vanuatu read 89 on 3 February 2026 and 86 on 16 July 2026 — so any single-digit gap between two programs is inside the measurement error.

The American action is the most instructive, because Washington published its reasoning twice. Presidential Proclamation 10998, effective 1 January 2026, suspended immigrant entry and B-1, B-2, F, M, and J nonimmigrant entry for nationals of Antigua & Barbuda and Dominica, on the stated ground that a national of a restricted country could purchase citizenship elsewhere and evade US travel restrictions. Separately, the State Department’s B-1/B-2 visa bond program — a pilot from 20 August 2025, a permanent regulation from 3 August 2026 — applies to countries with high overstay rates, deficient passport vetting, or a citizenship-by-investment program granting citizenship with no residency requirement.

That last criterion is not aimed at criminals. It is aimed at the product category, and it is exactly what the ECCIRA 30-day residency standard was designed to answer. Bond amounts under the permanent US regulation reach $20,000 per traveller, posted up front and refunded on timely departure. A family of four travelling on Dominican passports can therefore face a five-figure deposit for a three-month single-entry visit — assuming the B-2 suspension does not apply to them at all. Buyers who chose a Caribbean passport partly for easier US access in 2023 now hold a document that makes American travel harder than their original nationality did.

Europe rewrote the rule in December 2025

The European Union no longer needs to prove abuse before acting. Regulation (EU) 2025/2441 of 26 November 2025, in force from 30 December 2025, revised the visa suspension mechanism and added a new ground at Article 8a(1)(e): the operation by a visa-exempt country of an investor citizenship scheme granting citizenship in exchange for predetermined payments or investments, without any genuine link to that country.

The Eighth Report under the Visa Suspension Mechanism, COM(2025) 792 final of 19 December 2025, states the consequence plainly — the operation of such programs constitutes, in itself, a ground for suspending visa-free status.

Brussels then acted on it. On 25 June 2026, Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner wrote to Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts & Nevis, and St Lucia asking them to phase out their citizenship-by-investment programs by 1 June 2028, over a 24-month transition, with interim measures due by September 2026 covering the exclusion of persons under EU restrictive measures and reinforced vetting for all nationalities. Antigua & Barbuda’s Office of the Prime Minister confirmed receipt on 7 July 2026 and publicly rejected a unilateral phase-out.

Read that letter for what it is and not for what either side wants it to be. It is a request, not an order; there is no automatic suspension attached to 1 June 2028; and all five Caribbean passports remained visa-free for the Schengen area as of 10 August 2026. What changed is the legal architecture behind the request. Before 30 December 2025, the EU had to build a case about abuse. Since then, running the program is the case. Anyone buying a Caribbean passport in 2026 primarily for Schengen access is taking a position on a political negotiation with a published deadline, and should size that position accordingly.

How many citizenship-by-investment applications get refused?

Refusal rates for calendar 2024 range from 1.7% in Antigua & Barbuda to 43.9% in St Kitts & Nevis, according to figures the five Caribbean governments submitted to the European Commission and published in Staff Working Document SWD(2025) 429 of 19 December 2025. Malta, which is not covered by that document, reported a 23% eligibility-stage non-approval rate for 2024 through its own regulator before the scheme was terminated. No Caribbean unit publishes this data as reliably as Brussels now does.

Read that table with its arithmetic in mind, because the headline percentages mislead. Each EU figure divides rejections recorded during 2024 by applications received during 2024 — two different cohorts, so a program whose intake swung between years produces a ratio that describes neither. St Kitts & Nevis is the clearest case: the same Commission document records its intake falling from 1,987 applications in 2023 to 223 in 2024 after it repriced, so its 43.9% divides 2024 decisions, many of them on files opened earlier, by a collapsed new-application base. Malta’s row is not comparable at all: no retrievable source states the base its 23% is computed against, and the two sources that give a count of refused-or-withdrawn files disagree. Grenada’s own statutory report to Parliament for July to December 2024 counts 57 denials out of 750 files processed — 7.6% — against the Commission’s 22.1%. St Lucia’s own annual report for financial year 2024/25 counts 355 denials out of 2,633 files processed, or 13.5%, against the Commission’s 5.3%.

Passquire’s read: use the Commission’s numbers for cross-program comparison because they are compiled on one consistent basis, and use each country’s own processed-file rate when you want to estimate your personal odds. Neither number is wrong. They answer different questions, and no competing guide states which one it is quoting. Turkish and Vanuatu refusal rates are frequently quoted online; Passquire could not verify either against an official source and has therefore omitted both rather than repeat them.

Two features of the machinery behind those numbers explain most of the spread. Volume is the first. St Lucia’s annual reports name its investigators — Exiger, S-RM, BDO, and FACT — and quantify their output: 1,164 due-diligence orders covering 1,995 subjects in financial year 2023/24, alongside 81 applicant interviews. A unit running vetting at that scale generates denials as a by-product of throughput, which is part of why St Lucia’s own processed-file rate of 13.5% sits so far above the 5.3% the Commission computes from its intake.

Shared denial is the second, and it compresses the differences between all five columns of that table. Dominica’s Citizenship by Investment Regulations 2024 require the unit to send the names and biographical data of every denied applicant to the Joint Regional Communications Centre of CARICOM IMPACS each month, and authorise onward disclosure to any other Caribbean jurisdiction running a program.

The Six Principles agreed in February 2023 close the loop: all five states commit not to process applications from people denied elsewhere in the region. One refusal in the Eastern Caribbean is, by design, five refusals.

Those same 2024 regulations carry, at regulation 5(1), the bar least likely to be on an agent’s checklist. An applicant previously denied a visa by the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, or Canada — and who has not since obtained a visa or residence permit for that same country — shall not be approved.

The cure is written into the bar itself, which turns the sequencing of a US visa application and a Caribbean citizenship application into a planning decision rather than a footnote.

Will your current citizenship survive buying a second one?

Not always, and this is the one failure mode with no remedy afterwards. None of the ten selling countries requires you to give up your existing nationality — but several home countries take it away regardless. On the law in force in August 2026, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Dutch, Austrian, and Indonesian nationals lose their citizenship by operation of law the moment they voluntarily acquire another; Germany dropped its equivalent rule on 27 June 2024.

Check your own nationality law before you shortlist a program. The question is answerable in an afternoon and unfixable in a decade.

On the selling side the position is uniform and mostly published. The St Kitts & Nevis Citizenship by Investment Unit states applicants are not required to renounce their original nationality. Dominica’s unit says the same. Grenada’s program states plainly that Grenada allows dual citizenship. Nauru’s unit advertises unrestricted dual citizenship. Vanuatu’s Citizenship Act was amended in 2013 to permit it. Türkiye’s Law No. 5901 simply records an additional nationality on the family registry at Article 44. Cambodia permits dual nationality but is the one seller that has just given itself the power to take the citizenship back: Article 33 of the Constitution was amended in July 2025 and the Nationality Law on 25 August 2025 to allow revocation for treason, collusion with foreign powers, or undermining national security, with the implementing sub-decree published on 22 January 2026. It reaches citizens by birth and by naturalisation alike, and rights groups read the treason definition as broad enough to apply politically. São Tomé & Príncipe permits it under Law 7/2022, with one catch no other program has: it does not naturalise applicants who already hold three or more foreign nationalities. Antigua & Barbuda and St Lucia are silent in their official materials rather than restrictive — their secondary literature is consistent that dual citizenship is permitted, but Passquire flags the absence of an official statement rather than papering over it.

The home-country side is where files die. Two legally distinct things get conflated in every guide that covers this at all:

• Automatic loss by operation of law. China’s Nationality Law provides that a Chinese national who voluntarily acquires foreign nationality automatically loses Chinese nationality. India’s Citizenship Act 1955 and Article 9 of the Constitution work the same way, as do Japan’s Nationality Act, the Netherlands’ Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap at Article 15, Austria’s Staatsbürgerschaftsgesetz at §27 unless retention is granted in advance, and Indonesia’s Law 12/2006. Nothing needs to be decided; the status simply ends.
• Deprivation by government order. Singapore’s Constitution at Article 134(1) and Malaysia’s Federal Constitution at Article 24(1) both say the government may by order deprive a citizen who acquires another nationality, and Saudi Arabia requires prior permission and provides for withdrawal. The practical outcome usually matches automatic loss, but the legal mechanism differs, and the distinction matters if you ever litigate.

Two jurisdictions changed recently and older guides have not caught up. Germany repealed §25 of its nationality act outright with the reform in force from 27 June 2024, so Germans may now acquire a second citizenship freely — but the change is not retroactive, and Germans who naturalised elsewhere before that date without a retention permit did not get their citizenship back. Norway has allowed dual citizenship since 1 January 2020. Ukraine signed a conditional dual-citizenship law on 15 July 2025 that permits it only with countries on a Cabinet-approved list, which is not the same as permitting it generally.

What your home tax authority learns about a second passport

A second passport by itself triggers no report to your home country. Reporting under the Common Reporting Standard keys off tax residence, not nationality, so acquiring citizenship in Dominica while remaining tax-resident where you live changes nothing about who receives your account data. Passquire found no evidence that any citizenship-by-investment state notifies an applicant’s home government, and no evidence of a no-objection requirement — but also no official statement that it never happens, so treat confident claims in either direction as unsourced.

What does exist is a standing OECD warning aimed at exactly this. The OECD maintains a list of citizenship- and residence-by-investment schemes it considers high-risk for circumventing the Common Reporting Standard. The list dates from 2018 and is revised periodically; the OECD page carrying it was last modified on 7 April 2026. A scheme qualifies as high-risk where it gives access to a personal income tax rate below 10% on offshore financial assets and does not require significant physical presence of at least 90 days. Most Caribbean programs meet both limbs. The practical consequence is that banks are directed to probe a self-certification of tax residence that rests on such a passport, so presenting one can lengthen an account opening rather than simplify it.

The order of operations for Americans

Americans who intend to renounce should acquire the second citizenship first, renounce second, and settle the tax third — renunciation that would leave you stateless is not available, so the passport has to exist before the appointment. Renunciation happens under 8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(5) by oath before a consular officer abroad, across two separate interviews, with the oath taken at the second.

The fee changed in 2026, and most published guidance is stale. The State Department cut the renunciation fee from $2,350 to $450 in a final rule published on 13 March 2026 and effective 13 April 2026, with no refunds for anyone who paid the old amount. The paperwork was consolidated at the same time: Form DS-4079 was retitled and now absorbs most of the other required forms.

Tax comes last and is the expensive part. Expatriation triggers the exit-tax regime if your net worth reaches $2,000,000 — a threshold fixed in statute and not indexed to inflation — or if your average annual net income tax exceeds $211,000 for 2026, and either way you must certify five years of federal tax compliance on Form 8854 or face a $10,000 penalty. The first $910,000 of net unrealised gain is excluded for 2026. Passquire’s golden visa countries guide covers PFIC and FBAR exposure, and the EB-5 guide works through the parallel exit-tax trap for green-card holders under the eight-of-fifteen-year rule. Renunciation is not a common outcome: just under 5,000 people appeared on the quarterly Federal Register expatriate lists for 2024, against a 2020 peak of 6,705. The approximation is deliberate — those notices publish name tables and no totals — and they lag the underlying decision by 12 to 18 months.

What does each passport cost per visa-free destination?

Dividing the cheapest official contribution by the number of destinations the passport reaches gives a figure between $1,071 and $21,277 per destination as of August 2026. Nauru is the cheapest per destination at roughly $1,071 while its discount lasts. Cambodia is the dearest by an order of magnitude at roughly $21,277, with Türkiye next at $3,571 — and neither is bought for its travel map. Every other program clusters between $1,389 and $1,678.

Contribution figures are each program’s cheapest published donation or qualifying-investment route before fees, single applicant, August 2026. Destination counts are the Henley Passport Index edition of 16 July 2026. Passquire publishes this ratio because everyone in this market quotes a destination count and nobody divides it into the price — but the ratio is a starting point, not a verdict, and three adjustments matter more than the arithmetic.

Adjust for which destinations, not how many. A destination count treats the Schengen area and Micronesia as one point each. For most buyers the entire value sits in four blocs — Schengen, the United Kingdom, the United States, and China — and the counts above already conceal losses in three of them. Dominica’s 144 no longer includes the United Kingdom. St Lucia’s 143 stopped including it in March 2026. St Kitts & Nevis’s 157, the highest score of the ten, has excluded Canada since 2014. Türkiye’s 112 has never included Schengen, and São Tomé’s 59 and Cambodia’s 47 include none of the first three.

Adjust for the discount. Nauru’s $1,071 per destination depends entirely on a $25,000 reduction that applies only to applications filed before 31 December 2026. Against the $115,000 the discount is quoted off, Nauru costs about $1,369 per destination — alongside Dominica rather than in a class of its own. São Tomé & Príncipe reaches the same $90,000 with no expiry attached, on 25 fewer destinations. A ratio that rests on a promotional price is a promotional ratio.

Adjust for trajectory. Vanuatu at $1,512 per destination looks mid-table, and in 2020 it would have looked outstanding at roughly $1,000 per destination. The ratio moved because the denominator collapsed, not because the price rose. Grenada, Antigua & Barbuda, and St Kitts & Nevis have all gained destinations since 2015 while their prices roughly doubled — so their ratio worsened even as their product improved. Cost per destination measures the trade available today; the decay chart above measures how reliably that trade holds.

Which citizenship-by-investment program fits which buyer?

Ten programs, and three axes no price table can show: how many days you must physically appear, which destinations have already been withdrawn from that passport, and where the program sits in the regulatory transition now reshaping the Caribbean. Full cost stacks, fee schedules, and observed processing times for the eight it covers live in the companion guide; São Tomé & Príncipe and Cambodia are not in it yet. Figures as of August 2026.

St Kitts & Nevis — no presence requirement, and the vetting reputation it is defending

The St Kitts & Nevis Citizenship by Investment Unit publishes no mandatory travel or residency requirement in August 2026 — the cleanest no-presence position of the five, and, with Dominica, one of only two not legislating toward 30 days. It repriced upward before the regional floor obliged anyone to; the full cost stack sits in the companion guide.

That early move signalled how St Kitts intends to compete: on vetting reputation rather than price, backed by the longest continuous record in the world, running since 1984. The record cuts both ways. Canada imposed a visa requirement in November 2014, citing passport issuance and identity management in the program, and Ireland followed on 15 June 2026, covering transit and diplomatic passports. St Kitts sits inside the European Commission’s June 2026 phase-out request, and its 43.9% headline refusal rate is the highest published anywhere — for the arithmetic reasons set out above. Passquire maintains a dedicated St Kitts & Nevis guide.

Dominica — no residency obligation, and the heaviest access damage of the five

Dominica imposes no residency or physical-presence requirement, and unlike the other four, no instrument heading toward one. It sits exactly on the regional floor, which leaves no legal room to discount and makes it the category’s entry point — priced in full alongside the other seven.

The access ledger is the reason that entry price should not be read as a bargain. The United Kingdom withdrew visa-free entry from Dominican nationals on 19 July 2023, citing “clear and evident abuse” of the scheme. Presidential Proclamation 10998 suspended immigrant and B-1, B-2, F, M, and J entry to the United States from 1 January 2026, and on 21 January 2026 Washington added Dominica to the B-1/B-2 visa bond program while cutting visitor-visa validity from ten years multiple-entry to three months single-entry. Regulatory standing is the counterweight: Dominica was the first of the five to pass its ECCIRA enabling legislation, on 14 October 2025.

Antigua & Barbuda — five days in law, thirty in reported practice

Antigua & Barbuda’s Citizenship by Investment Act requires five days of physical presence within the first five years — the only presence obligation with a statutory basis in the region as of August 2026. A bill tabled on 14 July 2026 would raise it to 30 days and mandate independent audits; it had not passed in early August. Do not plan around the five. Prime Minister Gaston Browne told Parliament on tabling it that the 30 days were already being applied administratively, the amendment merely removing the inconsistency with the ECCIRA agreement — reported by IMI Daily and the Antigua Observer, not confirmable against Hansard.

Two governments have already acted against the passport. Antigua & Barbuda was covered by Proclamation 10998 from 1 January 2026 and added to the US visa bond program on 21 January 2026, with B-1/B-2 validity cut to three months single-entry; its government asked Washington to review the restrictions on 5 August 2026 and publicly rejected the European Commission’s phase-out request on 7 July 2026. Against that, Antigua posted the lowest refusal rate of the five in the Commission’s 2024 table, at 1.7%.

Grenada — thirty days on paper, three years if you want the E-2

Grenada’s version sits in the Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Bill 2026, tabled on 28 July 2026: 30 days inside the first five calendar years, meetable collectively by the family, plus a floor of five days each in the first twelve months. It went through the House of Representatives and was debated in the Senate on 31 July 2026; Passquire could trace no assent, and commencement needs a Ministerial Order published in the Gazette, of which none had been made by 10 August 2026. Written, and not yet law. Discount the April-to-June 2026 window still circulating in industry briefings: a forecast pegged to ECCIRA going live, made before the bill existed. Grenada ratified by Act No. 19 of 2025 — last of the four 2025 ratifiers, not the second — and hosts the headquarters.

For the buyers Grenada is differentiated for, the presence number that matters is not 30 days. It is the only Caribbean citizenship-by-investment state whose nationals can apply for the US E-2 treaty investor visa. Since §5902 of the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act, P.L. 117-263, enacted on 23 December 2022, an applicant who acquired the treaty nationality through a financial investment, and who has not previously held E status, must have been domiciled in that country for a continuous period of at least three years at some point before applying. Grenadians naturalized by residence and existing E-visa holders are outside the bar; the investor-citizenship buyer is squarely inside it, which makes this a route to the treaty rather than a shortcut around it. Grenada was added to the US B-1/B-2 visa bond program effective 2 April 2026.

St Lucia — a live residency section with nothing in it, and the sharpest access loss

St Lucia is usually said to have draft residency regulations and no commencement date; the opposite is closer to true. Section 30A, inserted by Act No. 22 of 2025 and in force since 1 January 2026, requires “the prescribed requirements for residency and genuine link” — and nothing has been prescribed. The hook is live and empty, and the content can arrive by regulation alone. It was also the last of the five to join the March 2024 Memorandum of Agreement, the last to align on regional pricing, and the one whose ECCIRA ratification is unaccounted for — the gap that is most likely holding the 30-day rule off every country’s statute book. The pattern is worth noting: on every regional commitment so far, St Lucia has arrived last.

Access narrowed twice in 2026. The United Kingdom withdrew visa-free entry on 5 March 2026 for two reasons, not the one usually quoted. Asylum leads its explanatory memorandum at §5.23: 360 St Lucian nationals claimed asylum between January 2022 and December 2025, 128 (36%) at port. The program follows at §5.24: some 5,642 applications in 2023–24, a 423% annual increase, coinciding with St Lucian passports turning up in UK asylum claims and illegal working. Most coverage quoted only the second. Ireland imposed a visa requirement on 15 June 2026, covering transit and diplomatic passports. St Lucia also carries the widest gap between its own reported refusal rate, 13.5% of processed files, and the 5.3% the European Commission computes, so buyers reading either number in isolation are reading the wrong one.

Vanuatu — nothing to attend, and the only passport worth less than in 2015

Vanuatu attaches no residence requirement and no obligation to set foot in the country. Speed with zero presence is the entire product, and it is also the reason the product was downgraded: the European Union suspended the visa waiver in stages from 2022, made the suspension total on 4 February 2023, and removed Vanuatu from the visa-exempt list permanently through Regulation (EU) 2025/11, applying from 3 February 2025. The United Kingdom withdrew visa-free entry on 19 July 2023, and Washington added Vanuatu to the B-1/B-2 visa bond program on 21 January 2026.

Regulation is the axis Vanuatu is missing entirely. It sits outside ECCIRA, outside the Six Principles, and outside the European Commission’s phase-out request — no regional body constrains the program, and equally, no regional body vouches for it. A Vanuatu passport in 2026 is a legitimate and genuinely fast second nationality; it is not a European travel document, and anyone selling it as one is describing 2021.

Nauru — no residency requirement, on a rulebook eighteen months old

Nauru requires no residency and no arrival: the oath of allegiance may be taken by audio-visual link, so the passport can be acquired without the applicant ever entering Nauru. Its Economic and Climate Resilience Citizenship Program was announced at COP29 in November 2024, gazetted on 10 February 2025, and framed explicitly as climate-adaptation financing for a state facing existential sea-level risk.

It also holds the record for the fastest access loss after launch anywhere in this category. Ireland imposed a visa requirement on Nauruan nationals on 10 March 2025, a month after the regulations were gazetted, and the United Kingdom withdrew visa-free entry from 15:00 GMT on 9 December 2025 — inside ten months — with the Home Office expressly citing the new program as an unsustainable border-security risk. The program’s own terms are still moving: its fee schedule was rewritten wholesale on 3 February 2026, a year into operation, and no regional supervisor exists to steady it.

Türkiye — no presence requirement, and the access nobody can withdraw

Türkiye imposes no residence requirement and no minimum stay. It is one of only two programs absent from the withdrawal ledger above, and the only one with a long record: no EU, UK, or US measure has been taken against Türkiye over its investor-citizenship scheme, and none of the regional machinery described in this guide reaches it — ECCIRA governs the Eastern Caribbean, and the European Commission’s phase-out request went to five governments that do not include Ankara.

There is a structural reason for that immunity, and it should not be read as strength. The December 2025 ground for suspending visa-free status applies to visa-exempt countries running investor-citizenship schemes; Türkiye is not visa-exempt for the Schengen area and never has been. The access Türkiye cannot lose is the access it never had, which is frequently the whole reason a buyer was shopping. What Türkiye offers instead is a qualifying asset inside a G20 economy with a domestic resale market, priced and costed in the per-program cost breakdown.

São Tomé & Príncipe — an oath you can swear at a consulate, and a record too short to read

Decree-Law 07/2025, gazetted on 1 August 2025, imposes no residence and no physical-presence obligation: Article 14 lets the oath of allegiance be sworn before a São Toméan consular officer abroad, so the passport can be acquired without entering the country, though the unit may require an interview by video.

No destination has withdrawn access from São Toméan nationals over the program — absence of evidence rather than evidence of safety, with applications open only since September 2025. Regulation is thin and private: the decree provides for a private operator under a public-service concession — reportedly run from Dubai — no regional supervisor exists, and the EU’s December 2025 ground for suspending visa-free travel cannot reach a country that has never been visa-exempt for the Schengen area.

Cambodia — no residence, an oath in Phnom Penh, and a US listing that names the reason

Cambodia waives the seven-year residence requirement that governs ordinary naturalisation, so the investment route carries no residence obligation. It is not entirely remote: nationality is conferred by Royal Decree and the applicant then swears an oath before the Supreme Court, and Passquire found no source stating that step can be taken abroad.

Cambodia’s access story is short and pointed. On 2 April 2026 the State Department added Cambodia to the B-1/B-2 visa bond program alongside Grenada — a list built on high overstay rates, deficient passport vetting, or the operation of a citizenship-by-investment program granting citizenship with no residency requirement. Washington is applying the third test to a country few rankings treat as a seller. Nothing else constrains it: there is no dedicated regulator, and the qualifying thresholds moved by sub-decree on 1 December 2025.

Can a purchased citizenship be taken away after it is granted?

Yes, and the precedent is European rather than Caribbean. Cyprus has revoked 360 investor-obtained citizenships — 101 investors and 259 family members — since its program closed in November 2020, per figures reported by Investment Migration Insider in September 2025. Every open program reserves the same power for fraud or material misrepresentation in the application. None of them revoke because policy later changed.

The Cyprus numbers are worth sitting with, because they show what a retrospective audit does to a book of already-granted passports. The Nicolatos inquiry, reporting to the Attorney General on 7 June 2021, examined 6,779 exceptional naturalisations granted between 2007 and 17 August 2020 and found 3,609 — 53% — granted to investors’ family members and company executives outside the legal framework — a figure that reaches Passquire through reporting rather than a government posting. Revocation nonetheless reached only 360 people, because unwinding a nationality is legally slow and politically expensive. The exposure is real; the base rate is low; and the people caught were overwhelmingly in files with fabricated or recycled qualifying investments.

Revocation risk in the current market concentrates in three places. Undisclosed history is the first — a criminal matter, a prior visa refusal, or a source of funds that later resolves differently than the file claimed. Program-level scandal is the second: the Six Principles agreed by the five Caribbean states on 25 February 2023 include the retrieval of revoked passports, which means a program under pressure has committed in advance to recalling documents. Third, and least discussed, is the investment itself — routes with a mandatory hold can be unwound if the qualifying asset is sold or refinanced before the hold expires.

That third vector is where recoverability stops being a money question and becomes a citizenship question. The mandatory holds attached to the recoverable Caribbean routes run three to seven years, and the golden visa countries guide prices what each one costs.

What the price cannot show is the calendar overlap. A hold taken out in 2026 runs to 2029 at the earliest, which places its expiry after ECCIRA has taken over supervision, after the interim vetting measures Brussels asked for in September 2026, and — in every case, not just the long ones — after the 1 June 2028 phase-out date the European Commission has put on the table.

A buyer on a recoverable route is therefore contractually locked into the qualifying asset across precisely the window in which the program that issued the passport is most likely to be reformed, repriced, or wound down. Selling early does not just cost money — it puts the citizenship itself back in play, because the asset is what the grant was conditioned on.

The donation buyer’s money is gone on day one and has nothing left to jeopardise.

What does not happen is retroactive cancellation of validly obtained citizenship when a program shuts. Malta’s investor-citizenship scheme was terminated after the Court of Justice ruled against it on 29 April 2025, and the Maltese passports already issued under it remain valid. The same held in Cyprus, where closure in 2020 and revocation afterwards were separate processes with separate legal thresholds. A closed program is a supply event, not a holder event — which is the opposite of how visa-free access behaves.

Which citizenship-by-investment program should you choose?

Choose by the risk you can absorb rather than the price you can pay: as of August 2026 entry prices across the ten programs span roughly $910,000 from cheapest to dearest, and durability varies by far more than that. Türkiye suits a buyer who wants a real asset and does not need Schengen. Grenada suits US business intent. St Kitts & Nevis suits a buyer who wants the longest track record and no residency obligation.

Antigua & Barbuda suits larger families, on the per-head arithmetic priced in the golden visa countries guide. Vanuatu and Nauru suit speed and price only, and both have paid for that positioning in lost access.

Three questions settle most cases, in this order.

1. What is the passport actually for? A travel document, a business route into a specific country, or insurance against a political scenario at home. Travel buyers should weight access history; business buyers should look at Grenada’s E-2 treaty and Türkiye’s economy; insurance buyers should weight program durability over mobility, because insurance you cannot lose is worth more than mobility you can.
2. What does your current nationality permit? Automatic loss of your existing citizenship is the one failure mode that cannot be fixed after the fact, and it is checkable in an afternoon.
3. Which withdrawal would hurt most? Rank Schengen, the United Kingdom, and the United States for your own life, then read the withdrawal ledger above against that ranking. A buyer who flies to London monthly should not be shopping in Dominica in 2026.

One warning about how this category is usually ranked. Composite “best program” scores smuggle in weights the reader cannot see — a system that quietly values processing speed at 20% will always favour Vanuatu. Passquire publishes the axes separately, with their sources and dates, so the weighting is yours.

Finally, price the decay. Several facts on this page have known expiry dates: ECCIRA is targeted to become operational in September 2026, Nauru’s $25,000 discount closes to new filings on 31 December 2026, Antigua’s 30-day residency bill was pending in August 2026, and the European Commission’s phase-out request runs to 1 June 2028. Anyone committing capital to a citizenship-by-investment program in 2026 should re-verify every figure in this guide against its official source on the day of filing, and should assume the travel map attached to the passport will look different in five years than it does today. It always has.

Sources

• European Commission — Eighth Report under the Visa Suspension Mechanism, COM(2025) 792 final, 19 December 2025. https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/document/download/225fea8b-3245-478f-a331-17868b0f9b56_en (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• European Commission — Staff Working Document SWD(2025) 429 final, 19 December 2025; per-country Caribbean application and rejection table. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX%3A52025SC0429 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Council of the European Union — “Vanuatu: Council fully suspends visa free travel agreement”, 8 November 2022. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/11/08/vanuatu-council-fully-suspends-visa-free-travel-agreement/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Council of the European Union — “Vanuatu: Council ends visa exemption”, 12 December 2024. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2024/12/12/vanuatu-council-ends-visa-exemption/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Regulation (EU) 2025/11 of the European Parliament and of the Council, amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1806 as regards Vanuatu. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ%3AL_202500011 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• CJEU judgment C-181/23, Commission v Malta, 29 April 2025 — ended investor citizenship inside the EU. https://curia.europa.eu/juris/documents.jsf?num=C-181/23 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• OECS Pressroom — “OECS sets standards for Citizenship by Investment Programmes”, 24 September 2025 (ECCIRA agreement). https://pressroom.oecs.int/oecs-sets-standards-for-citizenship-by-investment-programmes-cbicip-to-safeguard-their-integrity-and-sustainability (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• OECS Pressroom — Memorandum of Agreement implementation and the US$200,000 floor with effect from 1 July 2024, 22 June 2024. https://pressroom.oecs.int/caribbean-countries-pressing-forward-with-the-implementation-of-the-memorandum-of-agreement-on-citizenship-by-investment-programmes (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Grenada — Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority Agreement Act, Act No. 19 of 2025, assented 24 November 2025. https://grenadaparliament.gd/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Act-No.-19-of-2025-Eastern-Caribbean-Citizenship-by-Investment-Regulatory-Authority-Agreement-Act-2025.pdf (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Office of the Prime Minister, Dominica — “Dominica Parliament passes bill to establish ECCIRA”, 15 October 2025 (passage 14 October 2025; assent date not published). https://pressroomopm.gov.dm/dominica-parliament-passes-bill-to-establish-eastern-caribbean-citizenship-by-investment-regulatory-authority/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• St Kitts & Nevis Information Service — “Saint Kitts and Nevis passes Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority Bill, 2025”, 17 October 2025. https://www.sknis.gov.kn/2025/10/17/saint-kitts-and-nevis-passes-eastern-caribbean-citizenship-by-investment-regulatory-authority-bill-2025-advancing-regional-integrity-and-oversight/ — and St Kitts & Nevis CIU, “St. Kitts and Nevis passes ECCIRA Bill 2025”, 14 November 2025: “On 17 October 2025, the National Assembly passed the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority (ECCIRA) Bill, 2025.” https://ciu.gov.kn/news-st-kitts-and-nevis-passes-eccira-bill-2025/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Antigua & Barbuda — Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority Agreement Act 2025, No. 18 of 2025. Assent recorded as 6 November 2025 in the published list of 2025 Acts of the Parliament of Antigua and Barbuda; commencement on a date to be appointed by the Minister by Order. Passquire could not verify either the assent or any gazette reference against the instrument itself: laws.gov.ag serves an incomplete certificate chain and fails TLS validation to automated retrieval, so the earlier gazette citation (Vol. XLV No. 60) has been withdrawn rather than restated. https://laws.gov.ag/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/No.-18-of-2025-The-Eastern-Caribbean-Citizenship-by-Investment-Regulatory-Authority-Agreement-Act-2025.pdf — assent date via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acts_of_the_Parliament_of_Antigua_and_Barbuda_from_2025 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Saint Lucia Citizenship by Investment Programme — legislation index, listing instruments through the Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Regulations No. 57 of 2026 and containing no ECCIRA act as of August 2026. https://www.cipsaintlucia.com/citizenship-legislation (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Bayat Group — “Caribbean CBI jurisdictions postpone introduction of mandatory residency rules until mid-2026”, 30 December 2025: four of five had ratified ECCIRA, Saint Lucia “unable to complete ratification within the originally anticipated timeframe due to the dissolution and subsequent re-composition of its parliament following the general election” of 1 December 2025; reforms to be implemented simultaneously across the five. Secondary reporting, no primary source cited. https://bayatgroup.com/caribbean-cbi-jurisdictions-postpone-introduction-of-mandatory-residency-rules-until-mid-2026/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• The Voice (Saint Lucia) — “Eastern Caribbean states strengthen citizenship by investment governance”, 18 April 2026, stating that all five states have secured parliamentary approval; supplies no St Lucian act number or date, and conflicts with the December 2025 reporting above. https://thevoiceslu.com/2026/04/eastern-caribbean-states-strengthen-citizenship-by-investment-governance/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Jamaica Gleaner — “General election called in St Lucia for December 1”, 10 November 2025 (dissolution of parliament). https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20251110/general-election-called-st-lucia-december-1-months-ahead-when-polls-were-due (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Eastern Caribbean Central Bank — Communiqué of the 113th Meeting of the Monetary Council, meeting held 10 July 2026 (ECCIRA on track for September 2026 launch). Source of record: https://www.eccb-centralbank.org/publications/communique — full text also distributed on the wire at https://www.einpresswire.com/article/928366611/communiqu-of-the-113th-meeting-of-the-monetary-council-of-the-eastern-caribbean-central-bank (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Investment Migration Council — “US–Caribbean Roundtable secures agreement on Six CBI Principles”, 6 March 2023 (principles agreed 25 February 2023). https://investmentmigration.org/news/us-caribbean-roundtable-on-citizenship-by-investment-secures-agreement-on-six-cbi-principles/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• IMI Daily — “4 of 5 Caribbean CIPs sign MoU on $200,000 price floor”, 23 March 2024. https://www.imidaily.com/caribbean/4-of-5-caribbean-cips-sign-mou-on-200000-price-floor-discounts-prevention-closer-regulatory-integration/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• IMI Daily — “Antigua’s new CIP bill mandates independent audits, raises residency to 30 days”, 17 July 2026: “Browne told Parliament the 30-day requirement had already been implemented administratively and that the amendment merely removes any inconsistency between domestic law and the regional agreement.” Bill tabled, not passed. https://www.imidaily.com/caribbean/antiguas-new-cip-bill-mandates-independent-audits-raises-residency-to-30-days/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Antigua Observer — “Annual audits, 30-day residency among CIP amendments”, July 2026, reporting the same statement by PM Gaston Browne. The site returns HTTP 403 to automated retrieval, so Passquire read it only through search indexing; the administrative-application claim is reported, not confirmed against Hansard or an official transcript. https://antiguaobserver.com/annual-audits-30-day-residency-among-cip-amendments/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Grenada Parliament — Grenada Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Bill 2026, tabled 28 July 2026. Clause 1(2): “This Act shall come into force on a date to be appointed by the Minister by Order published in the Gazette.” New section 7A(2)(a) requires presence “for an aggregate of at least thirty (30) days during or up to any of the first five (5) calendar years after the date of the grant of the certificate of citizenship”; 7A(3) allows the aggregate to be “met collectively by the main applicant and each dependant”; 7A(4) requires each person to be present “for not less than five (5) days during the first twelve (12) months”. No commencement Order located as of 10 August 2026. https://grenadaparliament.gd/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Grenada-Citizenship-by-Investment-Amendment-Bill-2026-1.pdf (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Immigrant Invest — “Grenada introduces new citizenship rules: residency, biometrics, and passport updates”, 5 December 2025, reporting an Investment Migration Agency briefing that the rule would take effect April–June 2026. Recorded here as the traceable origin of a commencement window the amendment bill’s own text contradicts. https://immigrantinvest.com/insider/grenada-updates-citizenship-rules/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Saint Lucia — Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Act, No. 22 of 2025, assented by Governor-General Errol Charles on 3 November 2025. New section 30A: “an applicant and each qualifying dependant shall comply with the prescribed requirements for residency and genuine link. (2) Subsection (1) takes effect from the 1st day of January, 2026.” No regulation prescribing those requirements had been made as of 10 August 2026. https://www.cipsaintlucia.com/s/Act-22-Citizenship-by-Investment-Amendment-Act.pdf (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Commonwealth of Dominica — Citizenship by Investment Regulations 2024, S.R.O. 1 of 2024 (interviews, denial grounds, JRCC denial sharing). https://dominica.gov.dm/laws/2024/dominica_citizenship_by_investment_regulations_2024_sro_1_of_2024.pdf (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Dominica Citizenship by Investment Unit — Economic Diversification Fund minimums. https://www.cbiu.gov.dm/investment-options/economic-diversification-fund/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• St Kitts & Nevis Citizenship by Investment Unit — Sustainable Island State Contribution amounts; no published travel or residency requirement. https://ciu.gov.kn/sustainable-island-state-contribution/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Saint Lucia Citizenship by Investment Programme — Annual Reports 2023/24 and 2024/25 (due-diligence providers, volumes, denials). https://www.cipsaintlucia.com/statistics (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Grenada — CBI Report to the Houses of Parliament, July–December 2024. https://grenadaparliament.gd/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/CBI-Parliament-Report-Jul-Dec-2024-Final.pdf (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Office of the Regulator on the Granting of Citizenship by Exceptional Merit, Malta — Annual Report 2024 (cited for 49 applications refused or withdrawn during 2024 and a 23% non-approval rate at eligibility stage). The PDF returns HTTP 403 to automated retrieval; Passquire could not open it directly and read the 49 only through search indexing of its text. The only retrievable account, IMI Daily of 27 April 2026, reports “409 eligibility applications in 2024, up from 299 the prior year”, that “rejections and applicant withdrawals across both programs totaled 50 files”, and that “the non-approval rate at eligibility stage held at 23%” — 23% of 409 is about 94, so the base the percentage is computed against is not stated by either account. The count is therefore given here as 49 or 50 depending on source, and the base is not characterised. https://orgcem.gov.mt/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Annual-Report-2024.pdf — https://www.imidaily.com/intelligence/maltas-mein-inflows-surge-73-in-2024-as-applications-hit-third-highest-rate-ever/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• IMI Daily — “Cyprus revokes 28 more CBI citizenships, bringing total to 360”, 15 September 2025. https://www.imidaily.com/europe/cyprus-revokes-28-more-cbi-citizenships-bringing-total-to-360/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Cyprus Mail — report on the Nicolatos Investigative Committee’s final report, handed to the Attorney General 7 June 2021: of 6,779 exceptional naturalisations granted 2007 to 17 August 2020, 3,609 individuals or 53% concerned family members and company executives naturalised unlawfully. Passquire could not obtain the report from a Cyprus government source; the interim report of April 2021 gave a different figure, 51.81%, over a smaller sample. https://cyprus-mail.com/2021/06/08/anastasiades-those-who-exploited-citizenship-scheme-should-be-losing-sleep/ — interim figure: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/16/half-of-cyprus-passports-in-cash-scheme-were-illegal-inquiry (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Ministerio de Economía, Argentina — Resolución RESOL-2026-522-APN-MEC of 14 April 2026, cancelling Concurso Público de Etapa Única Internacional N° 34-0001-CPU25 for a citizenship-by-investment master agent, following challenges by two bidders and without compensation. The resolution was not published in the Boletín Oficial; the signed instrument is mirrored at https://www.imidaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/RS-2026-37468010-APN-MEC.pdf — Decree 524/2025 of 30 July 2025, creating the programme agency: https://www.boletinoficial.gob.ar/detalleAviso/primera/329061/20250731 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Fragomen — “State Department adds countries to B-1/B-2 visa bond pilot program” (Grenada and Cambodia effective 2 April 2026; criteria include citizenship-by-investment programs with no residency requirement). https://www.fragomen.com/insights/united-states-state-department-adds-countries-to-b-1b-2-visa-bond-pilot-program.html (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• IMI Daily — “US cuts visa validity for Antigua and Dominica from 10 years to 3 months” (added to visa bond program 21 January 2026). https://www.imidaily.com/caribbean/us-cuts-visa-validity-for-antigua-and-dominica-from-10-years-to-3-months/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Jamaica Observer — “Antigua government urges US to review visa restrictions”, 5 August 2026. https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2026/08/05/antigua-government-urges-us-review-visa-restrictions/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Regulation (EU) 2025/2441 — revision of the visa suspension mechanism, adding investor citizenship schemes as a ground at Article 8a(1)(e); adopted 26 November 2025, in force 30 December 2025. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2025/2441/oj (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Council Decision (EU) 2022/2198 — full suspension of the EU–Vanuatu visa-waiver agreement from 4 February 2023. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec/2022/2198/oj (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Office of the Prime Minister, Antigua & Barbuda — “Government of A & B responds to European Union Communication on Citizenship by Investment Programme”, 7 July 2026. https://ab.gov.ag/detail_template.php?page=press_release/2026/july/2026_july_07-govt_responds_to+eu_communication_on_cip (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada — “St. Kitts and Nevis citizens now need a visa to travel to Canada”, notice of 22 November 2014 citing passport issuance and identity management in the citizenship-by-investment program. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/notices/notice-kitts-nevis-citizens-need-visa-travel-canada.html (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• UK Parliament — Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules HC 1491 and the accompanying statement on Nauru, 9 December 2025. https://www.ein.org.uk/news/new-statement-changes-immigration-rules-imposes-visa-requirement-visitors-nauru (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• UK Home Office — Explanatory Memorandum to the Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules HC 1691, presented to Parliament 5 March 2026. §5.23: “Between January 2022 and December 2025, 360 nationals of St Lucia claimed asylum, of which 128 (36%) were made at port”; §5.24: the St Lucian programme “received around 5,642 applications, representing 423% annual growth in application volumes”; §11.1 records the 15:00 GMT commencement. Note gov.uk’s own publication slug reads “hc-1619” while the document is HC 1691. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/statement-of-changes-to-the-immigration-rules-hc-1619-5-march-2026/explanatory-memorandum-to-the-statement-of-changes-in-the-immigration-rules-hc-1691-5-march-2026-accessible — PDF: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69a9a2b8ac93547152b9b1eb/E03553349_-__HC_1691__-_EXPLANATORY_MEMORANDUM__Web_Accessible_.pdf (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, Ireland — “Minister Brophy announces new visa requirements”: visas required from 15 June 2026 for nationals of St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia and Nicaragua, including diplomatic and service passports and transit. https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-justice-home-affairs-and-migration/press-releases/minister-brophy-announces-new-visa-requirements/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Immigration Service Delivery, Ireland — “Irish visa requirement for nationals of Eswatini, Lesotho and Nauru”, notice of 7 March 2025, effective 10 March 2025: “A transit visa will also be required, if intending to transit through Ireland en route to another destination.” The live page returns HTTP 403 to automated retrieval; text verified from the Internet Archive capture. https://www.irishimmigration.ie/irish-visa-requirement-for-nationals-of-eswatini-lesotho-and-nauru/ — archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260607152001/https://www.irishimmigration.ie/irish-visa-requirement-for-nationals-of-eswatini-lesotho-and-nauru/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Nauru Economic and Climate Resilience Citizenship Program — contribution schedule, discount terms, and FAQ. https://www.ecrcp.gov.nr/contribution and https://www.ecrcp.gov.nr/frequently-asked-questions (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Government of Nauru — Gazette No. 51 of 10 February 2025, citizenship program amendment regulations. https://www.nauru.gov.nr/media/203092/gazette_51-25.pdf (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• IMI Daily — “Nauru slashes CBI costs and introduces discounted limited-time offer”, 3 February 2026. https://www.imidaily.com/asia-pacific/nauru-slashes-cbi-costs-and-introduces-30-discounted-limited-time-offer/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Henley & Partners — Henley Passport Index, global ranking editions of 16 July 2026 and 3 February 2026; earlier editions of 10 January 2023 and 7 January 2020, and the predecessor Visa Restrictions Index of 2015 (PDF version code V151019). The 16 July 2026 edition (199 passports, 227 destinations) gives São Tomé & Príncipe rank 77 with 59 destinations and Cambodia rank 88 with 47; all other counts used on this page were re-read from the same PDF. https://www.henleyglobal.com/passport-index/ranking — PDF: https://cdn.henleyglobal.com/storage/app/media/HPI/Henley%20Passport%20Index%202026%20July%20Global%20Ranking.pdf (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• St Kitts & Nevis CIU — “Dual citizenship in St. Kitts and Nevis”: approved applicants are not required to renounce their original nationality. https://ciu.gov.kn/news-dual-citizenship-in-st-kitts-and-nevis/ — and Dominica CBIU FAQ: “the laws of Dominica recognise and allow dual citizenship and you are not required to renounce your other citizenships.” https://www.cbiu.gov.dm/faq/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Türkiye — Turkish Citizenship Law No. 5901, Articles 12 and 44. https://www.nvi.gov.tr/kurumlar/nvi.gov.tr/mevzuat/nufusmevzuat/ingilizce/TURKISH_CITIZENSHIP_LAW_5901.pdf (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Netherlands — Rijkswet op het Nederlanderschap, Article 15 (loss on voluntary acquisition of another nationality). https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0003738 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• People’s Republic of China — Nationality Law, Articles 3 and 9. https://en.nia.gov.cn/n147418/n147458/c155976/content.html (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Singapore — Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, Article 134 (deprivation of citizenship on acquisition of foreign citizenship). https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/CONS1963?ProvIds=pr134- — Malaysia — Federal Constitution, Article 24(1), reprint as at 15 October 2020. https://lom.agc.gov.my/ilims/upload/portal/akta/LOM/EN/Federal%20Constitution%20(Reprint%202020).pdf (deprivation by order rather than automatic loss; retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Germany — Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz §25, shown as “(weggefallen)” since the Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht-Modernisierungsgesetz came into force on 27 June 2024. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stag/__25.html (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• OECD — Residence and citizenship by investment schemes assessed as high-risk for CRS circumvention (list published 2018, periodically revised; page last modified 7 April 2026), with the sub-10% tax and 90-day presence criteria. https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/sub-issues/international-standards-on-tax-transparency/residence-citizenship-by-investment.html (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• US Department of State — “Schedule of Fees for Consular Services”, final rule, 91 FR 12296, published 13 March 2026, effective 13 April 2026; renunciation fee reduced from $2,350 to $450. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/03/13/2026-04931 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Boundless — “The rise in US citizenship renunciations”, reporting just under 5,000 expatriations for 2024 and the 2020 peak of 6,705 from the Federal Register quarterly lists, with a 12-to-18-month publication lag. https://www.boundless.com/research-reports/rise-in-us-citizenship-renunciations-2025 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Federal Register — “Quarterly Publication of Individuals, Who Have Chosen to Expatriate”, the four notices covering 2024: 2024-09243 (30 April 2024), 2024-16993 (1 August 2024), 2024-25123 (29 October 2024) and 2025-02075 (3 February 2025). Each publishes a name table only and states no total, which is why this guide gives an approximation rather than a precise annual figure. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/04/30/2024-09243/quarterly-publication-of-individuals-who-have-chosen-to-expatriate (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Jordan Investment Ministry, via Petra (Jordan News Agency) — citizenship-by-investment programme results: 685 investors and over JD 1.15 billion since 2018, to end-H1 2026. This article does not contain the JOD 700,000 figure previously quoted on this page; the JD amounts it does give are JD 200,000 reduced to JD 150,000 for real estate outside Amman (a residency, not a citizenship, route) and JD 1 million raised to JD 1.5 million for Amman Stock Exchange purchases. https://petra.gov.jo/en/news/jordan-revamps-citizenship-by-investment-scheme-to-attract-higher-value-investments-minister-says (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Jordan News (Jordan Press Foundation) — “Cabinet Approves Amendments to the Criteria for Granting Residency and Jordanian Citizenship to Investors”, Cabinet decision of 15 July 2026: citizenship for a productive-sector project requires paid-up capital of at least JOD 700,000 inside Amman or JOD 500,000 outside it, with Jordanian employment verified through Social Security records; other routes run to JOD 1 million, JOD 1.5 million and JOD 3 million. JOD 500,000 is therefore the programme floor, not JOD 700,000. https://www.jordannews.jo/Section-109/News/Cabinet-Approves-Amendments-to-the-Criteria-for-Granting-Residency-and-Jordanian-Citizenship-to-Investors-53081 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Library of Congress, Global Legal Monitor — “Egypt: Parliament Approves Draft Law Allowing Foreign Investors to Acquire Egyptian Citizenship”, 31 July 2019 (Law No. 190 of 2019). The qualifying options, including the USD 250,000 non-refundable contribution to the public treasury, are as published by Henley & Partners; the grant itself is a Prime Ministerial decision taken on the recommendation of an inter-ministerial committee, which is why Egypt is described here as discretionary rather than as a fixed product. https://www.loc.gov/item/global-legal-monitor/2019-07-31/egypt-parliament-approves-draft-law-allowing-foreign-investors-to-acquire-egyptian-citizenship/ — https://www.henleyglobal.com/citizenship-investment/egypt (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• São Tomé & Príncipe — Decreto-Lei n.º 07/2025, “Regulamentação da Nacionalidade por Investimento ou Doação”, Diário da República, I Série, N.º 33, 1 de Agosto de 2025. Approved at the 12th ordinary session of the Council of Ministers on 10 May 2025, promulgated by President Carlos Manuel Vila Nova on 28 July 2025, in force on publication. Made under Article 26 of the Lei da Nacionalidade, Lei n.º 7/2022 de 10 de Março. Annex I sets the qualifying investment in the Fundo Nacional de Transformação at USD 90,000 for an individual applicant, USD 95,000 for a family of two to four, and USD 5,000 per additional qualifying dependant, plus a non-refundable USD 5,000 due-diligence and processing fee. Article 14(5): the oath or affirmation of allegiance is taken before a public officer in São Tomé and Príncipe “ou, quando o candidato se encontre no estrangeiro, perante o agente diplomático ou consular competente” — no residence or in-country presence is required. The due-diligence article permits the UCID to require an interview “presencial ou por meios telemáticos”, and the institutional chapter provides that where the Entidade Gestora is private it acts “nos termos de contrato de concessão de serviço público assinado com a UCID” — Passquire read these provisions in the gazette text but does not quote article numbers for them, having extracted the PDF mechanically. That the unit is operated from Dubai, and on a ten-year exclusive mandate, is reported by the operator and by trade press, not by the decree. https://ntltrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/STP-CBI-Act-01082025-1-1.pdf — https://www.imidaily.com/africa/sao-tome-and-principe-launches-us90k-citizenship-by-investment-program/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative — São Tomé & Príncipe country file and “São Tomé Introduces Remote Passport Issuance, Clarifies Three-Nationality Rule”: nationality is governed by the 1990 Constitution as amended in 2003 and by Lei n.º 7/2022 de 10 de Março, which permits dual nationality but bars the grant of São Toméan nationality to applicants already holding three or more foreign nationalities. Passquire read this restriction in secondary reporting on Lei 7/2022, not in the statute text. https://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/en/central-africa/sao-tome-and-principe/ — https://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/en/sao-tome-introduces-remote-passport-issuance-clarifies-three-nationality-rule/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• IMI Daily — “São Tomé Citizenship Program Garners 98 Applications in First 4.5 Months”: 98 applications between September 2025 and January 2026 across 27 nationalities, 27 approved, top nationalities Russia 22, China 17, Germany 15, average processing 2.5 months, first passports issued January 2026. https://www.imidaily.com/intelligence/sao-tome-citizenship-program-garners-98-applications-in-first-4-5-months/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Cambodia — revocation of nationality: Article 33 of the Constitution amended 11 July 2025 (National Assembly) and endorsed by the Senate 15 July 2025; the Nationality Law amended 25 August 2025 to permit revocation for treason, collusion with foreign powers, or undermining national security; implementing sub-decree published 22 January 2026. The power applies to citizens by birth, to dual nationals, and to naturalised citizens. Passquire read these through Human Rights Watch and contemporaneous reporting, not the Khmer statute text. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/01/cambodia-revised-law-endangers-citizenship — https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/01/23/cambodia-finalizes-process-to-arbitrarily-strip-citizenship (retrieved 2026-08-11)
• Cambodia — Sub-Decree No. 225 of 1 December 2025 on the implementation of the Law on Nationality, raising the investment threshold to KHR 4 billion (about USD 1 million) of personal capital in an approved project and the donation threshold to KHR 12 billion (about USD 3 million) to the national budget; approved applicants take an oath before the Supreme Court. Passquire could not obtain the Khmer text of the sub-decree and relies on three law-firm summaries. Reported prior thresholds differ between sources (USD 245,000–250,000 donation and USD 305,000–350,000 investment) and are not used on this page. Nationality is conferred by Royal Decree under Article 16 of the 1996 Law on Nationality, with the seven-year residence requirement waived on the investment and donation routes. https://kh.andersen.com/publications/new-sub-decree-guides-implementation-of-the-law-on-nationality/ — https://bowergroupasia.com/cambodia-overhauls-citizenship-prerequisites/ — https://globallawexperts.com/citizenship-by-investment-cambodia/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Regulation (EU) 2018/1806, consolidated text, most recent consolidation 30 December 2025 — Annex I lists São Tomé and Príncipe and Cambodia among the third countries whose nationals must hold a visa for the Schengen area, which is why the Article 8a(1)(e) suspension ground added in December 2025, applying to visa-exempt countries, cannot reach either. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:02018R1806-20251230 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• NOW Grenada — “Grenada CBI amendment to strengthen oversight, transparency and regional cooperation”, August 2026: the Grenada Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Bill 2026 “was debated in the Senate on Friday, 31 July 2026” after approval by the House of Representatives. The site returns HTTP 403 to automated retrieval, so Passquire read it only through search indexing. No assent by the Governor-General and no commencement Order could be traced from any source as of 10 August 2026, which is why this guide says the bill is not yet law rather than that it is enacted. https://nowgrenada.com/2026/08/grenada-cbi-amendment-to-strengthen-oversight-transparency-and-regional-cooperation/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• European Commission SWD(2025) 429, Eastern Caribbean narrative preceding the applications table: “In Saint Kitts and Nevis, the volume of applications went from 1,987 in 2023 to 223 in 2024 and in Grenada from 2,297 to 420 applications.” The same document also reports St Kitts & Nevis as an aggregate 19,655 applications for 2015–2023; the two are different measures in one source, not a conflict. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX%3A52025SC0429 (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• IRS — Revenue Procedure 2025-32, §§4.37 and 4.38 (2026 expatriation income threshold $211,000 and net-gain exclusion $910,000); 26 U.S.C. 877 and 877A; Form 8854. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rp-25-32.pdf (retrieved 2026-08-10)
• Passquire — Golden Visa Countries 2026: all-in costs, fee schedules, and observed processing times for all 18 open programs. /citizenship/golden-visa-countries/ (retrieved 2026-08-10)