Citizenship by Investment

The CIP Unit of Saint Lucia has slashed the minimum real estate investment to USD 200,000 from USD 300,000 effective from Jan 1, 2023. The amendments were done to make St.Lucia competitive with other caribbean countries. The property investment has huge appeal to many american investors visiting Saint Lucia.  There are two hotel projects approved…

The United States ranks first in the world for financial secrecy for 2022 enabling wealthy individuals to hide assets, according to Financial Secrecy Index which ranks countries based on how much financial secrecy they supply to the world.  Jurisdictions are ranked by their FSI value to identify the world’s biggest suppliers of financial secrecy. Switzerland…

CBI programs tend to have a limited lifeline and doors close fast. As of 2023, a total of four countries have officially terminated and permanently closed their citizenship by investment programs. No applications are accepted from investors. It is interesting to note at all the closed CBI programs were European countries (2 EU member states…

A passport is an international travel document issued by a government to a citizen of that country. A single person can hold multiple passports, as they hold multiple citizenships. Misusing a passport is a federal crime in many countries subjected to fine and imprisonment. In 2020, nearly 100 million travel documents were reported lost or…

The Government of St.Kitts and Nevis has announced creation of Sovereign wealth fund from CBI revenues. This will be first sovereign wealth fund in the world funded through citizenship by investment program. This great news was announced by Prime Minister Dr. Terrance Drew in Budget speech 2023. A Legislation and a high level management team…

The Saint Lucia citizenship by investment program provides a facility to add dependents anytime within 5 years, post granting citizenship to principal applicant by paying a flat fee. This makes it convenient for families to add their family members without making entire investment at the start. St.Lucia citizen (granted through the CIP program) may add-on…

Montenegro citizenship by investment program closes after the expiry of the program in Dec 31, 2022.  The program ran for three years. No further applications are accepted from Jan 1, 2023 onwards. The decision was taken by the current government to scrap the investor citizenship program to pursue EU acquis ambitions to meet the recommendation…

Effect Jan 1, 2023, The CIP Saint Lucia has launched the National Action Bonds under the Citizenship by Investment program, replacing the Covid relief bonds which ended on Dec 31, 2022. These special bonds will be issued by government at discounted rate for USD 300,000 (instead of $500,000). Saint Lucia is the only caribbean nation…

The US E-2 investor visas associated with golden visa have become recently a hot topic, asked by a number of property investors from India, China etc, as these country nationals are directly ineligible to apply for E-2 visas to United States. If you want to take a golden visa route it is important to note…

The Government of Saint Lucia has implemented important changes to the CIP Regulations of the Citizenship by investment Program for 2023. The amendments to the existing CIP regulations will take effect from 1 January 2023. St Lucia will maintain highest and robust standards of due diligence. National Action Government Bond St.Lucia is perhaps the only…