Mauritius retiree permanent residence: at least USD 200,000 in 5 years

Mauritius keeps the transfer conditions for its retirement routes in a schedule to its investment-promotion statute. That schedule sets two separate tests. Part III governs the residence permit itself. Part IV item 4 governs permanent residence, and in the version consolidated to 9 August 2025 it lists at least USD 200,000, transferred during the five consecutive years immediately preceding the application.

Where the transfer conditions sit

Two statutes are involved, and the division is worth stating.

Section 10 of the Immigration Act 2022, as replaced by the Finance Act 2025 with effect from 1 December 2025, provides for the permit. A retired non-citizen applies to the Director-General of Immigration through the National Electronic Licensing System; the Economic Development Board and the Passport and Immigration Office check that the application is complete, and a Joint Committee examines it. Section 2 continues to define the term by reference to registration with the Economic Development Board: a retired non-citizen means one “registered as such with EDB”.

The transfer conditions compared in this article are not in that Act. They sit in the First Schedule to the Economic Development Board Act, a statute about investment promotion and business facilitation. Section 11(2) of the Immigration Act also contains an income condition, for a separate replacement provision described below.

Section 10(7) prohibits a retired non-citizen holding a residence permit from engaging in gainful employment. It allows investment in a business, provided the permit holder is not employed in that business and receives no “salary or employment benefits” from it.

What the August 2025 consolidation specifies

Part III specifies the following transfer requirements for the residence permit: an initial sum of at least USD 2,000 into a local bank within 60 days from the issuance of the permit, and thereafter either USD 24,000 annually or USD 2,000 per month.

Part IV item 4 lists, for permanent residence: holding the retirement residence permit for at least five years, and transfers aggregating at least USD 200,000 during the five consecutive years immediately preceding the application.

These are the financial and holding-period requirements the schedule states. They are not a complete operational checklist; regulations and guidelines were not read.

Retirement provisions in the earlier texts

Between the 2019 and 2025 consolidations, the monthly figure moves from USD 1,500 to USD 2,000. The permanent residence aggregate moves from USD 54,000 to USD 200,000 — about 3.7 times the total, across a period two years longer, so the two are not a like-for-like annual comparison.

The 2017 text is not a single predecessor threshold. It carried three separate retirement items, set out above.

What produced each difference is not established here. The 2025 consolidation’s amendment trail ends “18/25 (cio 9/8/25)”; this comparison does not show which amendment introduced which change, and the Gazette print of that Act was not read.

What the agency’s page carries

The Economic Development Board’s February 2024 newsletter page on retiring in Mauritius remains available. Read on 19 September 2026, it says an applicant submits a bank statement showing “an available minimum amount of USD 18,000 yearly or a guaranteed minimum transfer of USD 1,500 monthly”, and that after “3 consecutive years” a retiree may request a twenty-year permanent residence permit.

The monthly dollar amount and the number of qualifying years correspond numerically to the July 2019 consolidation rather than the 2025 one. USD 18,000 is twelve months at USD 1,500; the 2019 schedule states no annual figure in those terms, so that correspondence is arithmetical rather than textual. The page describes three consecutive years before a retiree may request permanent residence, which does not establish that it reproduces the full statutory test.

Whether the page was accurate in February 2024 is not established here.

The Act sets a ten-year term

The same page says the permit “can be valid for a period of 10 years”.

Section 10(6) of the Immigration Act, as replaced with effect from 1 December 2025, provides that the residence permit issued to a retired non-citizen “shall be valid for a period of 10 years as from the date of the issue of the permit”. On validity, the page matches the current Act.

The 2019 schedule referred to “the 3 years’ validity of the residence permit”. That wording does not appear in the corresponding provision of the 2025 consolidation.

Permanent residence under the replaced section 11

Section 11(1)(a)(i), also replaced with effect from 1 December 2025, makes eligible a non-citizen who “satisfies the criteria specified in Part IV of the First Schedule” to the Economic Development Board Act, the part that contains the retirement item described above. A permanent residence permit issued on that basis is valid for 20 years from its issue, under section 11(4).

A separate provision for existing permanent residents

Section 11(2) of the Immigration Act is a different route and a different test. It allows an investor, professional or self-employed holder of a permanent residence permit to be issued a permanent residence permit in the retired category, in replacement of the existing one and for the remainder of its validity, where he has “a disposable annual income of USD 40,000” or its equivalent in another hard convertible currency.

That is income, not transfers, and replacement of an existing permit, not initial qualification.

What this article does not establish

It does not say the agency’s page is wrong as a whole. Its ten-year validity statement matches the current Act. Its USD 1,500 monthly figure and three-year qualifying period correspond numerically to the 2019 schedule; its USD 18,000 annual figure is an arithmetical equivalent, not wording used in that schedule.

No express minimum age for the principal applicant under the retired non-citizen route was identified in the two Acts examined. The February 2024 page says “above 50 years old”; the regulatory or guideline basis for that condition was not examined.

The comparison identifies differences between dated statutory texts and a February 2024 page. It does not establish a complete set of requirements that would apply to an applicant today. The consolidation of the Economic Development Board Act read on 27 September 2026, which includes amendments made on 13 August 2026, shows the retirement criteria in Part III and Part IV item 4 as set out above.

This article does not assess eligibility under the property-purchase, Premium Visa or occupation-permit routes. No enforcement practice was examined, and no exchange rate is used.

Correction, 27 September 2026: This article incorrectly relied on superseded versions of sections 10 to 12 of the Immigration Act 2022. The Finance Act 2025 replaced those sections with effect from 1 December 2025, before this article was published. Contrary to the earlier text, section 10 expressly provides a ten-year retirement residence permit. The current law also requires applications through the National Electronic Licensing System, prohibits gainful employment by holders of retirement residence permits, refers permanent-residence eligibility to Part IV of the Economic Development Board Act’s First Schedule without the former 1 September 2020 cut-off, and sets a USD 40,000 annual disposable-income test for replacing an existing permanent residence permit with one in the retired category for its remaining validity. These passages have been corrected. The transfer thresholds and the figures in the headline are unchanged.