Cayman Islands Investor Visa

The Act says only that the applicant must invest the prescribed sum in developed real estate in the Islands, so the figure must be found in subsidiary legislation.

The Immigration Regulations (2025 Revision) place it at Regulation 14B(1): an applicant for a Certificate of Permanent Residence for Persons of Independent Means must satisfy the Director of WORC that they have invested two million dollars in developed real estate in the Cayman Islands.

Paragraph 2 of the same Regulation sets the quota at two hundred and fifty Certificates per annum. And this must be said: the Regulations prescribe only those two things.

The Act second condition, the one about being able to support oneself and ones dependants, has no figure anywhere in subsidiary legislation: the Regulations set no amount for it.

The self-support condition on this route is therefore an open one, assessed by the Director of WORC, rather than a threshold an applicant can measure themselves against in advance. To show what two million means in context, the Regulations supply two comparators alongside it.

A Certificate of Direct Investment requires at least one million dollars in an employment generating business. A Certificate of Residence for Persons of Independent Means, the non-permanent route, requires one of three.

The first is annual income of seventy-five thousand dollars without the need to engage in employment. The second is a minimum deposit of four hundred thousand dollars in assets at a Class A licensed institution regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority.

The third is an investment of at least five hundred thousand dollars, of which at least two hundred and fifty thousand must be in developed real estate in Cayman Brac or Little Cayman.

What is received is the right to reside permanently in the Islands, and the way to read it correctly is to set it beside the two other certificates the Regulations themselves price — because the three differ on two axes at once, duration and the right to work.

This route is the permanent axis: the certificate carries no expiry date.

But it does not come with the right to work, and that right cannot be bought once: to take up employment the certificate must be varied, and once varied an annual fee becomes payable equal to the work permit fee for the same occupation — the conditions and the amounts are recorded in the other costs cell of this table.

The first comparator is a Certificate of Residence for Persons of Independent Means: the same idea of a person who can support themselves, but not permanent, at a much lower threshold, and carrying a presence obligation the permanent route does not have.

The second is a Certificate of Direct Investment: a one million dollar threshold, but the money must go into an employment generating business, so the state is exchanging residence for jobs rather than for a real estate transaction.

And one limit on what is received that few pitches mention: the number of Certificates granted under this section is subject to a quota set by Cabinet, that quota must be published in the Gazette, and the current figure is two hundred and fifty per annum.

So meeting every condition and holding the money still may not secure a place in a given year.

The certificate itself carries no term: section 42(1) of the Immigration (Transition) Act (2022 Revision) allows a person of independent means to apply for the right to reside permanently in the Islands. What carries a clock are the people who come with them.

Section 44(1) provides that a dependent child right to reside as a dependant ceases on reaching eighteen, unless the parent certificate has been varied to reflect that the child is engaged in full-time tertiary education, or the Director of WORC is satisfied that special circumstances exist.

A dependent child who was listed in the original application, has attained eighteen and is of proven good character and conduct may apply for permanent residence in their own right under section 37. Sections 43(3) and 43(4) set a different clock for a spouse.

If the certificate holder dies, or the marriage or civil partnership is dissolved, the Director of WORC may at discretion revoke the right to reside of the surviving or former spouse.

But that person then has three months from any revocation to apply in their own name for a Residency Certificate or for a permanent certificate of the kind this page covers.

And where the application is made within those three months, the right to reside continues on the same terms and conditions as the revoked certificate until the Director of WORC determines the application.

On numbers, section 42(4) requires the Cabinet to establish a quota restricting how many certificates may be granted under the section, and that quota must be gazetted; the Immigration Regulations (2025 Revision) set it at two hundred and fifty per annum

The certificate is granted without the right to work — section 42(2) writes "without the right to work" into the granting sentence itself. To work, the holder must apply to vary the certificate under subsection (3).

The holder, or that person spouse or civil partner if they hold a Certificate of Permanent Residence for Dependants, may apply to the Caymanian Status and Permanent Residency Board or to the Director of WORC for a variation allowing work for any employer.

But only in the particular occupation or occupations specified by the Board or the Director.

The four conditions of grant are that the applicant has invested the prescribed sum in developed real estate in the Islands. That the applicant and their spouse or civil partner have a clean criminal record.

That the applicant, spouse or civil partner and dependent children are in good health and hold adequate health insurance coverage; and that the applicant has the prescribed financial resources to adequately maintain themselves and their dependants.

On loss, section 45 allows the Director of WORC to revoke the right to reside where the holder fails to maintain the prescribed level of investment in developed real estate, or where in the Director opinion any of the matters in section 51(1)(a) to (j) applies to the holder or their dependants.

By contrast, the non-permanent Residency Certificate under section 46 carries one further ground of revocation that the permanent route does not: that the holder was not physically present in the Islands for a minimum of thirty days in aggregate in any calendar year

The spouse or civil partner and those dependants listed on the application and approved by the Director are granted a Certificate of Permanent Residence for Dependants, allowing residence without the right to work, which may likewise be varied to allow work.

On the death of the certificate holder, or on the dissolution of the marriage or civil partnership, the surviving or former spouse may have their right to reside revoked at the discretion of the Director.

That person then has three months from the revocation to apply for a certificate in their own name, and while that application is pending the right to reside continues on the same terms

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Cayman Islands passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Cayman Islands passport.

The ranking table of Prosperous Intelligence lists Cayman Islands as a territory that inherits the United Kingdom passport, so the figure below is the figure for the British passport this territory shares.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Cayman Islands passport reaches 201 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The programme carries no tax regime of its own: the Immigration (Transition) Act (2022 Revision), the statute under which this certificate is granted at section 42, does not mention tax.

The Act deals only with grant, variation and revocation. Section 42(1) permits a person of independent means who satisfies the conditions to apply in the prescribed manner to the Director of WORC for the grant of the right to reside permanently in the Islands.

Section 42(2) grants the certificate without the right to work where four things are shown, the first being investment of the prescribed sum in developed real estate in the Cayman Islands.

That the applicant and their spouse or civil partner are of clean criminal record. That they are in good health and hold adequate health insurance; and that they have the required prescribed financial resources to maintain themselves and their dependants.

Section 42(3) allows an application to vary the certificate so as to carry the right to work, but only in an occupation designated by the Board or the Director of WORC.

Section 42(4) imposes a limit rarely mentioned: the Cabinet shall establish a quota restricting the number of certificates granted under the section, and that quota shall be gazetted.

Section 45 gives the Director of WORC power to revoke. On the tax side the proof must be kept within its scope, and this cell keeps it.

The alphabetical index of the Cayman legislation portal lists the statutes in force whose titles contain the word tax:

The Tax Collection Act (1998 Revision), the Tax Concessions Act (2018 Revision), the Tax Information Authority Act (2021 Revision) and the International Tax Co-operation (Economic Substance) Act (2026 Revision).

The list continues with the Land Holding Companies Share Transfer Tax Act (2022 Revision), the Tourist Accommodation (Taxation) Act (2013 Revision), the Travel (Departure Tax and Environmental Protection Fee) Act (2026 Revision) and the Marine Industry (Import Duty and Tonnage Tax) (Drawback) Act (1999 Revision).

That list contains no statute called an Income Tax Act.

That proposition must be read for what it is: a statement about the list of titles of statutes in force, not a statement about the whole of Cayman revenue system.

The same index also lists the Stamp Duty Act (2019 Revision) and the Stamp Duty (Rates of Duty) (No. 2) Regulations 2025, whose contents have not been verified, so this cell carries no rate of any kind.

Running the other way there is a real obligation worth stating.

The Department for International Tax Cooperation, within the Ministry of Financial Services and Commerce, is responsible for administering all of the Cayman Islands legal frameworks for international cooperation in tax matters and for carrying out the functions of the Tax Information Authority.

It operates the Common Reporting Standard — the global standard for the automatic exchange of financial account information for tax purposes — together with FATCA, Country-by-Country Reporting, the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework and Exchange of Information on Request.

Read this cell within its scope: the Act does not state the prescribed sum, which sits in regulations whose full text has not been verified; and the source on information exchange concerns international cooperation, not the tax liability of an individual in Cayman

The fee schedule for this permanent certificate, in Cayman Islands dollars (CI$):

The issue fee is two hundred times the application fee, and entirely separate from the CI$2 million investment in developed real estate. The last five lines of the table are incidental charges, priced in advance too.

The clause few people read sits in the notes to the fee schedule: where the certificate is varied to allow the right to work, an annual fee is payable equivalent to that payable by a work permit holder in the same occupation — so the right to work here is a recurring charge rather than a right attached to the document.

Where more than one occupation is authorised the fee is that of whichever occupation attracts the higher fee; where the certificate is varied to a higher-fee occupation, the difference is payable until the following anniversary date and the new occupation fee thereafter.

For scale, the Residency Certificate for Persons of Independent Means, the non-permanent route, carries an issue fee of CI$20,000 and a dependant fee of CI$1,000 per year