Comoros Citizenship by Investment

The statute fixes no figure, and that is by design rather than by omission.

Article 1 provides that the status of economic partner belongs to a foreign national who meets the conditions and applies to invest a sum whose minimum amount is set by the Finance Law of the budget year, specifically the budget year in which the candidate lodges the application.

The investment runs for a period to be determined on the basis of the economic investment programme of the Union of the Comoros.

Both the sum and the holding period are therefore variables set by another instrument year by year, so no single threshold holds true across the life of the programme; establishing the level for a given year requires reading that year own Finance Law.

Article 1 also imposes a condition on the applicant status: the applicant must be of full age.

As to proof, Article 2 lists the documents to accompany the application, among them evidence of deposit of the sum required for the intended investment, issued by a bank or financial institution licensed in the Union of the Comoros.

The money must therefore sit inside the Comorian financial system before the file is considered, rather than being a commitment on paper.

The same list requires a birth certificate, a medical certificate and a criminal record extract each less than three months old, a marriage certificate, the receipt for duties and fees issued by the public treasury, and the investment project file

The outcome is economic citizenship, but the statute strips three rights from it in advance, and that is what a reader needs first. Article 11 provides that a person who has acquired the status of economic citizen may not serve in the national army, may not serve in the judicial bodies of the Comoros, and may not be an elector.

The absence of the vote means this citizenship carries no political rights, and all three limits sit in the Act itself rather than in any implementing text.

Against that, the same Article 11 sets a floor on treatment: economic citizens are to receive advantages at least equal to those of any foreign investor under the investment code.

On the decision path, Article 4 provides that economic citizenship is granted by decree of the President issued in the Council of Ministers, on the conforming opinion of the Independent National Commission and after the Minister of Justice presents the file;

Article 5 adds an unusually tight further condition, that the Commission delivers its opinion only by unanimity of its members.

The Commission has seven members: two from the Ministry of Justice, two from the Ministry of Investment, the Director General of the National Investment Agency and two from the Union Assembly, all appointed by the President.

Article 8 sets out six grounds of exclusion, including a ground of not being fully integrated into the social and demographic fabric of the country of origin.

And Article 9 imposes a formal condition carrying the power to void: an act of economic citizenship is declared null if it does not bear the statement that it rests on the conforming opinion of the Commission

The Act sets no processing deadline, and saying so is more useful than leaving the cell blank: no provision obliges the Commission or the President to answer within any number of days.

The time limits the statute does impose fall into three other categories. The first is document validity: under Article 2 the birth certificate, medical certificate and criminal record extract must each have been issued within three months, so a file left sitting is a file whose documents must be obtained again.

The second is the holding period for the investment, which is not a figure but a method: Article 1 leaves the period to be set by the economic investment programme of the Union, and it therefore moves with the programme of the day.

The third is a closing of the past: Article 13 declares that any act purporting to grant economic citizenship before the entry into force of this law is null and of no effect.

That provision is worth noting because it shows economic citizenship was already being granted before 2008, and that the 2008 Act both built the framework and denied effect to whatever preceded it. Article 14 leaves the remainder to regulatory texts to specify as required

Article 6 establishes an unusual residence configuration made of two clauses pulling in opposite directions. The first is an exemption: economic citizenship is granted without any condition of habitual residence in the Comoros and without any probationary period.

The second is not an exemption but a positive requirement running the other way: it may be granted only to a foreign national who establishes habitual residence outside Comorian territory.

Taken together, the programme does not merely permit an applicant not to live in the Comoros, it requires that the applicant be living elsewhere, and a person already habitually resident in the Comoros falls outside it.

The design states what the programme is for: not to bring people to live there, but to confer a status on people who remain where they are. Set beside Article 11 the picture is fuller still — the holder does not reside, does not vote, may not serve in the army and may not serve in the judicial bodies.

On the accompanying procedure, Article 9 makes the licensed Comorian bank or financial institution itself the body that takes in applications on behalf of the Independent National Commission and gathers duties and fees on the public treasury's behalf.

So an applicant need not appear before a Comorian administrative office to lodge the file

The statute names exactly two categories of accompanying persons and then hands the whole content of their rights to another instrument. Article 7 provides that a decree of the President of the Republic shall determine the rights recognised for the spouse and minor children of the person who has become an economic citizen.

The Act therefore fixes the scope of who may be included — spouse and minor children — without stating what those rights are, and without saying whether dependants become citizens themselves or receive some lesser set of entitlements.

Beyond those two categories the Act nowhere mentions parents, grandparents or siblings. One procedural trace shows that marital status is a compulsory element of the file: Article 2 requires a marriage certificate among the documents accompanying the application.

As to the age of minority, the Act uses the notions of a person of full age in Article 1 and of minor children in Article 7 but does not itself define any age, so establishing that threshold requires the Comorian nationality code and cannot be read from this statute.

Two different states must be kept apart here to avoid overreaching: the decree that Article 7 calls for is not found in the Ministry of Justice text map, which lists 332 full-text URLs. That is not yet traced, not the text is silent — the rights of dependants may well be fully set out in a decree this portal does not publish

A person granted citizenship under this programme receives the Comoros passport, so the figure in this cell is the figure for that passport itself.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Comoros passport reaches 44 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 full text of the programme statute has now been read, and it contains no tax regime of its own. This is a conclusion drawn after reading all fifteen articles rather than after a search that returned nothing: no article grants an exemption, none sets a rate, and none addresses the tax residence of a beneficiary.

The closest the Act comes to tax is a floor on treatment rather than a benefit: Article 11 provides that the advantages granted to economic citizens may not be lower than those granted to any foreign investor under the investment code.

Read properly, that sentence promises no particular concession; it merely anchors the position of an economic citizen to another instrument, and establishing what that position contains requires the investment code rather than this law.

One residence fact makes the tax question distinctive here, and it sits in Article 6: citizenship is granted without any requirement to reside in the Comoros, and may be granted only to a person who establishes habitual residence outside Comorian territory.

The beneficiary is by design someone living elsewhere, so their tax residence is determined by the law of wherever they actually live rather than by this passport. Article 14 leaves detail to regulatory texts, so the possibility of tax provisions in an instrument not yet traced cannot be excluded

The Act fixes exactly one figure, and it is a fee rather than an investment. Article 10 provides that there shall be collected for the public treasury, on the occasion of each act of economic citizenship issued under this law, chancery duties of 1,000,000 Comorian francs.

The basis of charge matters: this is a fee per Act issued, not per application, so the number of acts arising from a file that includes accompanying family members determines the total — and that very point depends on the decree which, as noted in the dependants cell, cannot yet be traced.

On the route the money takes, Article 9 provides that the bank or financial institution licensed in the Union of the Comoros receives the application on behalf of the Independent National Commission and collects the duties and fees for the public treasury.

So funds enter the Comorian banking system rather than being paid directly to an administrative office.

The treasury receipt is a mandatory document in the file under Article 2, so an application cannot be lodged first and paid for afterwards.

The same Article 9 attaches a formal condition capable of voiding everything: any act of economic citizenship lacking the statement that it was issued on the conforming opinion of the Commission is null.

Beyond these, the Act names no other fee, and the minimum investment is set by the annual finance law rather than by this statute