Grenada Citizenship by Investment

The fund-route threshold is USD 235,000, and this figure replaces the 150,000 the earlier entry carried — a gap of 85,000, more than half again, so anyone who read the previous version must read this one.

The authority prints its schedule as two tables for two investment routes, and both count by heads rather than by file.

The first route is a contribution to the National Transformation Fund. The required contribution, in US dollars:

The second route is investment in an approved project, and it carries two levels rather than one: USD 350,000 or 270,000, together with an item the authority names outright as a government fee of USD 50,000 that the fund route does not carry — so comparing the two routes on the investment figure alone compares the wrong things.

That government fee is likewise waived for siblings, parents and grandparents aged 55 and under. The personal requirements attach in three limbs and the third is about money itself: the main applicant must be at least eighteen, be in good health, and have enough funds to make the required investment — with the source of those funds legal.

The outcome is not one thing but two, and the legislation says so: the programme allows individuals and their families to obtain citizenship or permanent residence.

The objective is stated in Act No. 15 of 2013 itself, verbatim, as being to enable persons to acquire permanent residence and citizenship of Grenada by registration following investment in Grenada.

That Act was passed by the Grenadian Parliament in August 2013 and has been amended repeatedly since.

The authority lists the whole chain, including the Amendment (No. 2) Act 2014 (Act No. 24 of 2014), the Amendment (No. 2) Act 2017 (Act No. 18 of 2017), Acts No. 3 and No. 15 of 2019, and regulations running from SRO No. 16 and 17 of 2013 to SRO No. 41 of 2020.

Citing the 2013 text alone, without the chain of amendments, cites a document that has since changed.

The legal basis of the two routes also sits in two different places:

The National Transformation Fund was established under section 43(1)(a) of the Public Finance Management Act Cap 262B; while an approved project is defined in Section 3 of the 2013 Act as one approved by the Minister following review and recommendation by the Citizenship by Investment Committee.

Final approval rests with the minister of citizenship rather than with the Committee: the Committee issues a recommendation, the Minister decides, and the resulting letter states whether the application was successful, delayed for further processing, or rejected.

Success is not the end: the Committee then instructs the applicant to make the contribution or complete the real-estate purchase, and only upon receiving proof of payment does it issue the certificate of registration — the passport being a separate step afterwards, applied for by the local agent on the applicant's behalf.

The authority publishes no processing time, and this entry deliberately drops the old figure rather than keeping it: the previous version said three to four months, taken from the Committee's website on its former domain, and that domain is now dead.

A figure that can no longer be traced back does not belong in this table, even if it may still be correct.

On the authority's current page months are mentioned only in a sentence that is not about processing time.

It sits in the exclusion criteria, stating that an application is refused where the applicant has at any time been convicted in any country of an offence for which the maximum custodial penalty for the same or similar offence in Grenada exceeds six months imprisonment, unless a free pardon was received.

Anyone looking for a number of months to use as a processing time would pick up that sentence and write the cell backwards.

What the authority does publish is a five-step process, and that process shows why a duration is hard to fix: step one is choosing an authorised international marketing agent, because applications may not be submitted directly to the Committee and applicants may not contact Authorised Local Agents directly.

Step two is preparing the file, including a medical examination and legalisation of documents, all of which must be in English, with real estate reserved through a sale and purchase agreement.

Steps three and four are due diligence and recommendation; step five is payment before the certificate issues. Each step depends on a different party, so the total time is not in the authority's hands.

The qualifying provision contains no presence requirement at all, and that is a reading of the text rather than an inference from the route's reputation.

Section 5(1) of the Citizenship by Investment Act 2013 states exactly two conditions for a person to apply as main applicant, whether for citizenship or for Permanent Residence: being at least eighteen years of age, and meeting the application requirements.

Subsection (2) then lists everything that must accompany the application: a certificate in the prescribed form from a medical practitioner that the main applicant and their dependants are not suffering from any communicable disease and are otherwise in good health, together with a police certificate.

Nothing there concerns days spent in Grenada, any obligation to enter, or any period of residence before or after the grant.

The Act refers to residence only as the name of a status — Permanent Residence by investment — never as a duty.

Physical presence is mentioned only in the definition of a physically or mentally challenged child, nothing to do with being on the territory.

The only person the Act requires to be resident in Grenada is the local agent: the definition demands an agent be a national of a member state under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and be ordinarily resident in Grenada. The presence obligation sits on the service provider, not on the buyer.

The definition sits in the statute that created the programme, and it is materially wider than what the agency's brochure page used to say: the Grenada Citizenship by Investment Act 2013, Act No. 15 of 2013, defines dependant in five limbs, four of which carry quantified conditions.

Limb (a) is a spouse of the main applicant, the only limb with no condition attached. Limb (b) is a child of the main applicant or of that person's spouse who is under eighteen.

Limb (c) is a child at least eighteen and under twenty-six who must satisfy two conditions at once: in full time attendance at a recognised institution of higher learning, and fully supported by the main applicant.

Limb (d) is a child of at least eighteen who is physically or mentally challenged and who must be living with and fully supported by the main applicant — this limb carries no upper age.

Limb (e) is parents or grandparents of the main applicant or of the spouse, above the age of sixty-five, living with and fully supported.

Grandparents appearing in the definition at all is unusual; not every Caribbean programme reaches them. The Act also defines “child” separately: a biological or legally adopted child of the main applicant or of the main applicant's spouse.

One structural point rides alongside: the Act defines the main applicant as the person who signs the relevant agreements and undertakings on behalf of his or her dependants, so a dependant is not a party filing in their own name.

A person granted citizenship under this programme receives the Grenada 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 Grenada passport reaches 153 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 two programme instruments are absolutely silent on tax: the Grenada Citizenship by Investment Act 2013 does not mention tax, taxation, revenue or fiscal matters.

The programme has no tax regime in its founding statute.

The Act is Grenada Act no. 15 of 2013, assented to by the Governor-General on 29 August 2013, with the stated purpose quoted in the outcome cell of this page.

It runs to sixteen sections, of which section 10 covers National Transformation Fund investments and section 11 approved project investments, the only two investment routes.

One duty at section 8(7) is worth knowing: a person granted a Permanent Resident Certificate must present themselves in person at a Grenadian consulate or embassy within six months; failure to do so may cost both the permanent resident by investment status and the entire contribution or investment made.

In the accompanying Regulations, made under section 16 of the Act and gazetted on 13 September 2013, the only reference to tax is a single line, and it must be read correctly: the line Income Tax clearance sits in the notes accompanying the application form for a local agent licence.

That is, a clearance for the Grenadian local agent, not for the investor.

Reading that line as an applicant tax duty invents an obligation that does not exist. The agency running the programme likewise says exactly one thing about tax on its official enquiries page, and it sits under economic prospects: there are no taxes on the repatriation of profit.

It says nothing about the personal income tax position of a new citizen. The most valuable part of this record sits in the tax statute.

The Income Tax Act, Chapter 149, originally Act No. 36 of 1994 and amended through thirteen instruments up to Act No. 2 of 2010, taxes on a territorial basis, and that holds for residents too:

Section 8 defines the assessable income of a resident as everything accruing directly or indirectly from all sources in Grenada, and of a non-resident likewise as everything from all sources in Grenada.

Even a resident is therefore not taxed on income sourced outside Grenada.

The definition of resident in Grenada for an individual has three limbs.

The first is a permanent place of abode in Grenada and actual presence for some period of the income year, unless the Comptroller accepts that a full year absence was for study, medical treatment, public service or other reasonable cause.

The second is actual presence for not less than one hundred and eighty-three days in the income year. The third is presence for a period contiguous with presence in the preceding or following year sufficient to satisfy the second limb for that year.

And here is the point that settles the record: the Income Tax Act does not mention citizenship in any provision.

Grenadian citizenship is not a source of income tax liability; the only source is residence as defined, and even then the charge extends only to Grenadian-source income.

Section 7(5) adds a further rule: income accruing to a non-resident from a source other than a business is not included in assessable income but bears withholding tax under section 50.

Read this cell within its scope: the programme Act and Regulations cover eligibility, procedure, agents, due diligence and the two investment routes, and say nothing whatever about tax.

The Income Tax Act covers the basis and scope of the income tax charge, never mentions this programme, never mentions citizenship, and contains no exemption for persons naturalised by investment.

One note on sourcing: the Grenadian revenue authority no longer has a machine-readable website — its domain redirects wholly to a social media page — so the Income Tax Act had to be taken from the national legislation portal

The Act prints no monetary figure at all, but it fixes the structure of collection, and that structure is what determines the applicant's risk.

Section 5(2) requires an application to be accompanied by ten per cent of the processing fees plus the full amount of the due diligence fees, at the rates specified in the Regulations.

Those two proportions differ, and the difference is deliberate: only a tenth of the processing fee falls due up front, while the due diligence fee must be paid in full at the outset.

Subsection (3) explains why: the due diligence fees shall not be refunded where an application is not granted. The one charge the applicant must pay in full before knowing the outcome is therefore the same charge that is irrecoverable if the outcome is adverse.

Two further mandatory costs sit outside the state's schedule. First, subsection (4): applications may only be submitted to the Committee by a local agent, so agent remuneration is an unavoidable cost rather than an option.

Second, subsection (5): the application form must be completed in English and every document filed with it must be in English, failing which an authenticated translation is required — a cost that scales with the volume of paperwork and the number of dependants.

On the agent's side, section 4 lets the Minister revoke a licence where the fee specified in the Regulations remains unpaid for fourteen days after falling due.