Saint Lucia Citizenship by Investment

Four investment routes: the National Economic Fund, Approved Real Estate Projects, Approved Enterprise Projects, and Non-Interest-Bearing Government Bonds under the name National Action Bond. Amounts are in US dollars:

The bond route is the only one priced as a package. The bonds bear no interest, must be registered in the applicant's name and held for five years from the date of first issue.

On the real estate route the project must be in the category of high-end branded hotels and resorts or high-end boutique properties, with the investor holding the title deed. The administration fees for this route are recorded in the cost cell of this page.

A note on sources: the same agency's question-and-answer page, read on 27 September 2026, still prints an older set of figures, with the fund at USD 100,000 for a single applicant and real estate at USD 200,000. The investment programme page carries the amounts in force.

The outcome is Saint Lucian citizenship under the Citizenship by Investment Act No. 14 of 2015 and the Citizenship by Investment Saint Lucia Regulations No. 89 of 2015 with their respective amendments, acquired on a successful application, on payment of the qualifying investment and on signing the Oath of Allegiance.

One point is often misread: being granted citizenship does not mean being issued a passport. On notification of the grant, the programme issues only a certificate of registration; the Authorised Agent, or another person authorised by the new citizen, must then apply separately to the Immigration Department for a Saint Lucian passport.

The oath must be signed before an attorney-at-law, a Consular Officer of Saint Lucia, an Honorary Consul of Saint Lucia, or a Notary Royal or Notary Public.

On filing, an applicant must go through a licensed Authorised Agent — direct submission is not possible — and only that Agent may check the status of an application, the programme sharing that information with nobody else.

All supporting documents must be submitted in English; where the original is in another language, both the original and an authenticated English translation must be provided.

Due diligence is carried out by law enforcement and third-party due diligence firms on every applicant aged sixteen and over, and the programme operates a pre-processing law enforcement due diligence module allowing that vetting to begin before a full application is submitted

The figure is approximately ninety days, but neither end of that period sits where a reader tends to assume.

The clock does not start on filing: it starts on the date the Authorised Agent is notified that the application has been accepted for processing, so the whole stretch between filing and acceptance falls outside the ninety days and the authority promises nothing about it.

The clock does not stop at a passport in hand: the ninety days run to the grant of citizenship, and what the authority issues at that point is a certificate of registration.

The passport is a separate stage afterwards, applied for at the Immigration Department by the Authorised Agent or another person authorised by the new citizen, and the citizenship authority gives no deadline for it.

The word approximately carries weight too: where extenuating circumstances delay an application, the authority informs the Authorised Agent directly rather than the applicant, so the person who filed hears it through their agent.

The Act imposes no residence condition at all.

The Act does not mention ordinary residence in its legal sense, absence or visiting.

It mentions residence only in the requirement for a police certificate from the applicant's country of residence and in a provision about fees, and neither creates an obligation.

Citizenship here is therefore not tied to presence on the territory. What does bind sits in three other places.

First, the oath: a person granted citizenship shall take the oath or affirmation of allegiance to Saint Lucia as prescribed by the Minister, and the Regulations themselves fix the time within which that oath must be taken.

The oath is signed before a Notary Royal or Notary Public, an attorney-at-law, an Honorary Consul or a Consular Officer of Saint Lucia.

Second, two deadlines after approval: the Board notifies the applicant within 30 days of the decision, the applicant must pay any other fees within 60 days, and must commence all qualifying investments within the period specified in the Regulations.

Third, the power of revocation. The Minister may by Order revoke a grant of citizenship for false representation, fraud or wilful concealment of material facts, for conviction of an offence, or for any act which in the Minister's opinion has the potential to bring Saint Lucia into disrepute.

A person whose citizenship is revoked is not entitled to repayment of any investment or contribution made, though there is a right of appeal to the High Court within thirty working days.

One attached right is worth recording because it bears on holding property: a person granted citizenship enjoys all the rights of a citizen and is exempt from the requirements of the Alien (Licensing) Act.

Spouse; a child of the applicant or of the applicant's spouse aged twenty-one or below. A child no older than thirty who is fully supported by the applicant; a child of any age who is physically or mentally challenged and fully supported.

A parent above fifty-five who is fully supported; a parent of any age who is physically or mentally challenged and fully supported. An unmarried sibling below eighteen with the consent of a parent or guardian.

A child who falls outside these groups must apply separately as a principal applicant, if aged 18 or over. Every dependant over 16 goes through due diligence like the applicant.

After the applicant has succeeded, the Board may grant citizenship to a dependant in three situations: someone who was already a dependant when the application was made, if they apply within five years; a child born after the application; and a spouse married after the application.

According to the programme page, each addition is a payment into the National Economic Fund: USD 5,000 for a citizen's child aged 12 months or below, USD 35,000 for a spouse, and USD 25,000 for each other dependant.

A person granted citizenship under this programme receives the Saint Lucia 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 Saint Lucia passport reaches 136 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.

Six instruments of the issuing authority itself — the principal Act, the most recent amending Act, the principal Regulations, the most recent amending Regulations, the frequently asked questions page and the benefits page — make no mention of tax.

The programme has no tax regime of its own, and that silence runs across the entire current legal framework rather than a single document.

The only exemption in the whole Act sits at section 36(6), and it is not a tax exemption.

A person granted citizenship by investment shall enjoy all the rights of a citizen and also be subject to the laws of Saint Lucia, including exemption from the requirements of the alien (licensing) Act.

That is, exemption from the alien landholding licence, a permitting mechanism for buying, leasing, subdividing or continuing to hold land.

It is an exemption from a procedure, not from a tax.

One thing circulating in the market must be addressed, because it bears directly on a reader: commercial summaries assert that Saint Lucia citizens are exempt from tax on worldwide income, capital gains, gifts, wealth and inheritance, and that real estate investors under the programme are exempt from stamp duty.

Not one of those statements appears in the six original instruments.

This cell does not repeat them. The principal Regulations in fact run the other way on one point: where a real estate investment is made through a legal entity, that entity must be incorporated under the laws of Saint Lucia and must not be an exempt or offshore entity.

The current framework: the principal statute is the Citizenship by Investment Act No. 14 of 2015, passed by the House on 28 July 2015 and by the Senate on 4 August 2015.

And one change of substance has just been inserted, which belongs before any decision. The Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Act No. 22 of 2025, assented to by the Governor-General on 3 November 2025 and in force from 10 November 2025, inserts section 30A headed residency and genuine link requirements.

Under it the applicant and each qualifying dependant must comply with the prescribed requirements as to residency and genuine link, and subsection (2) provides that those requirements take effect from 1 January 2026.

The same Act inserts section 36A barring a citizen from changing their name for five years from the date of the certificate of registration, save on grounds of marriage, divorce, adoption, a witness protection or anti-trafficking programme, and spelling or transliteration errors.

Adds section 36(7) empowering the Board to approve a prescribed number of applications annually, a quota mechanism.

The amendment widens the grounds of refusal to include prior refusal by a member state of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, and refusal of a visa by a country with which Saint Lucia has visa-free travel where no visa has since been obtained.

It also defines the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Saint Lucia established under section 3 of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Act No. 5 of 2025.

The most recent amending Regulations were gazetted on 23 March 2026. Read this cell within its scope: the six sources belong to the issuing authority and cover the whole current framework of the programme; they address eligibility, procedure, investment options and governance, and say nothing about tax.

Saint Lucia tax regime sits in the Income Tax Act and falls to the Inland Revenue Department, a different authority, and that source was not opened in this round — so this cell does not state how a new citizen is taxed, only that the programme framework creates no tax regime

At filing, the only fees due are the processing and due diligence fees, both non-refundable. The processing fee is charged for each qualifying dependant, and due diligence is carried out only on those over 16. Amounts are in US dollars:

The same agency's question-and-answer page still prints a due diligence fee of USD 7,500 for the main applicant, which is the older rate.

Since 4 September 2023, every application received for processing also goes through an applicant interview and identity verification. The fee for that step is payable by the main applicant only.

The real estate route and the USD 250,000 enterprise level add a layer of administration fees. On the real estate route they are payable on the grant of citizenship and non-refundable. On the enterprise level they are charged by headcount, from the amount for an applicant alone to the amount for an applicant with three dependants, plus a charge for each additional person. Amounts are in US dollars:

Documents not in English must be filed in the original, or a certified true copy, together with an authenticated English translation.