Samoa Citizenship by Investment

The Act does not fix a figure but delegates the fixing, then sets a fallback figure that applies until some other amount is determined — a drafting device worth noting, because it lets the route operate even where the authority has determined nothing.

Article 6(1) requires two different kinds of money, not one. First, point (b): the investor must show ability and willingness to invest a minimum amount in a qualifying investment within three years from the date the application is granted — the obligation to deploy funds therefore falls after approval, not before.

Second, point (c): the investor must have, at the time of the application, a minimum net worth. Subsection (3) sets the two fallbacks: for (1)(b) four million, and for (1)(c) two and a half million — both applying only until an amount is determined under section 23.

Subsection (2) imposes four conditions on the quality of that money, and this is the part most easily skipped: the assets must be owned by the investor or jointly with family members; must be earned and acquired legally; funds specifically must be unencumbered; and everything must meet any other prescribed requirement.

Two further money markers sit elsewhere.

Section 10(2) provides that formal approval must not issue unless at least 70 per cent of the investment sum, or a prescribed percentage of not less than 50 per cent, is deposited in a fixed deposit account with a bank or financial institution in Samoa.

Section 16(2) requires at least 15 per cent of that original deposit to be maintained throughout the three years of permanent residence.

This is not a route that grants citizenship directly, and that has to be said before anything else: the Act builds a compulsory two-stage path. Stage one, section 16: when an application is granted, the investor and any family member are entitled to a three-year permanent resident permit under the Immigration Act 2004 — not citizenship.

That permit carries a money condition: the investor may withdraw from the fixed deposit account for use in accordance with the investment plan, but must maintain at least 15% of the original sum deposited in that account, and the Committee may keep reviewing and monitoring progress throughout the three years.

Stage two, section 17: only within the three months before the permit expires may the investor and family apply for citizenship by permanent residence under section 8 of the Citizenship Act 2004.

Citizenship, once granted, carries four conditions in section 18, and the first is a notable exception running the wrong way: a passport issued to the investor or any family member is valid for five years, renewable for another five, and the Act says expressly that this is an exception to sections 6 and 7 of the Passports Act 2008.

That is, this group's passport is shorter-lived than an ordinary one.

The other three: the investor may then invest in activities on the Reserved and Restricted Lists of the Foreign Investment Act 2000.

Any investment must be retained for at least five years; and if sold within that period a minimum determined amount must go into another qualifying investment, which the Act fixes at one million where no amount has been determined.

Section 19 lists seven grounds for cancelling the permit or the citizenship, reaching family members too.

They include conviction in Samoa or any other country for an offence carrying a fine of at least 500 penalty units or at least five years of imprisonment, becoming a national security risk to Samoa or to any other country, and involvement in activity that causes or is likely to cause disrepute to Samoa.

The Act sets a deadline in one direction only, and that direction is refusal. Section 10(3): if an application is refused, the Committee must give reasons and send the decision and the reasons to the investor or agent within fifteen working days of the refusal.

No provision requires the Committee to decide within any period, and none sets a deadline for an approval — so the only date an applicant can rely on is a date for being told about a decision already made, not a date for a decision to exist.

Against that, section 11 addresses the waiting period with an interim document: as soon as the application is lodged, the investor and any family member may be issued temporary resident permits for business purpose under the Immigration Act 2004.

So there is no need to wait outside the country while the file runs, although this is a discretion rather than a duty.

The longest interval in the whole route belongs to the applicant rather than the authority: section 6(1)(b) allows three years from the date the application is granted to complete the investment, and section 7(1) allows exactly three years from the date of application on the branch developing a lease of government land.

Those three years, plus the three years of permanent residence before a citizenship application may be made, are the route's real timeframe.

There is a figure, and it is unusually low but not optional: section 17(1)(a) requires the investor — and each accompanying family member, the Act spelling out that it includes a family member or members — to have resided in Samoa for at least fifteen days a year throughout the three years of the permanent resident permit.

Fifteen days a year is a low bar against most routes, but it is a gateway condition: fail it and the stage-two citizenship application cannot be made at all, because section 17 sets it alongside the other two conditions.

Compliance with the investment plan to the Committee's satisfaction, and compliance with any other prescribed requirement.

And the threshold is nailed down twice: section 25 amends the Citizenship Act 2004 so that the naturalisation provision of that Act itself demands both limbs in parallel.

Having held a permanent resident permit in Samoa for three years from the date it was granted, and having resided as required under section 17(1)(a) of the Citizenship Investment Act 2015.

The fifteen-day condition therefore does not sit only in the programme statute but is transplanted into the citizenship statute as well, so it cannot be sidestepped by applying through another door.

Should the permit expire before citizenship is granted, section 17(3) allows an extension under the Immigration Act 2004.

The Act never uses the word dependant; it uses family member, and that class is narrow. A family member means the spouse of the investor, or an unmarried child under 18 years of the investor or spouse; child includes an unmarried step-child and an unmarried legally adopted child under 18 years of the investor or spouse.

Spouse is defined as the wife or husband of an investor recognised under the laws of Samoa, so an unmarried partner cannot enter.

There is no parent, no grandparent and no sibling in any class, and the Act imposes no financial dependency test and makes no exception for a child in full-time education.

Three obligations travel with the status: a family member must undergo background vetting, medical examination and a criminal record check.

A temporary residence permit is granted once the application is filed; and the family member must reside in Samoa for at least 15 days a year across the three years of the permanent resident permit alongside the investor in order to qualify for citizenship.

Conduct by a family member, including conviction, being assessed a security risk, or making a false declaration, is a ground for revoking the permit or the citizenship of the whole application.

The Act states no additional financial threshold per family member: the application fee and the due diligence fee are both left to subordinate legislation.

A person granted citizenship under this programme receives the Samoa 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 Samoa passport reaches 139 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 Citizenship Investment Act 2015 does not use the words tax, taxation, exempt, duty or levy.

The Act mentions revenue only in section 12, where the head of the Ministry responsible for Revenue is given a seat on the Citizenship Investment Committee, meaning the revenue authority takes part in assessing applications without being given any taxing function over the investor.

Section 17(1)(a) makes naturalisation conditional on having resided in Samoa for at least 15 days a year during the three-year permanent resident permit.

The second tier is a join made here, as the two statutes do not cross-refer.

Section 6 of the Income Tax Act 2012 establishes tax residence by a home in Samoa, by presence amounting in aggregate to 183 days in any 12-month period, or by status as a Samoan public servant serving abroad.

Section 14(4) provides that a resident is taxed on amounts derived from all sources in and outside Samoa, while a non-resident is taxed only on Samoan sources.

Citizenship itself forms no part of the test.

The Act names five separate fees but prints no figure for any of them, and what repays reading is that it states exactly who sets the amounts and by what route.

The five: an application fee and a due diligence fee, payable with the application under section 8(1); an appeal fee to the Appeal Panel under section 15(2); a fee to apply for approval to promote or market the scheme under section 20(3); and a fee to apply to act as an agent under section 21(4).

On amounts, section 24(1)(a) leaves regulations to the Head of State acting on the advice of Cabinet, but adds an uncommon layer of control: prescribing fees is subject to the approval of the National Revenue Board established under the Public Finance Management Act 2001.

Two hard rules ride alongside, both cutting against the applicant. First, section 24(2): any prescribed fee payable under this Act is non-refundable, with no exception stated.

Second, section 8(3)(a): the Committee must only consider an application once the application and due diligence fees have been paid in full — money therefore precedes the file even being opened, and a refusal does not bring it back.