Samoa’s investment citizenship law requires a three-year permit

Samoa has a fifteen-page citizenship by investment statute. The Citizenship Investment Act 2015 was assented to on 5 November 2015 and carries a commencement date of 31 January 2017. What it sets out is a sequence: an application to a committee, a three-year permanent resident permit, and a citizenship application within the three months before that permit expires. Whether applications are being accepted now was not established.

The figures, and what they are denominated in

Section 2(2) says that a reference to any amount in the Act is a reference to Samoan Tala, or its equivalent in a foreign currency. All monetary amounts quoted below are therefore Tala, and this article supplies no conversion: the Act states no exchange rate.

Section 6(1) sets two thresholds: ability and willingness to invest a minimum amount within three years of the application being granted, and a minimum net worth at the time of applying. Both are “determined amounts” the Minister may set. Where no amount has been determined for the relevant threshold, section 6(3) supplies minimums of 4 million Samoan Tala for the investment and 2.5 million Samoan Tala for the net worth. Whether higher amounts have since been determined was not established.

The investment minimum exceeds the net-worth minimum. This article does not reconcile them.

Section 23 makes them floors, not prices. The Minister may determine amounts by Order published in Savali, but not less than the figures in section 6(3). The investment amount under section 6(1)(b) may differ by type of investment.

Capital or assets must belong to the investor, alone or jointly with family members, and be legally earned and acquired; funds must be unencumbered.

What the money has to go into

The qualifying investments sit in a Schedule of eight areas: leasing and developing government lands; processing or manufacturing of agricultural produce; processing or manufacturing of fishery products; tourism; information or communication technology; electricity generation through bio-fuel, solar, water or wind; investment in a government development fund established by an enactment or prescribed by regulations, or in a prescribed charitable trust; and services other than those on the Reserved List of the Foreign Investment Act 2000.

The Act does not apply to customary land, or to any lease, licence or interest in it.

An investment must be held for at least five years. A sale inside that period requires reinvestment of at least the applicable minimum in another qualifying investment; where none has been determined, that minimum is 1 million Samoan Tala.

The order of the steps

An application goes to a Citizenship Investment Committee with an investment plan, birth records for family members, proof of net worth, audited financial statements for the three most recent financial years, police clearance for the investor and any family members in their countries of citizenship or permanent residence, and full medical reports. The Committee only considers it once fees are paid, a fixed deposit account has been opened and paid into, and a due diligence report is in hand.

A granted application produces a permanent resident permit for three years, not a passport. During that three-year period the investor may draw on the fixed deposit in line with the investment plan, but must keep at least 15% of the original sum in the account.

Then the conditions, and they are not distributed evenly. Within three months before the permit expires, the investor, including any family member, may apply for citizenship by permanent residence. The residence condition reaches the family: the investor, including a family member or members, must have resided in Samoa at least fifteen days a year across the three years, and the same extension applies to any other prescribed requirement. Compliance with the investment plan, to the Committee’s satisfaction, is required of the investor.

Section 17 routes that application through section 8 of the Citizenship Act 2004, into which this Act inserts a new subsection. Under it the Minister may grant citizenship to an investor who has continuously held a valid permanent resident permit for three years, has met the residence condition, is of good health and character, understands the responsibilities and privileges of Samoan citizenship, has paid the fee, and has complied with any other prescribed requirement. The Minister must take the Committee’s report into account.

A passport issued to an investor or family member is valid for five years, renewable for another five, as an exception to two sections of the Passports Act 2008.

Who may apply, and who may sell it

Section 4 works by subtraction: the default covers citizens of every country, and the Minister may exclude a country by Order published in Savali. An exclusion does not disturb an application approved before the Order takes effect. An investor must be at least 18. Whether any exclusion Order exists was not established.

Two provisions bear on the people who sell these routes. Promoting or marketing the scheme, in Samoa or in another country, without the Minister’s approval is an offence carrying up to 50 penalty units or up to two years’ imprisonment, or both. Acting as an agent without approval carries the same. Government agencies and the Samoa Tourism Authority sit outside the marketing provision.

The Committee must report annually, before 30 June, on the numbers of applications pending, refused, appealed and granted, on the identities of investors and family members granted permanent resident permits or citizenship, and on the amounts invested. The Minister must present that report to the Legislative Assembly.

The ministry’s own pages

The Act assigns responsibility to the Minister for Commerce, whose ministry website was checked on 21 September 2026 at four addresses. The address held in this publication’s source register resolves to the ministry’s home page, which carries nothing on the subject; a legislation page returns “Page not found”; and two document addresses return 404.

Those four addresses did not provide the expected pages. That says nothing about whether the programme is running.

A query for “citizenship” and a control query for “trade mark” both returned the home page, so the site search supplied no usable evidence either way.

What this article does not establish

Whether applications are being accepted now. This publication’s source register labels the programme suspended; that label is not evidence, and nothing read here confirms or contradicts it.

Whether any Order has excluded a country, whether any amount has been determined above the statutory floors, whether regulations have set a quota or fees, and whether any annual report has reached the Legislative Assembly — so also how many people have been granted anything.

What the Tala figures are worth in another currency, and whether the Act has been amended since 2015.