DOMINICA
Investor Program
Advantages
• Citizenship and a second passport for life for the applicant and dependent family members • Travel visa-free to more than 115 countries
• Visa Free access to Schengen Area countries granted in May 2015
• Enjoy tax free status
• No requirement to reside in Dominica
• No management or educational requirements
• No country restrictions (Open to all applicants)
Requirements
• Applicants can make a non-refundable donation to the government fund or invest
in a government approved real-estate project
• Be over 18 years old
• Have no criminal record
• Provide all the documents are required in English
• Provide a letter of application for economic citizenship addressed to the Minister
responsible for Citizenship
• Have basic knowledge of the English language
• Make a deposit in a bank account at the National Commercial Bank of Dominica
• Must use a government authorised agent
Investment Options
1. The Government Fund option (non-refundable) Minimum to be invested:
• USD 100,000 for a single applicant
• USD 175,000 for applicant accompanied by a spouse
• USD 175,000 for applicant accompanied by up to two children under 18 years old
• USD 200,000 for applicant accompanied by a spouse and two children under 18
years old
• Add USD 50,000 for each additional dependent of the main applicant other than
a spouse 2. The Real Estate option (saleable after 3 years) Purchase authorised
real estate with a minimum value of USD 200,000, which must be held for at least
three years. In addition to the cost of the real-estate the following additional
government fees apply:
• Main applicant: USD 50,000
• Spouse: USD 25,000
• Dependent under 18: USD 20,000
• Dependant aged 18-25: USD 50,000
Process (3-4 months)
• Prepare all the documents required and submit them via an authorised agent, and
pay due diligence fees
• After approval, every applicant must sign an oath of allegiance in front of a Notary
Public, Justice of Peace or Commissioner of Oaths
• Obtain the passport after the citizenship confirmation
The Bahamas : A Million Dollars, Held for Ten Years
- CARIBBEAN · ECONOMIC PERMANENT RESIDENCE -
Nassau raised its floor to US$1 million in January 2025 and narrowed the qualifying menu to two assets. Eighteen months on, demand at the top end has scarcely blinked.
The context
The Bahamas has been admitting wealthy residents against property purchases since the 1950s, which makes its Economic Permanent Residence one of the oldest continuously operating investment-residency channels in the hemisphere. The Immigration (Amendment) (No. 2) Act, 2024 — in force from 1 January 2025 — rewrote section 17A of the Immigration Act with a clarity the old regime lacked: the minimum qualifying investment rose from BSD 750,000 to BSD 1 million, the eligible menu narrowed to exactly two assets, the ten-year hold became statutory, deeds of gift were excluded, and documentary proof — a real property tax assessment number for real estate, Central Bank confirmation for bonds — became a filing requirement rather than an afterthought.
The reform reads as consolidation, not retreat. Nassau is repricing an asset whose underlying qualities — a US-dollar-pegged currency, English common law, 250-plus licensed banks and trust companies, and Miami under three hours away — have appreciated faster than the old threshold.
Programme mechanics
Two routes qualify.
The first is residential real estate — a home, condominium, or qualifying resort residence — with a purchase price of at least US$1 million; the investment cannot be assembled from multiple smaller properties.
The second is zero-coupon bonds issued by the Central Bank of The Bahamas at the same threshold. Either asset must be held for a minimum of ten years from approval. Investments of US$1.5 million and above enter an accelerated review that can compress the standard six-to-eighteen-month processing into a few months — in well-prepared cases, weeks. Fees include a modest application charge and a substantial grant fee on approval, with dependants endorsed at nominal cost.
The certificate is granted for life, with no annual renewal, and covers spouse and dependent children. It carries an expressed intention to reside — commonly articulated as ninety days a year — but no tracked minimum presence, and it confers residence, not the right to work, for which separate permits apply. Ten years of genuine residence opens the longer conversation about citizenship, which remains discretionary and slow.
PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE — JULY 2026
MINIMUM US$1,000,000
HOLD PERIOD 10 years
FAST TRACK US$1.5m+
TAXATION No income / CGT / IHT
Strategic analysis
What the US$1 million premium buys is the classic Bahamian equation: no income tax, no capital gains tax, no inheritance or wealth tax, in a jurisdiction whose currency peg eliminates exchange risk for dollar-based buyers and whose property market offers genuine exit liquidity — a rarity among island programmes. The costs are equally concrete: conveyance VAT at 10% of the purchase price, and the ten-year lock, which converts the residence decision into an asset-allocation decision. American citizens, who dominate the buyer pool, gain no relief from the IRS; for them the certificate is lifestyle infrastructure and estate-planning geography, not a tax strategy — a distinction the honest end of the market states plainly.
Startup & Entrepreneur Route
The Bahamas channels entrepreneurs through the Commercial Enterprises Act 2017: ventures in specified sectors — fintech, tech, maritime services, arbitration, wealth management among them — investing a minimum of B$250,000 obtain expedited approval and fast-tracked work permits for key personnel, bypassing the labour-market testing that governs ordinary hires.
Foreign-owned businesses register through the Bahamas Investment Authority, with outside-investor thresholds in practice from US$500,000 for BIA project approval; annual residence permits and work-permit renewals carry the operation until the principal qualifies for Economic Permanent Residence on the property or bond routes.
The honest assessment: this is a domicile for holding companies, funds and digital-asset ventures (the DARE Act 2024 framework) rather than a startup scene — the value is regulatory proximity to the US market in a zero-income-tax common-law jurisdiction, not talent density.
INVESTOR CASES — ANONYMISED COMPOSITE PROFILES
The Connecticut hedge-fund partner, 52
He closed on a US$2.9 million Lyford Cay residence in February 2026; the accelerated track returned his certificate in nine weeks, filed concurrently with the conveyance by his Bahamian attorney. As a US citizen he keeps his IRS obligations in full — the purchase was about hurricane-hardened title, a permanent family base outside American political weather, and a banking jurisdiction whose KYC treats a permanent resident very differently from a visitor. The 10% conveyance VAT, some US$290,000, was budgeted from the outset as the true government fee.
The Lagos-London energy trading principal, 45
He preferred the Central Bank zero-coupon bond route: no property management, no tenants, a clean single-instrument source-of-funds narrative, and paper his private bank could custody alongside the rest of the balance sheet. The ten-year lock, he reasoned, matched the horizon of his children's schooling at Lyford Cay International; the bonds' yield forgone is, in his accounting, the annual premium on a permanent Western-Hemisphere base that no future government of any country he trades in can revoke.
