A month of physical residency for the Caribbean passports may come
Published at: 15/07/2025 11:56 am
Applicants could easily become citizens of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia, Grenada, and Dominica without ever visiting the country. However, it appears that applicants for the investor's passports will need to reside in their new home country for at least 30 days before obtaining Caribbean citizenship.
Caribbean countries with citizenship-by-investment programs must adapt to new guidelines issued by the EU to maintain their visa waiver rights.
The reason for the significant change in immigration laws related to CIPs is that the EU updated the existing visa waiver mechanism for all countries from which refugees come, including those with a visa or CIP program, without genuine ties to the country. What is certain is that the EU can suspend the visa waiver for a total of 12 months, followed by an additional 12 months until a final decision is made. The specific rules have not yet been finalised, but this system has been in operation since 2013 and has been updated accordingly. Or they will, because they write about everything in the future tense, without a date.
To address the challenge, the leaders of Caribbean countries with CIP programs developed a draft agreement establishing a regional authority to oversee the citizenship programs and introduce mandatory residency requirements.
The required 'genuine link' by the EU and the US is the most significant change for Caribbean countries with citizenship-by-investment programs. According to the draft agreement of the local leaders, the answer to this challenge will be the introduction of the physical residency requirement. It will be "physically present within the territory of the Participating State for an aggregate of at least thirty days during or up to any of the first five calendar years after the date of the grant of the certificate of citizenship or naturalisation", according to Dominican Online News.
However, new citizens may fulfill the physical residency requirement during the first five years of their citizenship; this time frame appears flexible enough.
There are additional requirements as well, including participation in a mandatory integration program, which requires applicants to become familiar with the history, constitution, and laws of the chosen new country.
If the applicant fails to satisfy the new requirements, the Caribbean states may impose fines and withdraw the passports.
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