The Caribbean Islands that give you a passport when you buy a house

Scroll through houses for sale in the eastern Caribbean and it is no longer just enchanting beaches and a relaxed lifestyle that is recommended to buy buyers.

More and more property lists also offer a passport – and the political and social volatility in the US would feed an increase in interest.

Five of the island countries of the region – Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia – offer such citizenship through investments (CBI) of just $ 200,000 (£ 145,000).

Buy a house, and you also get a passport that grants the visa-free access of the holder to a maximum of 150 countries, including the European Schengen area, and for anything but Dominica, also at the UK.

For the rich, the absence of the islands of taxes such as capital profits and inheritance, and in some cases there is also another major draw on income. And all five schemes in the region enable buyers to retain their existing citizenship.

In Antigua brokers struggle to keep up with the question, says Nadia Dyson, owner of luxury locations. “Until present, a maximum of 70% of all buyers want citizenship, and the vast majority come from the US,” she tells the BBC.

“We don't talk about politics with them, but the unstable political landscape [in the US] Is definitely a factor.

“This time last year they were all lifestyle buyers and a few CBI. Now they all say 'I want a house with citizenship'. We have never sold so much.”

Although the Antigua program has no residence requirement, some buyers want to move full -time, Mrs. Dyson says, adding: “A few have already moved.”

American citizens are account for the majority of CBI applications in the Caribbean in the past year, according to investment migration experts Henley & Partners.

Ukraine, Turkey, Nigeria and China are among the other most common countries of origin of applicants, says the British company that has offices around the world.

It adds that the general applications for CBI programs of Caribbean have increased by 12% since the fourth quarter of 2024.

Everything, from arms violence to anti -Semitism, is putting Americans on Tennerhooks, according to the Dominic Volek of consultancy.

“About 10-15% actually moves. For most, it is an insurance policy that they are concerned about. Having second citizenship is a good backup plan,” he explains.

Mr. Volek says that the ease of the travel benefits calling the Caribbean passports to business people and can also provide a security benefit. “Some American customers prefer to travel on a more political Benign passport.”

Prior to the Covid Pandemie, the US was not even on “Radar” from Henley, Mr. Volek continues.

Movement restrictions turned out to be “quite a shock” for well -to -do people who were used to travel freely on private jets, which the first increase in CBI applications to the state. Interest was rendered again after the American elections of 2020 and 2024.

“There are Democrats who don't like Trump, but also republicans who don't like Democrats,” says Mr. Volek.

“In the past two years we have gone from zero offices in the US to eight in all major cities, with two to three opening in the coming months.”

Robert Taylor, from Halifax in Canada, bought a home in Antigua where he is planning to retire later this year.

He invested $ 200,000 just before the real estate threshold was increased to $ 300,000 last summer.

If citizen is not only avoiding restrictions on the duration of stay, it also gives him the freedom to take advantage of business opportunities, he explains. “I chose Antigua because it has beautiful water, I think the people are very, very friendly and it also means great weather for the later part of my life.”

Yet such programs are not without controversy. When the passport sales were first supplied in 2012 by the then Antiguan government as a way to support the ailing economy, some people considered ethics a bit dubious.

Protesters took to the streets in conviction, the former speaker of the Gisele Isaac house reminds. “There was a feeling of nationalism; people thought we were sold our identity, so to speak, to people who knew nothing about us,” she says.

Leaders of some other Caribbean countries that do not offer CBIs have also quickly criticized, including St Vincent and Premier Ralph Gonsalves of the Grenadines. He said earlier that citizenship should not be “a merchandise for sale”.

Under the international community there is fears that lax supervision can help criminals to endure their limits.

The European Union has threatened to withdraw its coveted visa-free access for Caribbean CBI countries, while the US has previously expressed concern about the potential for such schemes to be used as a vehicle for tax evasion and financial crime.

A spokesperson for the European Commission says the BBC that it “monitors” the five Caribbean schemes and has been in conversation with their respective authorities since 2022.

She says that a continuous assessment tries to substantiate whether citizenship through investments “is an abuse of the visa -free regime that those countries enjoy the EU and whether this will probably lead to security risks for the EU”.

The committee has recognized reforms by the islands, which it says will have an impact on its evaluation.

For their part, the five Caribbean countries have angrily reacted to claim that they do not do enough to investigate applicants.

Dominica's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has described his country's CBI program as “Sound and Transparent”, the addition of authorities had worked hard to guarantee its integrity.

The government says that the sale of passports since the establishment of the initiative in 1993 has collected more than $ 1 billion and pays for vital infrastructure, including an ultramodern hospital.

In St. Lucia, Prime Minister Philip J Pierre says that the island adheres to the highest safety standards to ensure that the CBI does not accidentally help illegal activities.

The need to appease the super powers of the world by increasing income is a delicate balance act for small Caribbean countries with lean means, depending on the whims of tourism.

CBI programs were labeled a lifeline at a regional industrial top in April, with funds used for everything, from cleaning up after natural disasters to strengthening national pension schemes. The Prime Minister of Antigua, Gaston Browne, said that the money raised had brought back his country from the edge of bankruptcy in the past decade.

Apart from buying real estate, other routes to Caribbean citizenship by investments usually include a one -off donation to a National Development Fund or something similar. They vary from $ 200,000 in Dominica for a single applicant, up to $ 250,000 for a main request and a maximum of three qualifying people charged in Dominica and St Kitts. In Antigua, investors also have the option to donate $ 260,000 at the University of the West Indies.

In the light of international pressure, the islands have committed themselves to new measures to strengthen supervision, including setting up a regional regulator to determine standards, to control activities and to guarantee compliance.

In addition, six principles agreed with the US have been improved Due Diligence, regular audits, compulsory interviews with all applicants and the removal of a Maas in the law that previously refused an applicant from one country to the other.

Nowadays passport sales are good for 10-30% of GDP of the islands.

Andre Huie, a journalist in St. Kitts, says that the CBI schedule of his country is “generally supported”. “The public understands its value for the economy and appreciates what the government has been able to do with the money.”