E.U. tells Caribbean nations: Stop selling citizenship or we’ll require visas
The bloc is giving five nations two years to phase out citizenship by investment or lose visa-free travel to the 29-country Schengen area.
The European Union is giving five nations in the Eastern Caribbean two years to end their lucrative citizenship-by-investment programs or lose visa-free travel to the bloc, their leaders say.
The nations — Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia — generate significant revenue through their programs. Foreigners who invest in their economies, buy real estate or pay their governments directly gain passports that allow visa-free travel to more than 140 countries and territories, including much of Europe. Costs begin at $200,000.
Each of the five received a letter from Brussels last month advising that new E.U. rules make the existence of such programs grounds for suspending visa-free access, according to the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States. The bloc gave them until June 1, 2028, to phase out their programs.
Their prime ministers are coordinating a “collective response,” they said in a statement. After meeting last week in Dominica, they are planning “a high-level mission to Brussels” at the “earliest appropriate opportunity” to meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and other senior E.U. officials.
E.U. officials did not respond to requests for comment. The bloc has long been wary of citizenship-by-investment programs. Critics say insufficient vetting of applicants can enable money laundering and terrorist financing and increase the risks of identity fraud and illegal immigration.
Several E.U. member states offer residence-by-investment programs that can lead to citizenship. President Donald Trump last year introduced a $1 million “Trump gold card,” available within weeks, promising a direct path to U.S. citizenship “for all qualified and vetted people.” (As of May, one person had been approved, the Department of Homeland Security said in a legal filing.)
“Investment migration is a well-established global practice, not a Caribbean peculiarity,” Didacus Jules, director general of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, told The Washington Post. “More than half of the world’s states offer some form of access to residence or citizenship through investment.”
The European Commission acknowledged in December that the five nations had taken steps “to strengthen due diligence and information-sharing,” but said the programs “continue to raise concerns due to high volumes, short processing times and low rejection rates.”
Together, the five have issued more than 100,000 passports, according to the commission. Prospective citizens generally are not required to be present in the country to apply; only Antigua and Barbuda requires them to ever visit. Passports are typically issued within a year, and rejection rates are typically in the single digits.
Such programs have long suffered a “bad image,” said Jean‑François Harvey, an attorney whose multinational firm specializes in business immigration.
Harvey Law Group serves more than 100 clients seeking Caribbean citizenship each year. Some want to live there, Harvey said, “but the vast majority … want a second citizenship for estate and tax planning, and for safety.”
Hugh Jorgensen, program lead for corrupt money flows at Transparency International, said such programs can also be exploited by criminals. The main risk, he said, is that “what is being sold is not the actual citizenship in the country itself, it’s what the citizenship offers in getting access to other countries.”
Citizens of the five nations enjoy visa-free travel to the Schengen area, which includes 25 of the 27 E.U. member states. The majority of applicants to at least four of the five in 2024 came from countries for whom the bloc requires visas (Grenada released only partial data), the commission reported. They included China, Syria, Iraq and Nigeria.
Criminals can use citizenship by investment to “launder their proceeds in these countries, or simply escape their own jurisdiction where they are facing criminal charges or at risk being arrested,” Jorgensen said.
“Many countries have tried these in the past and brought them to a conclusion because it’s not worth the risk,” he said. “This is not a long-term economic solution.”
Harvey said his firm turns away applicants who have undisclosed criminal convictions or are unable to explain the source of their funds. “At least a dozen times a year, we refuse clients because we’re not comfortable representing them,” he said. “Sometimes, clients have a bad profile.”
Jules of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States defended the integrity of the five nations’ programs.
“Investment migration, in its various forms, is a widespread and legitimate instrument of economic policy,” he said in written responses to The Post’s questions. The region’s programs “are distinguished less by what they offer than by their fiscal significance for small island developing states — and, increasingly, by the depth of the regulatory architecture that governs them.”
He noted that citizenship by investment in the Eastern Caribbean predates the visa deal with the Schengen area. The programs were established, he said, “as sovereign economic development tools to attract investment, diversify economies, and generate non-tax revenue. Visa-free access has enhanced their attractiveness, but it is not the foundation upon which they were built.”
Revenue from the programs made up an average of about 6.5 percent to the nations’ gross domestic product between 2019 and 2023, according to the International Monetary Fund. Dominica’s program generated more than 30 percent of its GDP in 2022.
The money has funded “critical investments in climate resilience, disaster recovery, infrastructure, housing, healthcare, education, and fiscal stability,” the prime ministers said.
“Against this backdrop,” they said, any changes “must take full account of the economic realities and development vulnerabilities of small island developing states,” and support “the creation of sustainable alternative sources of financing.”
The office of Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne was first to make the E.U. warning public. Citizenship by investment generates nearly 60 percent of the country’s non-tax revenue, the U.S. State Department reported in 2023.
The program is “a critical pillar of Antigua and Barbuda’s non-tax revenue base,” Browne’s office said, “and it cannot simply be abandoned without viable, concrete, and credible replacement revenues being made available.”
The E.U. Court of Justice ruled last year that selling citizenship amounted to the “commercialisation of the grant of nationality,” violating the principle of sincere cooperation and undermining legal order, and the commission revised its rules to add such programs as grounds for suspending visa-free travel. (Malta, the only E.U. member to offer such a program, subsequently ended it.)
Several countries, including the United States, have tightened rules for passport holders from the five nations. The Trump administration in January suspended immigrant visa processing for citizens of the five nations, among dozens of others, saying officials had deemed them to be at “high risk of U.S. public benefits reliance.”
The U.S. “has long highlighted the vulnerabilities of CBI programs and continues to work in cooperation with countries in the Eastern Caribbean with CBI programs to identify and address vulnerabilities in their processes and help strengthen their vetting systems,” a State Department spokesperson told The Post.
The spokesperson noted that the countries over the past two years have approved legislation establishing security and due-diligence standards, including biometric screening and residency requirements and a regional regulator to enforce the rules.
“While CBI programs may generate economic growth through foreign direct investment, enforcement and accountability tools remain critical components of countering corruption and illicit finance by criminal actors,” the spokesperson said.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Caribbean Community signed a biometric data-sharing agreement this month aimed at strengthening screening of program applicants. U.S. officials said the deal would more closely align Caribbean vetting practices with U.S. border security standards and help authorities identify potential security threats.
Citizens of the five nations, all members of the Commonwealth, historically enjoyed visa-free travel to the United Kingdom. But in 2023, the U.K. Home Office said it would require Dominican nationals to obtain visas due to concerns about the country’s program, and in March, announced the same for Saint Lucians.
Canada imposed a visa requirement on Antigua and Barbuda in 2017. Officials said they had monitored the “integrity of Antigua and Barbuda’s travel documents” and determined the country “no longer meets Canada’s criteria for a visa exemption.”
The U.K. in 2022 abolished its “golden visa” program, citing concerns it was exploited by individuals linked to corruption, illicit finance or broader national security risks.
Jules said the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States takes security concerns seriously, but that they are not unique to citizenship by investment.
“They are risks all countries must manage within their immigration, financial and border security systems,” he said. “The appropriate response is … to ensure that robust safeguards are in place to identify, mitigate, and manage them. That is precisely what Member States have done.”
What readers are saying
The comments discuss the issue of citizenship and residency for investment, highlighting concerns about tax evasion, money laundering, and the potential for criminals to exploit these programs. Some commenters express surprise at Europe's actions and criticize the conflation of... Show more
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