Scroll through homes for sale in the Eastern Caribbean and it is no longer just bewitching beaches and a laid-back lifestyle being touted to woo buyers.
More and more property listings are offering a passport too – and political and social volatility in the US is said to be fuelling an upsurge in interest.
Five of the region’s island nations – Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Lucia – offer such citizenship by investment (CBI) from as little as $200,000 (£145,000).
Buy a home, and you also get a passport that grants the holder visa-free access to up to 150 countries including the UK and Europe’s Schengen area.
For the wealthy, the islands’ absence of taxes such as capital gains and inheritance, and in some cases on income too, is another major draw. And all five of the region’s schemes allow buyers to retain their existing citizenship.
In Antigua, estate agents are struggling to keep up with demand, says Nadia Dyson, owner of Luxury Locations. “Up to 70% of all buyers right now are wanting citizenship, and the vast majority are from the US,” she tells the BBC.
“We don’t talk politics with them, but the unstable political landscape [in the US] is definitely a factor.
“This time last year, it was all lifestyle buyers and a few CBI. Now they’re all saying ‘I want a house with citizenship’. We’ve never sold so many before.”
Despite Antigua’s programme having no residency requirement, some purchasers are looking to relocate full-time, Ms Dyson says, adding: “A few have relocated already.”
US citizens account for the bulk of CBI applications in the Caribbean over the past year, according to investment migration experts Henley & Partners.
Ukraine, Turkey, Nigeria and China are among the other most frequent countries of origin of applicants, says the UK firm which has offices around the world.
It adds that overall applications for Caribbean CBI programmes have increased by 12% since the fourth quarter of 2024.
Everything from gun violence to anti-Semitism is putting Americans on tenterhooks, according to the consultancy’s Dominic Volek.
“Around 10-15% actually relocate. For most it’s an insurance policy against whatever they’re concerned about. Having a second citizenship is a good back-up plan,” he explains.
Mr Volek says the ease-of-travel advantages the Caribbean passports provide appeals to businesspeople, and may also present a security benefit. “Some US clients prefer to travel on a more politically-benign passport.”
Prior to the Covid pandemic, the US was not even on Henley’s “radar”, Mr Volek continues.
Movement restrictions proved “quite a shock” for affluent people used to travelling freely on private jets, prompting the first surge in stateside CBI applications. Interest ratcheted up again after the 2020 and 2024 US elections.
“There are Democrats that don’t like Trump but also Republicans that don’t like Democrats,” Mr Volek says.
“In the last two years we’ve gone from having zero offices in the US to eight across all major cities, with another two to three opening in the coming months.”
Robert Taylor, from Halifax in Canada, bought a property in Antigua where he plans to retire later this year.
He invested $200,000 just before the real estate threshold was raised to $300,000 last summer.
Not only does being a citizen avoid restrictions on length 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 find the people very, very friendly and it also means great weather for the later part of my life.”
Still, such programmes are not without controversy. When passport sales were first mooted in 2012 by the then Antiguan government as a way of propping up the ailing economy, some considered the ethics a little iffy.
Protesters took to the streets in condemnation, recalls former Speaker of the House Gisele Isaac. “There was a sense of nationalism; people felt we were selling our identity, so to speak, to people who knew nothing about us,” she says.
Leaders of some other Caribbean nations that do not offer CBIs have also been quick to criticise, including St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. He has previously said citizenship should not be “a commodity for sale”.
Among the international community, there are fears that lax oversight may help criminals get through their borders.
The European Union has threatened to withdraw its coveted visa-free access for Caribbean CBI countries, while the US has previously raised concerns over the potential for such schemes to be used as a vehicle for tax evasion and financial crime.
A European Commission spokesperson tells the BBC that it is “monitoring” the five Caribbean schemes, and has been in talks with their respective authorities since 2022.
She says an ongoing assessment is seeking to substantiate if citizenship by investment constitutes “an abuse of the visa-free regime those countries enjoy vis-à-vis the EU and whether it is likely to lead to security risks for the EU”.
The Commission has acknowledged reforms carried out by the islands, which it says will have an impact on its evaluation.
For their part, the five Caribbean nations have reacted angrily to claims that they are not doing enough to scrutinise applicants.
Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has described his country’s CBI programme as “sound and transparent”, adding authorities had worked hard to ensure its integrity.
The government says passport sales have raised more than $1bn since the initiative’s inception in 1993, paying for vital infrastructure including a state-of-the-art hospital.
In St Lucia, Prime Minister Philip J Pierre says the island adheres to the highest standards of security to ensure its CBI does not inadvertently aid illicit activities.
The need to appease the world’s superpowers with raising revenue is a delicate balancing act for small Caribbean nations with meagre resources, dependent on the whims of tourism.
CBI programmes were labelled a lifeline at a regional industry summit in April, with funds used for everything from cleaning up after natural disasters to shoring up national pension schemes. Antigua’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne said money raised had brought his country back from the brink of bankruptcy over the past decade.
Aside from buying property, other routes to Caribbean citizenship through investment typically include a one-off donation to a national development fund or similar. They range from $200,000 in Dominica for a single applicant, to $250,000 for a main applicant and up to three qualifying dependents in Dominica and St Kitts. In Antigua, investors also have the option of donating $260,000 to the University of the West Indies.
In the face of international pressure, the islands have committed to new measures to bolster oversight, including establishing a regional regulator to set standards, monitor operations and ensure compliance.
Additionally, six principles agreed with the US include enhanced due diligence, regular audits, mandatory interviews with all applicants, and the removal of a loophole that previously enabled an applicant denied by one country to apply in another.
These days, passport sales account for 10-30% of the islands’ GDP.
Andre Huie, a journalist in St Kitts, says his country’s CBI scheme is “generally well supported” as a result. “The public understand the value of it to the economy, and appreciate what the government has been able to do with the money.”
