St Lucia Government is poised to become the most popular citizenship by investment passport programme , since the Government announced several amendments to its citizenship by investment programme effective from January 1st, 2017.
The key announcement made was St Lucia citizenship to become cheapest in the market for USD 100,000 competing with Dominica. The real estate investment qualifying for citizenship in Saint Lucia remains the same USD 300,000.
Dominica is another citizenship program equally competes with St Lucia for $100,000. Both the passport schemes give investors same benefits, except processing time for St Lucia will be much faster 2-3 months, compared to Dominica which takes about 4-5 months. All other CIP programs in St Kitts, Grenada, Antigua are expensive costing over $200,000 dollars.
The approved changes under the St Lucia CIP program are:
- Removingtherequirementforanapplicanttoprovideaswornaffidavitto declare financial resources of at least US$3,000,000.00;
- Removing the limit ofthe number of applications which could be granted by the Board, previously set at a maximum of 500 applications;
- Providing the option for successful applicants to sign the oath of allegiance before an attorney-at-law, a Consular Officer of Saint Lucia, an Honorary Consul of Saint Lucia, a Notary Royal or a Notary Public;
- Adding a non-refundable administration fee of US$50,000.00 to the purchase of non-interest bearing Government Bonds;
- Changing the qualifying investments in the National Economic Fund. The new qualifying investments are as follows:
|
Applicant applying alone |
US$ 100,000 |
|
Applicant applying with spouse |
US$ 165,000 |
|
Applicant applying with spouse and up to two other qualifying dependants |
US$ 190,000 |
|
Each additional qualifying dependant at any age |
US$ 25,000 |