Barbados does not grant citizenship by investment, Home Affairs Minister Gregory Nicholls told the Senate on Wednesday, 4 November, as senators took up the Immigration Bill and the Barbados Citizenship Bill, Barbados Today reported. Both bills passed the House of Assembly the previous week; the report does not say whether the Senate has passed them.
According to the report, Nicholls said the legislation gives no citizenship, nationality or passport entitlement to anyone who invests in Barbados. The government is replacing Special Entry Permits, granted at ministerial discretion since 2012, with a statutory framework. Permanent residence pathways would be open to people investing in private sector projects and to those contributing to specified national development projects.
Investors who want citizenship would follow the same process as other applicants. They must first hold permanent residence, then either live in Barbados for five continuous years or build up points under the new system while keeping the required physical presence, and pass national security and public health checks. Nicholls said vetting will rely on a due diligence system linked to international and regional security partnerships.
The Citizenship Bill extends citizenship by descent to grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Barbadian citizens, gives citizenship rights to children adopted abroad by Barbadians, and ends a disparity under which foreign-born husbands of Barbadian women, unlike foreign-born wives of Barbadian men, did not automatically receive citizenship. The Immigration Bill would replace legislation from 1979. Nicholls cited demographic pressure: births have fallen below 2,000 a year, from about 7,000 at independence.
What it means
Under these bills, an investment in Barbados can lead to permanent residence but not directly to citizenship, which still requires time as a resident or points, plus security checks. The report does not give the investment amounts for the residence routes.
Was this useful?