Tweet

The good news continues to pour in for the federation  of  St. Kitts and Nevis under the Dr.Timothy Harris led Team Unity Administration. The twin island Federation has been once again ranked  as having the best passport among Caribbean jurisdictions that offer Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programmes, according to the latest quality of passport index survey.

This was confirmed in the recently released 2019 Henley & Partners Passport Index, which saw St. Kitts and Nevis ranked 27th globally and third overall in the entire Caribbean.

The Henley Passport Index, which includes detailed insights from leading regional specialists, researchers, and commentators on the major trends affecting travel, migration, and visa policy, is based on exclusive data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), and has recently been updated through extensive research to include eight new travel destinations.

St. Kitts and Nevis, which offers visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 151 destinations, trails only Barbados (24) and the Bahamas (26) in the Caribbean region. 

Upon assuming office in 2015, The Team Unity-led Government has taken extensive steps to rebrand the country’s citizenship programme, which had suffered significant reputational damage under the former Denzil Douglas administration, which included losing its visa free access to Canada. 

As a result of the government’s intervention, St. Kitts and Nevis’ CBI programme, the longest-running citizenship programme in the world, has over the last four years received several accolades including being recognized for offering the World’s Most Innovative Investment Immigration Programme at the 2017 Russian Global Citizen Awards Ceremony.

St Kitts and Nevis is known for its efforts in establishing wide diplomatic relations, which was reflected in a recent independent study by experts at the Financial Times’ Professional Wealth Management magazine. According to the latest CBI Index, the dual-island nation was awarded a place on the podium of countries offering citizenship by investment (CBI). The CBI programme, introduced as a concept in 1984 by St Kitts and Nevis, allows qualifying individuals, regardless of their birthplace, to obtain its citizenship in exchange for an investment into the country’s economy.

The fastest and most affordable route to St Kitts and Nevis’ coveted citizenship is through a one-off contribution to the Sustainable Growth Fund (SGF), which starts at US$150,000 for a single applicant. The new investment route was conceived by Prime Minister Timothy Harris with the purpose of using the collected funds for socio-economic developments on the islands, in areas such as education, infrastructure, tourism and indigenous entrepreneurship.

Andres Gutierrez, Business Development Manager at CS Global Partners – a leading international advisory specialising in citizenship and residency solutions – said that “the application process is straightforward and has undergone meticulous refinement during the three decades it has been operating over. One of them is the rigorous due diligence checks that all applicants are subjected to before being considered as potential economic citizens of St Kitts and Nevis.”

In the investor immigration industry, St Kitts and Nevis is known as offering the Platinum Standard of all citizenship by investment programmes. Many applicants come from politically unstable countries or going through military conflicts, often looking to relocate their families to safer areas.