Tweet

 

St.Kitts-Nevis  has the most desirable  passport in the Eastern Caribbean and the 50th most desirable in the world, according to the results of a 2017 Nomad Capitalist World Ranking .

Click for World Rankings

Nomad Capitalist  ranked 199 countries corresponding to their “value of citizenship.”. In addition to visa-free travel options, this ranking uses a weighted approach that considers the amount of taxes a country levies on citizens who live abroad, along with the nation’s overall global reputation, civil and personal freedoms, and the ability to hold multiple passports simultaneously.

Of the 199 ranked Countries the St.Kitts-Nevis Passport was the 2nd highest rated and ranked Caribbean Passport with a World Ranking of 50. Behind the Bahamas who had a world rank of 47.  The Barbados passport was Ranked 52 Worldwide and 3rd  in the Caribbean. Antigua-Barbuda, St.Lucia, St.Vincent and the Grenadines rounded up the top 6 from the Caribbean.

 

Atop the World list is Sweden, followed by a bevy of other European Union nations. A Swedish passport allows visa-free travel to 176 countries or territories, just one fewer than world leader Germany. Moreover, Swedish expats can easily “get out of the high taxes in Sweden and go live somewhere else where there are lower taxes without a lot of headaches,” says Andrew Henderson, the veteran traveler, entrepreneur, and blogger who founded Nomad.

the British, German, and U.S. passports once billed as the world’s “best” rank below several European nations. (Of the top 43 passports on Nomad’s list, 33 are European.) The common denominator among all these countries is a lack of tax on citizens’ income regardless of where they live. The U.S., by comparison, taxes citizens’ income no matter where it’s earned.

The St.Kitts-Nevis Citizenship Programme is the first of it’s kind in the world and has long been considered the one of the premier Citizenship programmes in the world. The programme however suffered major reputational damage under the former Prime Minister Dr. Denzil Douglas and his administration.   Due to gross mismanegemt by the Douglas led administration and the  major revelations about the program, including that Alizera Moghadam, an economic citizen of St. Kitts & Nevis with Iranian origin who was travelling on a St. Kitts & Nevis diplomatic passport that he claimed he paid US$1 million for raised many concerns in the International Community regarding the countries Passport and Citizenship Programme. The Concerns were so significant that the US Government issued a FINCEN Advisory regarding the programme . This was followed by the Canadian government removing it’s visa-free waiver from persons carrying St.Kitts-Nevis Passports.

In February 2015 a Change of government saw the total revamping and vast improvements of the programme under the leadership of new Prime Minister Dr. Hon Timothy Harris. Some of the improvements included  improving the internal procedures to lower processing times, and to ensure that applications are assessed efficiently. Currently, St Kitts and Nevis will return an approval in principle on a successful application in as little as 45 working days – one of the fastest turnaround periods across the citizenship by investment arena. Furthermore, the St Kitts and Nevis Unit is the first to implement a 24/7 Case Management System, to enable online tracking of applications and easy access to information held electronically.

The end result is that the Programme and the Passport is once again regarded as one of the best in the world and the #1 in the OECS.