Citizenship by investment · Dominica
Dominica will sell you a passport for $200,000, and now it wants you to come get it
About $210,000 all in for one applicant on the fund route, four to nine months to a certificate, and a mobility list that lost the United Kingdom in 2023.
Dominica has sold citizenship since 1993; only St Kitts has run one for longer. It's a nationality, not a residence permit, and nothing here asks you to move. Below is the real fee stack, the two routes, and the three governments that spent 2026 leaning on this passport. Checked September 2026.
A long record, and a price fixed by the neighbors
The Citizenship by Investment Unit has run this program since 1993. You contribute and pass its background check, you become a citizen. There's no permit to renew and, as things stand, no requirement to set foot on the island.
The $200,000 floor was not Dominica's idea. The five Eastern Caribbean programs fixed a common minimum from July 1, 2024, doubling Dominica's old $100,000 entry point overnight. The thing this island was famous for, being the cheap one, is now a tie.
It is also strict. In the European Commission's December 2025 report, Dominica turned away 6.5 percent of 2024 applicants, against 5.3 in St Lucia and 1.7 in Antigua. Nobody puts that in a brochure. If you care whether this passport ages well, it's the most useful figure here.
What the CBIU's own fee page says
$200,000
Fund contribution, one applicant
Non-refundable, and it is the regional minimum
$250,000
Fund contribution, family of four
Then $25,000 or $40,000 per extra dependent
$210,000
What one fund file really costs
Government money only, before advisers
$75,000
Extra fee on the property route
Rises to $100,000 for a family of four
Two routes, and the gap between them
The Economic Diversification Fund
A one-way contribution to a fund that builds schools, clinics and hurricane-resistant housing. $200,000 covers one applicant. $250,000 covers you plus up to three qualifying dependents, then $25,000 per extra child under 18 and $40,000 per extra adult. On top sits a $1,000 processing fee, $7,500 of due diligence on you and $4,000 on every dependent 16 or over, $1,000 per interview, and $500 a head for the naturalization certificate. Call it $210,000 for one person before an agent bills you. None of it comes back to your pocket.
Approved real estate
Buy into a pre-approved project from $200,000 and hold it three years, or five if your buyer is another applicant. Here's the catch the comparison tables skip. This route adds a government fee of $75,000 for one applicant, or $100,000 with up to three dependents. The fund route adds none, and the CBIU says so on its own page. A $200,000 apartment is really a $275,000 decision, plus the same due diligence and interview fees.
Dominica Citizenship by Investment
Direct path to Dominica citizenship and passport, with visa-free access to 137+ countries, no residency requirement, and lifetime validity.
- Government cost
- $200,000
- Processing time
- ~90 days
- Timeline
- Lifetime
- Difficulty
- Easy
About that data card
Three lines on that card need a footnote, because our database is thinner than the file. Timeline reads "Lifetime", true of the citizenship but not of the booklet: the passport runs ten years, and renewing it is what changed in June. Processing time of 90 days is the best case; the CBIU's own guide says three to six months. The description's "137+ countries" undersells the count and omits Britain leaving the list in 2023. We turned the requirement list off because its "no residency requirement" line is the one Dominica has announced it's rewriting.
Where the passport goes, and the one place it stopped going
Henley's 2026 index puts Dominica at roughly 145 destinations visa-free or visa on arrival, ranked around 26th. Other trackers say 140, some say 162. The count moves with the method, so treat a precise figure in a sales deck as decoration. The shape looks stable. The whole Schengen area, 90 days in any 180, with ETIAS coming. Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil, South Korea, Malaysia. China visa-free for 30 days, which your American passport doesn't get you.
Not the United States. Not Canada. Not Australia.
And not the United Kingdom, which is what separates Dominica from its neighbors. Britain imposed a visa requirement on July 19, 2023, the Home Secretary citing clear and evident abuse of the scheme. It hasn't been restored. Antigua, Grenada, St Kitts and St Lucia kept theirs. If a British stamp is why you're buying, buy somewhere else.
The quiet benefit is regional: CARICOM and the OECS give you the right to live and work across the member states.
Three capitals, and one press conference in Roseau
The U.S. restriction, and who it hits
Presidential Proclamation 10998 has been in force since January 1, 2026. It suspends entry for Dominican nationals as immigrants and on the student, exchange and visitor classes: F, M, J and B-1/B-2. Read the scope before you panic. Nothing issued earlier was revoked, and a dual national on an unrestricted passport is outside it. An American with two nationalities flies on the U.S. one, as before. The person exposed is a non-American relative on the file.
Brussels wants it wound down by 2028
Commissioner Magnus Brunner wrote to all five programs on June 25, 2026, asking them to phase out by June 1, 2028. Nothing has closed. No Schengen access has been suspended. But since December 2025, running one of these programs is by itself a reason the EU can pull a visa waiver.
Dominica's answer: come and get it
On June 10, 2026 Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said new investor citizens will have to travel to Dominica to collect and renew their passports. The CBIU published the intention, not the mechanics; those go in the budget. It ends a process that was fully remote for 33 years.
The part no agent can promise you
Dominica can guarantee the citizenship. All five governments have said so and they're right: nothing in the Commission's letter touches a nationality already granted. None of them can guarantee the travel. A visa waiver is Brussels' to keep or cancel, and Britain showed how fast that happens. Buy this for the nationality, and treat the visa-free list as a benefit somebody else can edit without asking you.
Your US tax bill, before and after
Buying it changes nothing about where you're taxed
Citizenship and tax residency are different purchases; this is what American buyers get wrong most. The passport doesn't make you a Dominica tax resident. You get there by spending 183 days on the island or keeping a permanent home and turning up for 30. The U.S. taxes its citizens wherever they live, so the 1040, the FBAR and the FATCA reporting carry on regardless.
Dominica is the odd one out: it taxes people
Its neighbors advertise zero. Dominica runs real income tax brackets topping out at 35 percent, with no U.S. treaty or totalization agreement. That sounds worse and often isn't. Tax you genuinely pay there can usually be credited against your US bill. Only relevant if you move.
What a second nationality actually does
You cannot renounce U.S. citizenship without holding another nationality first. The State Department cut that fee from $2,350 to $450 in April 2026. That mechanism, not the travel list, is the honest reason to buy one of these.
Who you need on this file
Arton Capital
Golden Visas
The CBIU takes files only through an authorized agent, and blacklists the ones it strikes off. Arton is tagged for Dominica and works all five programs. Ask when in-person collection starts.
MyExpatTaxes
U.S. Expat Tax Service
Your U.S. returns continue unchanged. Spend an hour on whether the foreign tax credit or the renunciation math is the part that applies.
Beacon Global Advisors
Financial Planning
This gets wired in stages, due diligence first and the contribution on approval. Price what $200,000 leaving a portfolio really costs.
What people ask before they wire it
How long does Dominica citizenship by investment take?
The official FAQ says expect at least three months to approval in principle. The step-by-step guide says three to six months from a complete file. Agents quote six to nine, plus a month or two of document prep first.
Is Dominica's citizenship program closing in 2028?
Not yet, and possibly not at all. Brussels has asked the five Eastern Caribbean governments to close these programs by mid-2028, and Dominica has not agreed. Nothing has shut and no visa-free access has been suspended. Read that deadline as a negotiating date, not a shutdown date.
Does a Dominica passport change my US tax bill?
No. Americans are taxed on worldwide income whatever else they hold, and the passport by itself makes you a tax resident nowhere. It does give you the second nationality you would need before renouncing, and renouncing is the only thing that ends US filing.
How much does Dominica citizenship cost for a family of four?
The contribution itself is $250,000 for a main applicant and up to three qualifying dependents. Then come the government add-ons: processing, a due diligence check on each person 16 and over, an interview fee apiece and a certificate fee apiece. For a family of four that lands near $270,000 before advisers.
Who can I include in the application?
Your spouse, unmarried children up to roughly 30, and dependent parents and grandparents aged 55 and over. Siblings are not eligible here, unlike some neighboring programs. Everyone 16 and over needs their own due diligence check and interview, each with its own fee.
Should I choose the fund or the real estate route?
The fund is cheaper and simpler. Property needs $200,000 in a pre-approved project, a three-year hold, and a separate $75,000 government fee the fund route doesn't charge. Choose property only if you want the asset and can accept that resale on these units is slow.
Do I have to visit or live in Dominica?
Not to apply, as of September 2026. But on June 10, 2026 the prime minister said successful applicants will have to come to Dominica to collect their passports, and again to renew them. No start date is published. Ask your agent where the rule stands before you file.
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