St. Kitts and Nevis topped the 2026 Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Index for a sixth straight year as Caribbean governments prepared common rules that could alter future assessments of their programs.
The index, researched by independent consultant James McKay, scored 14 programs across nine pillars. St. Kitts and Nevis received 78 of 90 possible points, compared with 75 for second-place Dominica. The pillars include Investment Options and Threshold, Citizenship Timeline and Certainty of Product.
Grenada placed third. Saint Lucia ranked fourth with 71 points, ahead of Antigua and Barbuda in fifth on 65. Nauru was the highest-ranked program outside the Caribbean at No. 6. São Tomé and Príncipe placed 10th, followed by Egypt, Austria, Jordan and Cambodia.
The index gave St. Kitts and Nevis the only perfect due-diligence score of 10. Dominica and Grenada each received nine points, Antigua and Barbuda eight and Saint Lucia seven. Those scores assess program safeguards and procedures, rather than the outcomes of individual application reviews.
All five participating parliaments ratified a September 2025 agreement creating the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority (known as ECCIRA), the index said. It provides for common oversight and would require people who gain citizenship through investment to spend at least 30 days in total in their new country during their first five years.
The regional obligations had not taken effect as of September 2026 and were excluded from the rankings. The report says physical-presence and screening requirements add time and compliance costs for applicants. It also links regional coordination partly to concern that trouble in one program could damage visa access for others, citing Cyprus’s program closure in 2020 and Vanuatu’s loss of visa-free access to the United Kingdom and European Union.
The index said Middle East instability had not produced the substantial rise in CBI demand that might have been expected. It suggested investors may be considering citizenship alongside residence options and wider mobility and wealth planning, while cautioning that it is too early to call the demand pattern a structural change.
Implementation of ECCIRA’s regional obligations is the next indicator to watch. The index said Eastern Caribbean programs’ travel or residence scores may change when the rules take effect.
