Clients keep forwarding me this headline, asking some version of two questions: is the number real, and does it change anything about the citizenship program they're weighing. Neither question has a clean answer. The 165,000 figure comes from a research firm with a decade of credibility in this niche — and, over the last twelve months, a genuinely damaged one. The Caribbean's actual role in it also isn't what the headline implies. After years of reading these reports and helping 100-plus families act on them, the honest version of this story is more useful than the viral one.
Last reviewed August 2026. The headline number here is the 2026 edition's; Henley replaces it every June, and the part of this piece worth keeping — how the number is built and where it breaks — doesn't change with it.
The short answer
Henley & Partners' Private Wealth Migration Report 2026, released 16 June 2026, forecasts 165,000 millionaire relocations worldwide this year — a 16% rise over the "record" 142,000 the firm reported for 2025. Those are real projections from a real firm, but the methodology behind them has been under sustained, credible attack since mid-2025, and Henley's own 2026 edition quietly dropped the co-author, the undisclosed proprietary database, and the country-by-country migration estimates that made the numbers so quotable in the first place. Just as important: no Caribbean nation appears anywhere on Henley's own list of top relocation destinations — the UAE, the US and Saudi Arabia dominate that ranking. The Caribbean's real role in global wealth migration isn't as a place millionaires move their families to live; it's as a place they buy a second passport, for reasons that mostly have nothing to do with relocating there at all.
Where the 165,000 number actually comes from — and why I won't just repeat it
The Henley Private Wealth Migration Report has driven this headline since it started projecting annual relocation figures — the 2025 edition called 142,000 moves "the highest number ever recorded," and the 2026 edition, released 16 June 2026, forecasts 165,000 as a 16% increase over that record.
What most coverage skips: starting in July 2025, Tax Policy Associates, the Tax Justice Network and Patriotic Millionaires UK all raised public concerns about the methodology behind those figures — figures Henley produced jointly with the firm New World Wealth. New World Wealth's sole researcher reportedly told the Financial Times that property wealth was "never actually included in the analysis," despite the published methodology claiming otherwise, and independent checks found the UK millionaire count overstated by roughly 100%. South Korea's president, Lee Jae Myung, publicly called a business lobby's press release citing Henley-sourced migration claims "fake news" in February 2026.
Henley responded by quietly rebuilding the report. The 2026 edition dropped New World Wealth as sole author, removed the undisclosed "150,000-person database" behind earlier estimates, and abandoned country-by-country migration figures entirely — the firm now states its methods "have not yet been adapted or validated for this specific population." That's a serious walk-back from the same firm generating this year's headline, and it's why I'd rather flag it than repeat 165,000 as a hard count.
The UK figure is the clearest example of how these numbers get inflated in the retelling. The 2025 report projected UK outflow roughly doubling to 16,500, with a claimed £66 billion net loss. The UK's own official forecasts have consistently pointed to far fewer actual departures than that doubling implied, and Henley's own 2026 report shows applications tied to a UK address rising just 15% year-over-year — nowhere near the doubling the original narrative implied. The same pattern holds across the UK's broader non-dom exodus story: the direction tends to hold up better than the number.
Wait — is the Caribbean actually where millionaires are moving?
This is the part of the headline I'd push back on hardest. Henley's own 2025 top-ten net-inflow list — where millionaires are actually relocating to — is the UAE (+9,800), the USA (+7,500), Italy, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Portugal, Greece, Australia and Canada. Not one Caribbean nation appears on it.
One clarification on that last entry, because Canadian clients ask about it and the coverage is muddled: Canada is still on the list, but it holds its place at the lowest net inflow the firm has recorded for it — a country sliding down the ranking rather than one that has fallen off it. I go into what that actually means for Canadians in the best Caribbean bases for Canadians in the tax net. Treat the ordinal as directionally right and the headcount as soft, which is how I treat every number in this report.
That's not an oversight. Henley's inflow and outflow tracking measures where people physically relocate and establish tax residency. Caribbean citizenship by investment is a fundamentally different product: it grants a passport without requiring you to live there, work there, or become tax resident there. Calling the Caribbean a "wealth-migration hub" in the same breath as the UAE or Portugal conflates two different behaviors — physically moving your life somewhere, versus buying legal optionality you may never use day-to-day. Most of my clients hold their Caribbean passport as a backup, not as an address change — and if you're expecting it to function like a path toward actually living in the EU, you'll be disappointed. If you're buying it as insurance rather than a tax play, the Caribbean does exactly what it's designed to do, and the 165,000 headline is mostly beside the point.
What Caribbean citizenship actually costs right now
Before the figures: the maintained, side-by-side version of this lives on my comparison page, and that's the one I keep current. What follows is the price history — how the five programs got here and when — stated as of mid-2026. If a number below and a number on /compare ever disagree, /compare is the one to trust.
Where the Caribbean genuinely earns "hub" status is application volume, and pricing has moved substantially since I bought my own second citizenship in 2022. Four OECS states — Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada and St. Kitts & Nevis — signed a Memorandum of Agreement on 20 March 2024 setting a shared US$200,000 floor; St. Lucia signed separately on 3 June 2024. Since then, all five now price above that floor — most effective July 1, 2024; Antigua & Barbuda effective August 1, 2024; and St. Kitts & Nevis's SISC rate already in place since 2023:
- St. Kitts & Nevis — the world's first CBI program, launched in 1984 — charges a $250,000 Sustainable Island State Contribution for a single applicant or family of four, with real estate starting at $325,000 ($600,000 for a private home), plus due-diligence fees of $10,000 for the main applicant and $7,500 per dependent aged 16 and over. Processing typically runs four to six months.
- Dominica, whose program followed in 1993, raised its Economic Diversification Fund donation from $100,000 to $200,000, effective 1 July 2024.
- Grenada's National Transformation Fund donation is $235,000, with real estate from $350,000 for sole ownership, or $270,000 per share where two or more buyers jointly take a tourism-accommodation unit worth at least $540,000 in total, plus a $50,000 government fee in either case. Grenada is the only program with US E-2 investor-treaty access — and it's worth being precise about the condition attached, because I've seen it stated three different ways. It is not a Grenadian residence requirement. It's a US eligibility rule: since December 2022 (Section 5901 of the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act), anyone who acquired their treaty-country citizenship through investment must have continuously maintained domicile in that country for at least three years before applying for the E-2. Buying the passport doesn't start a clock you can run from Miami — domicile means actually living there. That rule killed the "citizenship now, E-2 next month" pitch, and it's the single detail a business buyer most often gets told wrong; I've written up how the route works in practice in the E-2 visa via Grenada.
- Antigua & Barbuda's National Development Fund contribution jumped from $100,000 to $230,000 — a 130% increase — effective 1 August 2024. Alternative routes include real estate from $300,000, business investment from $1.5 million solo (or $400,000 per person as part of a joint $5 million investment, minimum two investors), and the University of the West Indies Fund at $260,000 for families of six or more.
- St. Lucia's National Economic Fund donation rose from $100,000 to $240,000 — a 140% increase — effective 1 July 2024, with alternatives including government bonds from $300,000 (five-year redemption), real estate from $300,000 (five-year hold), and an enterprise-project route the CIU publishes in three tiers — $3.5 million for a sole investor, $6 million for a joint venture at a minimum $1 million per investor, or $250,000 for an applicant with up to three qualifying dependents. The spread between those tiers is wide enough that you should confirm which one your file falls under before budgeting from the headline. Worth knowing before you apply: St. Lucia's statutory processing target is 90 days, but real-world adjudication has been running well past that amid a persistent backlog — confirm current timelines directly with the CIU or your advisor before counting on the fast-track figure.
That's the price history in brief — the regulatory shift behind it, covered next, is the more consequential part of the story right now.
The regulatory squeeze reshaping Caribbean CBI in 2026
The pricing story is only half of what's changed. The other half — a genuinely new wave of regulatory pressure — is the most newsworthy part of this whole piece.
All five governments signed the treaty establishing the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority (ECCIRA) in late September 2025, with four of the five — Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada and St. Kitts & Nevis — passing enabling legislation around the original October 2025 target, while St. Lucia's ratification was delayed by its December 2025 general election, which dissolved and reconstituted parliament. Headquartered in Grenada, ECCIRA is expected to become fully operational in 2026, bringing shared due-diligence standards and cross-border applicant registers to a market previously regulated island by island.
The five programs sit under live EU and US regulatory pressure — including a Commission demand to phase them out by 2028 that has not been acted on — which I keep current in one place rather than repeat: the regulatory-status section of my audit of all five programs.
London keeps a separate scorecard from Brussels and Washington, and it has now used it twice. The UK withdrew visa-free access from Dominican nationals effective 19 July 2023 (Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules HC 1715), citing abuse of that program. It then imposed a visa requirement on St. Lucian nationals effective 5 March 2026 (Statement of Changes HC 1695), citing a sharp rise in asylum claims alongside the border-security risk it attributes to the CBI program. Antigua & Barbuda, Grenada and St. Kitts & Nevis keep UK visa-free access for now. I spell out the instrument and the date because this is the claim I see garbled most often, in both directions — and because two things get conflated constantly: as of mid-2026, no Caribbean program has lost Schengen visa-free access or its general standing with the US. Two UK decisions, no EU suspension, and a 2028 deadline that is a warning with a transition period rather than an executed one. That distinction is the difference between a live risk you price in and a loss you plan around.
Washington has moved too: a presidential proclamation effective 1 January 2026 tightened US entry screening to address the risk of CBI-passport misuse. The programs are policing themselves harder, too — in April 2025, St. Kitts & Nevis revoked citizenship from 13 CBI recipients for non-payment, following an investigation into 158 applications tied to two marketing agents, with lifetime monitoring continuing under the Continuing International Due Diligence (CIDD) Unit it had already established in July 2024.
None of this closes the programs tomorrow. It does mean the regulatory direction is one-way — "get in before it changes further" is a more honest reason to act than "get in before the millionaire count goes up."
So why do wealthy families still buy Caribbean citizenship?
If the Caribbean isn't where millionaires physically relocate, why does demand keep climbing? Because for the families I work with, a Caribbean passport rarely stands alone — it's one piece of a diversified structure. Henley's own 2026 reporting describes a "sovereign portfolio" pattern among ultra-high-net-worth families: a tax-residency base somewhere like the UAE, paired with Caribbean citizenship chosen for a specific reason — St. Kitts for mobility, Grenada for US business-visa access. It's a structure I see repeatedly in my own practice, not a one-off — the passport is rarely the whole plan, just one deliberately chosen piece of it.
American demand tells the same story: per Henley's 2026 press materials, nearly half of all US-national applications go toward European programs, while more than a quarter target Latin America and the Caribbean specifically — layered alongside, not instead of, other options. By Henley's own booking data — an internal metric, not an audited one, but a genuine demand signal — investment-migration applications rose 64% year-over-year in Q1 2025.
The Caribbean also still ranks well on its own terms. On Henley's Global Citizenship Program Index 2026, Malta takes first at 77 out of 100, Austria second at 74, and St. Kitts & Nevis and Grenada tie for third at 67, with Antigua & Barbuda fifth at 65. The St. Kitts & Nevis passport ranks 21st on the Henley Passport Index 2026, with visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 155 destinations, including Schengen, the UK, Singapore and South Korea — a strong mobility product for a fraction of a European golden visa's price, just not the same product as the physical relocation Henley's headline is actually measuring.
How I'd think about the 165,000 headline if I were you
Having guided more than 100 families through citizenship and residency decisions in 2025 alone, here's the framework I actually use when a client brings me a number like 165,000:
- Separate the headline from the decision. Whether 165,000 or 42,000 millionaires move this year changes nothing about whether Caribbean citizenship suits your specific goal — insurance, optionality or business access, not a move to a beach.
- Weigh the regulatory trend, not the price. ECCIRA and two UK visa revocations in three years matter more to your planning than which program is cheapest this quarter.
- Decide what you're actually buying. Want to live somewhere new? Look at residency by investment in the Bahamas or Cayman. Want a passport as a backstop? Citizenship by investment is the right shelf.
- Expect the number to be replaced every June, and read the footnotes when it is. 165,000 replaced 142,000; something will replace 165,000. The top-line count is the least informative thing in the report. Three other tells matter more, and they're what I check first each year: whether the methodology section has changed, which co-authors are still named on the cover, and whether country-by-country estimates have come back. Those three told you far more about the 2026 edition than the headline did — and they're the same three questions to ask of whatever number lands next.
I keep a straight comparison of all five programs here, and if you'd rather talk it through, my advisory practice handles exactly this decision — book a call and I'll tell you plainly whether the headline even applies to you.
Key takeaways
- Henley & Partners projects 165,000 millionaire relocations globally in 2026, up from a reported 142,000 in 2025 — but the methodology behind both figures has faced credible fabrication allegations since mid-2025, and Henley's 2026 report dropped its co-author and country-level estimates.
- No Caribbean nation appears on Henley's own top-ten list of relocation destinations — the UAE, US and Saudi Arabia dominate. The Caribbean's role is citizenship acquisition, not physical relocation.
- All five OECS CBI programs now price above a $200,000 floor set in 2024, with typical entry points of $230,000–$250,000 for the donation route.
- New regulatory pressure — ECCIRA, an EU report naming CBI itself as grounds for visa suspension, and the UK's imposition of a visa requirement on St. Lucian nationals effective 5 March 2026 (HC 1695), following Dominica in July 2023 (HC 1715) — points toward more friction ahead, not less. Those are UK decisions: as of mid-2026 no Caribbean program has lost Schengen visa-free access or its general US standing.
- For most of my clients, Caribbean citizenship is one piece of a diversified "sovereign portfolio," not a substitute for a tax-residency move.
Frequently asked questions
Is the 165,000 millionaire migration figure accurate? It's a real forecast from Henley & Partners' Private Wealth Migration Report 2026, but the firm's methodology has faced credible allegations of statistical anomalies and possible fabrication since mid-2025. Henley's own 2026 edition dropped its prior co-author and abandoned country-by-country migration estimates. Treat the direction as informative and the specific number as contested.
Does Caribbean citizenship by investment count as part of this millionaire migration trend? Not directly. Henley's migration figures track people who physically relocate and establish tax residency somewhere new. Caribbean CBI grants citizenship without requiring relocation, so it doesn't appear in — and shouldn't be confused with — those inflow and outflow numbers.
Why is Caribbean CBI getting more expensive and harder to obtain? A March 2024 regional agreement set a $200,000 minimum price across the five programs, and pressure from the EU, UK and US has pushed governments toward tighter due diligence, a new regional regulator (ECCIRA), and post-citizenship compliance requirements rather than toward lower prices.
Has any Caribbean country actually lost visa-free access because of its CBI program? Two have lost it to the UK specifically: Dominica effective 19 July 2023 (HC 1715) and St. Lucia effective 5 March 2026 (HC 1695). Antigua & Barbuda, Grenada and St. Kitts & Nevis retain UK visa-free access. Nothing has been suspended on the EU side — as of mid-2026 all five keep Schengen visa-free access, under a Commission request to wind the programs down by June 2028 that has not been enforced. Antigua & Barbuda and Dominica also face US travel restrictions and reduced visa validity from January 2026. Be specific about which government you mean; "lost visa-free access" is used far too loosely.
Which Caribbean country still has the strongest CBI program? St. Kitts & Nevis and Grenada tie for third place globally on Henley's 2026 Global Citizenship Program Index, with Antigua & Barbuda close behind in fifth. St. Kitts & Nevis also holds the oldest, most established program, having launched the industry in 1984.
Should I buy a Caribbean passport because of headlines like this one? No — decide based on what you actually need it for. If the goal is genuine insurance, family mobility, or business access, Caribbean citizenship can be a strong fit regardless of how many millionaires relocate this year. If you're expecting it to function like a path to living in Europe, it's the wrong product.
