Caribbean Real Estate

I live in Nevis, my own office is at Four Seasons Resort Estates and my team works from four more across the region, and I went through the citizenship process myself in 2022 as an applicant rather than an advisor. This is the briefing I would otherwise give you on a first call.

Start with what surprises people who have closed deals everywhere else. In almost every jurisdiction here a non-citizen must ask the government’s permission before holding land. The fee ranges from a few thousand dollars to ten per cent of the price and the wait from six weeks to well over a year — getting either wrong is the commonest reason a closing slips.

Across the five citizenship islands the licence generally runs 5–10% of the price and takes three to six months. St Kitts & Nevis charges 10%, usually approved in around three months. Antigua & Barbuda charges 5%. Grenada charges 10% net of contents and asks for a police record, two character references and a banker’s reference. Dominica’s statute is written around acreage, but the Invest Dominica Authority applies its 10% fee to foreign purchases generally. St. Lucia charges flat statutory fees instead of a percentage — a Certificate of Eligibility at US$3,000 for one year or US$10,000 for ten, then a licence tiered by acreage.

The exemption is what gets misquoted, in both directions. Buy citizenship-approved real estate in St Kitts & Nevis, Antigua & Barbuda or Grenada and the licence is usually waived entirely, fee included. Dominica and St. Lucia have no equivalent blanket carve-out. I have watched a buyer budget a full 10% against a purchase that never needed it, and the opposite mistake costs more. The licence-by-licence detail for every jurisdiction I work in sits in its own guide.

Outside the citizenship five it gets harder, not easier — Anguilla adds a government interview and a two-month window to collect the licence once granted. Barbados, Cayman and Turks & Caicos impose none at all, which is part of why they price the way they do. The Bahamas is not licence-free: an owner-occupied single-family home is registered after closing, but undeveloped land, larger holdings and anything bought to rent need a permit first.

Two identical villas at US$800,000 on different islands can land a buyer six figures apart at closing. Dominica carries the heaviest buyer stack of the five — roughly 16.5% all-in on the Invest Dominica Authority’s own figures, once the 10% alien fee, stamp duty, judicial and assurance-fund charges, solicitor’s fees and VAT on those fees are added. Antigua is cleaner at about 7.5% to government before legal fees, and Grenada runs its 10% licence plus roughly 1% stamp duty and 2% legal. In St Kitts & Nevis stamp duty is vendor-paid and the rate is genuinely disputed between sources I otherwise trust, so I confirm it with the attorney on the file rather than quote it. And Grenada’s widely cited 15% property transfer tax is vendor-side on a non-national seller, not a buyer cost — I have seen it budgeted as one.

The unlicensed markets have their own arithmetic. A non-Bahamian pays a flat 10% VAT on the conveyance regardless of price. Cayman charges a one-time 7.5% stamp duty, rising to 10% above CI$2 million from 1 January 2026. Barbados applies no foreign-buyer surcharge, but purchase funds must be registered with the Central Bank of Barbados to preserve the right to take them out again — the most-missed step I see on a Barbados file.

Currency is the dull part, which is how you want it: the Eastern Caribbean dollar has been fixed at EC$2.70 to US$1 since 1976. Financing is not dull — expect 50–70% loan-to-value, rates near 5–7% in Barbados, the Bahamas and Cayman and materially higher across the smaller islands, and three to six months to funding. A villa you cannot finance is, in practice, a cash purchase.

I sell property here and I still open with this. Hurricane Beryl became the earliest Category 5 ever recorded in the Atlantic when it struck Grenada’s Carriacou on 1 July 2024, and preliminary assessments found 98% of structures on Carriacou and Petite Martinique damaged or destroyed — on an island long marketed as sitting below the hurricane belt. Melissa hit western Jamaica as a Category 5 in October 2025, after which CCRIF, the region’s catastrophe risk facility, made the largest payouts in its history.

Insurers have repriced accordingly — double-digit premium increases in the more exposed markets, several carriers withdrawing from the highest-risk islands. The response is unglamorous: concrete, elevation above surge, rated roofs and shutters, and a written insurance quote on the actual building before you sign. On some islands the line between insurable and uninsurable is the line between an asset and a liability.

Then the island keeps charging you. Association dues in comparable resort communities typically run US$1,000–4,500 a year, north of US$10,000 once club dues stack on, with condominium fees commonly US$400–900 a month, and electricity averages around US$0.25 per kilowatt-hour — more than double the US average. “There is no property tax in the Caribbean” is an overclaim: true in Cayman, false in the Bahamas, Barbados, Antigua and most of the region.

The most misreported number in Caribbean rental marketing is occupancy, because platforms measure booked nights against available nights rather than the calendar. Block a month for your own use and it leaves the denominator. Against a real year, the Bahamas has recently run near 52% occupancy at a US$249 average daily rate and median revenue around US$48,000, and Providenciales sits in the same band despite far higher nightly rates. Barbados is the honest outlier at roughly 68%.

Full-service management typically takes 20–35% of gross revenue, and governments keep closing the gap that made self-management pay. What produces dependable income is branded, professionally managed product, where the operator carries distribution, staffing, institutional-scale insurance and compliance. Savills puts the average global premium for branded residences at 33% over comparable non-branded homes, rising to 39% in resort locations. I think that premium is rational rather than vanity, and the entry price for a genuine rental program starts north of US$1 million. The full arithmetic is here; the short version is buy the flag, or buy for reasons other than income.

Around US$300,000. Citizenship-threshold territory, and these are government figures rather than asking prices. Antigua & Barbuda sets a flat US$300,000 real-estate minimum whether one buyer takes it or several. St Kitts & Nevis qualifies approved developments from US$325,000 with a seven-year resale hold. St. Lucia sits at US$300,000 and Dominica at US$200,000, the lowest in the region. Grenada asks US$350,000 from a sole buyer, or US$270,000 per share on a qualifying joint purchase totalling US$540,000 or more, plus a US$50,000 government contribution either way. That buys a share in a resort condominium or a deeded fraction — on the villas I represent, a one-tenth interest from US$325,000 with roughly 12 days of guaranteed annual use.

Around US$1 million. Where a branded residence with a real rental program begins, and where the operator starts absorbing the problems above. One-bedroom residences at Four Seasons Resort Estates Nevis have started around US$1.4 million and Secret Bay’s new waterfront villas near the same — phased releases move, so my team confirms pricing with the sales office rather than a printed list.

Around US$5 million. Whole-villa ownership in the best-located schemes. A whole villa at Pinney’s Beach on Nevis has run close to US$4 million; waterfront lots in Antigua start around US$1.75 million, beachfront residences on Barbuda from around US$7 million. At this level price stops being the constraint; insurability, title and the developer’s completion record become it.

US citizens and green-card holders remain taxed by the United States on worldwide income regardless of a second citizenship, and none of the five Caribbean programs has a US income tax treaty. Rental income is reportable, the foreign accounts opened to run the property are reportable, and the ownership structure belongs with your own cross-border counsel before title is taken, not after. Buying here changes your cost base and where you spend your winters. It does not change your filing obligation.

The region is not uniformly tax-free either: of the five citizenship islands, only St Kitts & Nevis and Antigua & Barbuda levy no personal income tax on residents, while Dominica taxes up to 35%, St. Lucia up to 30% and Grenada up to 28%. Where tax is genuinely the objective, Act 60 and Anguilla’s flat tax are what I price against everything else, alongside your own advisers in international tax planning.