Grenada Citizenship by Investment

Grenada’s citizenship-by-investment program, established in 2013, starts at US$235,000 as a non-refundable contribution to the National Transformation Fund, or from US$350,000 in approved real estate for a sole buyer. Grenada publishes four to six months from a complete file; agent-reported averages run nearer seven. A Grenadian passport carries visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to approximately 147 destinations (Henley Passport Index, 2026). It suits the entrepreneur whose eventual destination is the United States — Grenada is the only Caribbean CBI country with a US E-2 investor-visa treaty, though a 2022 US rule requires a period of domicile before it can be used — and the family that wants the region’s least politically exposed program.

Almost everything an international buyer shortlists sits on Grenada’s southwest corner: St. George’s around its harbour, with the Carenage and Port Louis Marina; Grand Anse below it, with the resort strip, the schools and the supermarkets; the True Blue peninsula beside the airport, where St. George’s University underpins year-round rental demand; and La Sagesse on the quieter south-east coast, where two international resort brands now operate. Grenada is greener, quieter and less polished than Antigua or Nevis, and buyers either take to that or they do not.

Grenada is the strategic choice among the five Caribbean programs, and the one the practice recommends first to US-focused entrepreneurs. It is also the cleanest on record: the only Caribbean CBI state never targeted by a US, UK or Canadian restriction, left off the June 2025 State Department memo that named the other four and absent from the December 2025 US proclamation that placed partial entry restrictions on Antigua & Barbuda and Dominica. It is the only one of the five publishing detailed quarterly program statistics — roughly US$412 million of revenue and more than 5,400 new citizens in 2024, then just 191 applications in the first half of 2025 as vetting tightened.

A single applicant gets poor value from Grenada: the fund figure does not shrink for one person. For a couple with two children, or an entrepreneur whose destination is eventually the United States, nothing else in the region compares.

Approximately 147 destinations visa-free or visa-on-arrival (Henley Passport Index, 2026), plus visa-free access to China held since 2015 — for anyone working across Asia, often more useful day to day than the headline count. Two clarifications belong on every file. A Caribbean passport confers no visa-free entry to the United States: none of the five programs joins the US Visa Waiver Program, and holders still need a standard B-1/B-2 visitor visa. And Grenada retains UK visa-free access, which Dominica lost in July 2023 and St. Lucia lost in March 2026 — a distinction that should shape the decision for any family with British ties. Treat every count as perishable.

Dan holds his own second citizenship — Antigua & Barbuda, contribution route, granted 2022 — has guided more than 100 families through Caribbean citizenship and residency, and works from offices across the Eastern Caribbean. For how Grenada sits against its neighbours, see the side-by-side comparison of all five programs.

Those are government thresholds, not estimates. The fund figure does not fall for a single applicant, the opposite of how most buyers assume these programs are priced. And the real-estate route is not a US$270,000 route: with the non-refundable US$50,000 contribution on top, the realistic floor is US$320,000, roughly US$85,000 above the fund for a five-year hold and an asset that resells into a thin market. The rest of the stack — due diligence charged per adult applicant, government processing per file, legal and agent costs, and the maths on a fifth dependant — is what the strategy call is for.

Five stages, in order: a strategy call to settle route and family composition; appointment of an authorised agent and assembly of the due-diligence file; the qualifying investment; submission, government background checks and an online interview for every applicant aged 17 and over; then approval and passports.

Grenada publishes four to six months from a complete application and is one of the few programs where files broadly run to it — agent-reported averages sit near seven months, against roughly fourteen for Antigua and eighteen for St. Lucia. What moves the date is the completeness of the file, not the program. No visit is required before or after citizenship under current rules, though a 30-day aggregate presence standard has been working through all five programs under the regional regulator, ECCIRA, headquartered in Grenada; rollout has slipped past its original mid-2026 target, so the live position is confirmed on each file.

Grenada is the only Caribbean citizenship-by-investment country with a US E-2 Treaty Investor Visa, in force since 1989. It matters most to nationals of countries with no E-2 treaty of their own, where a Grenadian passport becomes the workaround; it is worth nothing to someone who already holds US citizenship.

The AMIGOS Act provision in the FY2023 National Defense Authorization Act, signed in December 2022, requires anyone who acquired treaty-country citizenship through investment to demonstrate a continuous period of domicile — at least three years — before qualifying for an E-1 or E-2 visa. Domicile is a legal-ties concept rather than a day-count, the statute does not define it, and as of early 2026 immigration attorneys reported no confirmed denial under it. So neither “instant E-2” nor “three straight years of residence” is accurate. A Grenadian passport acquired this year does not support an E-2 filing next year, and quoting the advantage without the domicile caveat is the clearest signal of a sale rather than advice.

Program risk here is the lowest of the five, and it is not zero. The EU rebuilt its visa-suspension mechanism in late December 2025 so that operating a citizenship-by-investment program is itself grounds for suspension, and in a letter dated 25 June 2026 the European Commission asked all five governments to phase their programs out by 1 June 2028. No Caribbean program has actually lost EU access — that is a demand, not an action — but it is a live standoff. Buy the passport for what it does now, and build in the possibility that the map moves before your document does.

Grenada levies no capital gains or inheritance tax and does not tax the foreign income of non-residents. That is a statement about the jurisdiction, not about an American: the United States taxes its citizens on worldwide income wherever they live, none of the five programs sits under a US income tax treaty, and FATCA follows the person rather than the travel document. A second citizenship is insurance and optionality, not a tax play — the argument in full is on the second citizenship for Americans page.

The real-estate route runs only through government-approved projects, and that list is not static. The practice represents these developments first-hand through its St. Kitts & Nevis Sotheby’s International Realty affiliation, and confirms each unit’s standing against the current list before an offer is made.

Two structures sit side by side on this island and behave differently once owned. Freehold title is a deed to hold, use and resell into the open market. A share is a designated interest in an approved scheme: it satisfies the program cleanly and can be resold after the five-year hold without disturbing the citizenship it secured, but into a thinner, more specialised market. A buyer picturing a home to pass to their children and a buyer wanting the most efficient route to a passport are shopping for opposite things.

Pre-completion stock is not placed without naming the risk: a 2027 delivery is a developer’s schedule, not a promise, and the payment structure should reflect it. Price bands, the addresses worth walking and how a foreigner takes title are mapped in the Grenada real-estate market guide, with current inventory in the live listings. Pricelists, floorplans and underwriting sit in the private dataroom, released on a call.