Caribbean Citizenship by Investment and the EU's 2028 Phase-Out Request: How the Five Programmes Compare

None of the five governments has announced a change to programme terms because of the EU request. A full side-by-side comparison of eligibility, family inclusion, real estate options and processing time for all five programmes is in the Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Compared guide.

In a letter dated 25 June 2026, EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner asked Antigua and Barbuda's government to phase out its citizenship by investment programme by 1 June 2028, citing the EU's revised visa-suspension framework. Antigua and Barbuda's government confirmed the letter publicly on 7 July 2026, including two requested interim measures due by September 2026: excluding applicants subject to EU restrictive measures, and reinforcing vetting for all nationalities ^{[1]Government of Antigua and Barbuda — Government responds to EU communication on CIP}.

Regional reporting, corroborated by two independent regional outlets, describes equivalent letters going to Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Lucia ^{[3]Investment Migration Insider — End CBI by June 2028 or Risk Schengen Access: EU Writes to Caribbean States, Antigua Says}. My Golden Visa has not located each of those four governments' own primary-source confirmation of the letter's exact wording; treat the specific terms of those four letters as reported, not as confirmed government statements, until each government publishes its own account.

The request rests on Regulation (EU) 2025/2441, in force since 30 December 2025, which added a new ground for the EU to suspend a country's visa waiver: operating an investor citizenship scheme that grants citizenship for a pre-determined payment without a genuine link to the country ^{[4]EUR-Lex — Regulation (EU) 2025/2441}. Under this framework, running a citizenship by investment programme is itself treated as a risk factor for visa suspension, independent of how well the programme is administered.

On 10 July 2026, the five Heads of Government met in Roseau, Dominica, and issued a joint statement welcoming continued technical dialogue with the Commission while stressing that citizenship by investment revenue funds significant development spending that cannot simply be withdrawn ^{[5]Investment Migration Insider — Caribbean CBI States Submit Joint Response to EU "Phase-Out" Demand}. The statement did not accept the 1 June 2028 deadline; it treated the matter as open to negotiation.

Saint Lucia's Ministry of Legal Affairs reported that Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre and regional officials met the EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration on 24 September 2026 to discuss the future of Eastern Caribbean citizenship by investment ^{[2]Government of Saint Lucia, Ministry of Legal Affairs — Prime Minister Pierre and regional officials meet EU Commissioner on future of citizenship by investment}. The statement describes continued dialogue and a possible transition path. It does not enact a closure, set a deadline for applicants, or change St Lucia's published programme rules. Three months on from the July joint statement, this is the clearest sign that the five governments and the Commission remain in the same negotiating posture: engaged, but without a settled outcome.

Two other Antigua-specific developments are sometimes discussed alongside the EU request. Neither is a step in that process, and neither has changed how any of the five programmes operates today.

On 10 June 2026, Antigua and Barbuda's Cabinet confirmed a domestic Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Bill, 2026, for first reading ^{[6]Government of Antigua and Barbuda — Cabinet Meeting notes, 10 June 2026}. The Bill had reached only first reading as of this article's publication date, has not been enacted, and does not appear in Antigua and Barbuda's official Bills or Acts registers. Antigua and Barbuda's programme continues to operate under the Citizenship by Investment Act 2013, as amended through 2021, until any 2026 amendment is enacted and gazetted.

Separately, on 10 July 2026, the CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security and the United States Department of Homeland Security signed a Memorandum of Cooperation covering all five jurisdictions, allowing participating governments to exchange biometric and biographical data ^{[7]CARICOM IMPACS — CARICOM IMPACS and DHS sign MoC to strengthen regional screening and border security}. It is an agreement between government agencies, not a change to any country's citizenship law, and it does not add a new document, biometric requirement, or fee at the applicant level on its own.

Each of the five programmes continues to accept and process applications under its current published investment routes, fees, and eligibility rules.

Dominica, one of the two programmes without a residency requirement, remains the lowest entry point of the five: USD 200,000 to the Economic Diversification Fund for a single applicant, or USD 250,000 for a family of up to four ^{[3]Investment Migration Insider — End CBI by June 2028 or Risk Schengen Access: EU Writes to Caribbean States, Antigua Says}. Antigua and Barbuda's National Development Fund starts at USD 230,000; Grenada's National Transformation Fund at USD 235,000; St Lucia's National Economic Fund at USD 240,000; and St Kitts and Nevis' Sustainable Island State Contribution at USD 250,000. Full requirements, family-inclusion rules, and real estate alternatives for each programme are set out in the Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Compared guide.

Successful applicants under all five programmes receive a certificate of naturalisation; passport issuance follows as a separate administrative step. Investment amounts, fees, and eligibility rules are set by each programme's own government and are subject to change independently of the EU process described above.

The EU's revised visa-suspension mechanism lets the Commission propose suspending a country's Schengen visa waiver where it identifies a qualifying risk, which now includes operating an investor citizenship scheme ^{[4]EUR-Lex — Regulation (EU) 2025/2441}. A suspension, if it happened, would mean citizens of the affected country as a group, not only CBI applicants, would need a Schengen visa before travelling.

No such suspension has been proposed or adopted against any of the five countries. The phase-out request is presented by the Commission as an alternative to that outcome, not a step that has already produced it. Citizenship already granted under any of the five programmes is unaffected: the EU mechanism concerns future visa policy toward a country's nationals as a group, not the validity of individual citizenship grants already issued.

Regulation (EU) 2025/2441 targets investor citizenship schemes run by visa-exempt third countries outside the EU ^{[4]EUR-Lex — Regulation (EU) 2025/2441}. It does not reach residence by investment programmes operated by EU member states themselves, because those grant a national residence permit rather than third-country citizenship. An investor comparing Dominica's Economic Diversification Fund against, for example, Latvia's Golden Visa is comparing two different legal outcomes with different risk profiles, not two versions of the same product. Dominica grants citizenship and a passport, with no residency requirement and one of the lowest entry costs among the five Caribbean programmes; it currently sits inside the specific EU pressure described in this article, even though no closure has happened. A residence by investment route inside the EU or Schengen area grants a permit, not a passport, and typically requires a longer path to citizenship through standard naturalisation, but it falls outside the scope of the regulation behind this request.

Neither route is a default answer. An investor who wants a second passport quickly, values Dominica's lower cost and no-residency structure, and can tolerate ongoing regulatory uncertainty over the multi-year horizon to 2028 has reasonable grounds to proceed with Caribbean citizenship by investment today, since all five programmes remain open and unchanged. An investor who prioritises long-term certainty over speed, or who specifically wants EU residence rights alongside eventual citizenship, has reason to weight an EU-based route more heavily. The right choice depends on the investor's timeline, mobility goals, and tolerance for the multi-year uncertainty described in this article, and is best assessed against current official requirements in a direct consultation rather than decided from this article alone.

• Whether the five governments will agree to any phase-out. The 10 July 2026 joint statement did not accept the request; both it and Saint Lucia's 24 September update describe continued negotiation.
• Whether the EU will move to suspend visa-free access if the request is not met. A phase-out request is a step short of a suspension decision.
• What a phase-out would mean in practice for applications already in progress or approved, since no government has published transition or grandfathering terms.
• The exact wording of the letters reportedly sent to Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Lucia, which My Golden Visa has not been able to verify against each government's own primary source at the time of writing.
• Whether Antigua and Barbuda's domestic amendment bill will be enacted, and in what form, given it remains at first reading.

Given this uncertainty, this article does not state that any of the five programmes is closed, suspended, or legally scheduled to end, and readers should treat any claim to the contrary, including from other publishers, with caution unless it cites an official government or EU source.

My Golden Visa's lawyers track official government and EU sources on this development and verify each of the five programmes' current terms against its own authority before advising a client. If you are weighing whether to proceed with Dominica or another Caribbean programme now, wait for more clarity, or compare an EU residence route instead, speak with a My Golden Visa adviser about your specific timeline and family situation.