Caribbean Ranks Top Place in CIP

For the third year in a row, the Caribbean island of Dominica has been ranked the best citizenship by investment program by the CBI index.

The PWM (Professional Wealth Management) has released the CBI index for 2019 with the results showing that the top five citizenship by investment programs around the world are located in the Caribbean.

Dominica ranked highest, breaking records with the highest recorded score of 91%. St Kitts and Nevis followed closely alongside Grenada at 89% and 87% respectively. St Lucia ranked higher this year achieving 4^th place with 84% compared to last year when it ranked 5^th. Antigua and Barbuda dropped one place ranking 5^th at 79%.

The CBI index reaches its total score by assessing the following pillars for each citizenship by Investment program:

Freedom of Movement
Standard of Living
Minimum Investment Outlay
Mandatory Travel or Residence
Citizenship Timeline
Ease of Processing
Due Diligence

The CBI Index stated:

Overall, it was the combination of

extensive due diligence with efficiency, speed, affordability, and reliability

that brought Dominica to the top spot,

Adding “St Kitts and Nevis also maintained its upward trajectory regarding visa-free and visa-on-arrival offerings and continued to demonstrate its commitment to enhanced due diligence,” with the scoring of Citizenship Timeline particularly impressive due to its unique Accelerated Application Process (AAP).

The results revealed that St Lucia ranked higher that Antigua and Barbuda for the first time due to factors such as freedom of movement, speed, and due diligence playing vital roles.

On the whole, it is clear that important industry factors such as transparency, experience, and enhanced security ensured that the Caribbean nations carried the success from previous years into 2019 outranking other programs once again.

The rankings altogether included 13 countries that were assessed by researcher James McKay. The countries included are Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cyprus, Dominica, Grenada, Jordan, Malta, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, Turkey, and Vanuatu.

The lowest scoring of all the countries is Jordan at 51% with Austria and Cambodia not far off with a joint score of 54%.