Most people price an investment migration program for themselves, a spouse, and children. The question about a parent arrives later, often after the money is committed and the file is open, when the answer is already fixed.
Three programs admit no parent at all, three admit one at any age, and the number the market quotes for the rest is an age that decides less than it appears to.
What every program does the same way
A parent or grandparent enters as a dependant of the main applicant, never as an applicant in their own right.
The same structure decides what happens to a child born after the grant. Each one is priced per head and screened as an adult.
The Caribbean now spells the second part out. Under the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority Agreement Bill 2025, the interview requirement reaches any dependant who “is eighteen (18) years of age or older at the time of the application”.
The one escape is a waiver where “exceptional circumstances exist such as mental incapacity or other medical condition that would render an interview impracticable”. An elderly parent is an interviewee by default, and the way around it is medical.
The programs that admit no parent
Turkey
Turkey’s investor route works through article 12(1)(b) of Citizenship Law No. 5901. The clause reaches applicants “and their alien spouses and the underage and dependent alien children of them”.
The enumeration stops at children, so a parent has no place in it.
The United States EB-5 program
The EB-5 derivative rule is 8 U.S.C. 1153(d), which extends status to “a spouse or child as defined in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), (D), or (E) of section 1101(b)(1)”.
Congress wrote the list, and a parent is outside it. An EB-5 investor who wants a parent in the United States uses a different petition.
Cyprus
Cyprus removed ascendants from its fast-track permanent residence route. The Migration Department’s current criteria, at the 4th Revision of May 2023, cover “his/her spouse and their children under the age of 18 as dependent persons”, with a separate paragraph for unmarried children between 18 and 25 in tertiary education.
Parents and parents-in-law appear nowhere in that section. Advisers who remember Cyprus as a program for extended families are remembering the version before May 2023.
Parents yes, grandparents no
Portugal
Portugal admits a parent through article 99 of Law 23/2007. The Foreign Ministry’s visa portal gives the category as “os ascendentes na linha reta e em 1.º grau do residente ou do seu cônjuge, desde que se encontrem a seu cargo”, meaning direct-line ascendants in the first degree of the resident or their spouse, provided they are dependent on them.
First degree means a parent. A grandparent is second degree and falls outside the clause.
There is no age in the wording at all, so the whole question is dependency.
The same page adds a detail that surprises families. Only the spouse and ascendants pay the administrative visa fee, which Portugal waives for descendants.
Italy
Italy routes investor families through article 29(1)(d) of Legislative Decree 286/1998, which the investor visa’s own guidance confirms governs the question.
The clause admits “dependent parents, if they do not have any other children in the country of origin”. It then adds a second branch, “or parents over 65 years of age, if the other children are unable to support them due to serious and duly documented health conditions”.
Both branches are narrower than they first appear. A dependent parent of any age qualifies only where no other children remain in the country of origin, and the over-65 branch asks for documented medical evidence that the siblings cannot support the parent.
A wealthy applicant with healthy siblings at home can fail both branches.
Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia admits “a parent of the applicant or of his or her spouse who is above fifty-five years of age and who is fully supported by the applicant”, plus a parent of any age who is physically or mentally challenged and fully supported.
Grandparents are absent from Saint Lucia’s official dependant list. Of the five Caribbean programs, it is the only one naming no grandparent category at all.
Hungary
Hungary’s Guest Investor Program uses ordinary family reunification law instead of a bespoke investor clause. The immigration directorate lists a “dependent parent of a sponsor or his/her spouse” as one category, and treats “the sibling and ascendant family member of a sponsor or his/her spouse” as a separate, narrower one, open only where that person “is unable to support him/herself due to health reasons”.
A grandparent falls in the second group. Ordinary financial dependency does not reach them, and no age threshold appears in the official text for either category.
Jordan
Jordan’s amended investor criteria extend citizenship to the investor’s spouse, dependent daughters, unmarried sons under 24, and dependent parents.
That account rests on Jordanian press reporting rather than a published instrument, so treat the detail as reported. No Tier 1 text setting out the amended criteria has been published.
Parents and grandparents, once they reach an age
Dominica
Dominica sets the highest age floor in the market.
Its principal regulations, S.R.O. No. 8 of 2024, define a dependant to include “parents or grandparents of the main applicant or the spouse of the main applicant above the age of sixty-five years who are substantially supported by the main applicant”.
The instrument and the Citizenship by Investment Unit’s public guidance agree on 65, which is not something to take for granted in this market.
There is no requirement to live together. Dominica asks only that the support be substantial.
Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda admits “a parent or grandparent of the main applicant, or his or her spouse, who is 55 years of age or older and who is financially dependent on the principal applicant”.
The phrasing is looser than its neighbors use. Where Grenada and Saint Lucia ask for full support, Antigua and Barbuda asks for financial dependence without a qualifier in front of it.
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Kitts and Nevis is the one program whose own website disagrees with itself. The eligibility page admits “parents of the main applicant or the spouse of the main applicant aged 55 or over, living with and fully supported by the main applicant”, naming no grandparent.
The application process page on the same government domain says an applicant may include “dependent parents or grandparents (aged 55 and above)”.
Both pages were live on the same day. Anyone planning around a grandparent here should get the position in writing before filing.
Saint Kitts and Nevis is also the last Caribbean program whose current text asks a parent to be “living with” the main applicant. The consolidated 2017 edition of the statute set the age at sixty-five with the same cohabitation condition, so the age has moved since and the condition has not.
Nauru
Nauru writes ascendants into the statute. Section 3 of the Nauru Economic and Climate Resilience Citizenship Act 2024 covers “a parent or grandparent of the Principal Applicant or of his or her spouse, above the age of 55 years who is fully supported by the Principal Applicant”.
That text has since been amended. The Speaker certified the Nauru Economic Climate Resilience Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2026 as Act No. 13 of 2026 on 31 March 2026.
Nauru has not published the amending Act’s operative text, so whether the age floor survived is a question for the program authority rather than something the published law answers.
São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe admits “spouse, de facto partners, children up to 30 years and parents/grandparents from 55 years old”, per its Citizenship Investment Unit.
The programs with no age floor at all
Grenada
Grenada is where the market’s reporting has drifted furthest from the statute.
The Grenada Citizenship by Investment Act No. 15 of 2013 admitted “parents or grandparents of the main applicant or his or her spouse above the age of sixty-five years living with and fully supported by the main applicant”. That was the strictest clause in the Caribbean, an age floor and a cohabitation test together.
The Grenada Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Act No. 3 of 2019 repealed that paragraph and put two in its place.
Paragraph (e) covers “a parent or grandparent of the main applicant or his or her spouse above the age of fifty-five years fully supported by the main applicant or his or her spouse”. Paragraph (f) covers “a parent or grandparent of the main applicant or his or her spouse not exceeding the age of fifty-five years and fully supported by the main applicant or his or her spouse”.
Together the two paragraphs cover every age on the calendar. Grenada abolished its age floor rather than lowering it, and deleted the words “living with” in the same amendment.
So the fifty-five that advisers quote for Grenada is a pricing boundary. The Investment Migration Agency’s fee page applies the flat family contribution “except for siblings, parents, and grandparents age 55yrs and under”, and charges “USD 25,000/50,000 per additional dependant after the third dependant”.
A parent aged 55 or under therefore falls outside the flat family price. The age band sets what the family pays and leaves eligibility untouched.
Malta
Malta’s permanent residence program, the MPRP, admits both generations and says so without hedging. Residency Malta Agency’s guidance confirms that “a parent or grandparent of the main applicant or of his/her spouse who proves to the satisfaction of the Agency that at the time of application he/she is principally dependant on the main applicant, is eligible as a dependant”.
Asked whether an ascendant must be above a certain age, the Agency answers: “No, there is no age threshold.”
Malta wants the relationship documented and the dependency sworn. An applicant provides an affidavit confirming support, plus birth certificates tracing the line where a grandparent is involved.
Greece
Greece has the most generous wording in Europe, and it appears in a different article from the one advisers usually cite. Article 100 has no family clause at all, while the family clause for investor permits is article 95(2) of the Migration Code as published in 2023.
Its fourth category reads “οι απευθείας ανιόντες των συζύγων ή συμβίων”, the direct ascendants of the spouses or partners.
No degree limits that phrase, so a grandparent and a great-grandparent are within it. No age qualifies it, and no dependency test attaches to it, which is unusual enough to be worth checking against current practice before relying on it.
The same subsection caps children at 21 in the two paragraphs immediately above, so the silence on ascendants is a drafting choice rather than an oversight.
Two programs where the market and the government disagree
Vanuatu is widely marketed as admitting parents once they reach their fifties.
The Citizenship Office’s published fee schedule for the investment route describes an applicant, a spouse, and one child under 18. No parent or grandparent category appears anywhere on it.
The underlying regulation was not available to check against, so the position is unresolved. A family counting on a parent should ask the Citizenship Office directly.
The United Arab Emirates is the second case. Official federal guidance describes golden visa sponsorship of a spouse and children of any age and does not name parents.
Absence from a list is not the same as a prohibition, and no official text found for this article settles it either way.
The dependency test is the gate that decides
With the ages set aside, the pattern shows up in the verbs.
Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Saint Kitts and Nevis ask for a parent “fully supported” by the applicant. Dominica asks for “substantially supported”, a lower bar on its face.
Antigua and Barbuda asks for “financially dependent”. Malta asks for “principally dependant” and wants an affidavit behind it.
Portugal asks that the parent be “a seu cargo”, in the applicant’s charge.
Those formulas are not interchangeable, and none of them is defined by a figure. A file succeeds or fails on documents such as remittance records, an affidavit, and proof that the parent has no independent income.
Greece is the outlier that asks for nothing at all.
The practical consequence is the opposite of what the age tables suggest. A parent in her seventies with her own pension can fail Malta’s test on the documents, while age alone would have admitted her.
The main applicant you choose changes who qualifies
Elena Ruda, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Immigrant Invest, agrees that “age limits alone rarely decide who qualifies”.
“In practice, the room to manoeuvre comes from planning the family composition,” Ruda argues.
Ruda’s example is Greece, where “choosing an adult child as the main applicant on a Greece Golden Visa application extends coverage to the direct ascendants of both spouses without age thresholds or dependency tests.”
Parents who invest cannot include a son or daughter aged 21 or older, because Greek law admits a dependent child below that age.
For “families requiring broader horizontal coverage”, Ruda points to Antigua and Barbuda, whose official dependant list admits an unmarried sibling of the main applicant or of the spouse.
The same list names the future spouse of a dependent child aged 35 or under, and a future child of a dependent child.
What a parent adds to the bill
Caribbean programs price an ascendant by age band rather than by relationship, so a parent lands in the adult bracket.
Dominica charges “forty thousand United States dollars for any additional dependant eighteen years of age or older” at the time of application, plus US$4,000 for due diligence.
Adding the same parent after the main applicant becomes a citizen costs “fifty thousand United States dollars”. That drops to twenty-five thousand dollars where the family files within a year of the grant.
Antigua and Barbuda charges US$4,000 in due diligence for a dependent parent aged 55 and over, and US$50,000 to add a dependant aged 18 and over after approval.
Saint Kitts and Nevis charges US$7,500 in due diligence per dependant aged 16 or older, and US$30,000 to add a qualified dependant after approval in principle. Saint Lucia charges US$25,000 for a qualifying dependant of a citizen other than a spouse.
Malta is the cheapest credible option for an extended family, at “an additional fee of €7,500 per parent and grandparent”.
A family bringing two parents and two grandparents pays €7,500 a head in Malta. The same four ascendants each attract Dominica’s adult-dependant charge at the time of application, before due diligence.
Ruda believes that “the size of the application matters beyond eligibility: it is a long-term financial strategy.”
“In residence programmes such as the Greece Golden Visa, each added dependant can add government fees, mandatory health insurance, and recurring renewal expenses for as long as the permit is held,” Ruda notes.
Before you count on bringing a parent
Read the instrument before the brochure. Grenada’s Act abandoned its minimum age in 2019 while its fee page prices by an age band, and Saint Kitts and Nevis publishes two answers on grandparents on one domain.
Ask what the dependency test needs in documents, and ask early. A parent with a pension, a property, or a business is the case that fails, and no amount of investment fixes it after filing.
Decide who files as the main applicant before you commit the money. Ruda advises clients “to set out the whole family picture at the start: identifying the right main applicant first helps avoid eligibility problems later and keep ongoing costs predictable.”
Where the plan depends on a grandparent, the field narrows to Malta, Greece, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Nauru, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Portugal, Italy, and Saint Lucia will take your parents and stop there.
