Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) still intends to open a citizenship by investment (CBI) program, Prime Minister Godwin Friday said this week. His government, however, envisages something other than “a citizenship by investment program in the old sense.” He floated the first quarter of 2027 as a possible start, though he hedged even that.
Friday spoke to Andre Huie, Managing Director and News Editor of Television Caribbean, on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group Annual Meetings in Bangkok.
The Saint Kitts-based channel published the 13-minute interview on October 14. Citizenship came up only in its closing minutes, after questions on disaster recovery and electricity subsidies, and was not the main focus of the interview.
A different model
Asked whether the program survived the mounting hostility toward CBI, Friday conceded the headwinds but argued the opportunity had not gone away.
He cited Argentina, which he said had just announced a program of its own, and unnamed European countries doing the same, even though Malta had to shut down its CBI program after the EU took the matter to the European Court of Justice and won, while Cyprus unceremoniously closed its program after the Al Jazeera Cyprus Papers debacle.
According to Friday, the government aims to answer the objections of the European Union (EU) and other states while preserving the program’s benefits. He says his model would carry considerably more due diligence and closer management from the center through the government’s own unit.
It would also involve coordination within the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and a monitoring role for the central bank.
A consultancy is now designing the program around those adjustments and the concerns raised abroad, Friday said. He named neither the firm nor the central bank, and offered no detail on what monitoring would entail. SVG and the five Eastern Caribbean states that already sell citizenship share a monetary authority in the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB).
Friday added that his OECS counterparts who run programs are actively considering the matter and making adjustments of their own, with the central bank integral to that work. Goodwill on both sides, he contended, could yield a productive resolution with the objecting states.
Shifting timeline
The new target pushes back every date Friday has set since taking office. Weeks after his New Democratic Party (NDP) ended 24 years of Unity Labour Party (ULP) government in the November 2025 election, he promised a program in 2026.
His first budget, presented in February, set mid-2026. It also promised a residency requirement, continuous due diligence for the life of the citizenship, and a ring-fenced national investment fund to receive all proceeds. As late as May, Friday still spoke of a program due this year and walled off from ministers and the political directorate.
Philippe May, Founder and CEO of EC Holdings, told IMI that Friday’s policy “has been consistent since he took over government responsibility from the ULP at the end of last year.”
May, who argued last November that SVG was ready for a program, tied the plan to the election result. “The people of SVG have voted his NDP into office because they want the party manifesto implemented, and that includes the setup of a CBI program,” he said.
SVG remains the only independent OECS member without a CBI program.
Brussels pressure
That status kept SVG off the European Commission’s mailing list in June. Brussels wrote to Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts & Nevis, and Saint Lucia, asking each to phase out its program by June 1, 2028, according to Antigua & Barbuda’s government.
Behind the letters sits Regulation (EU) 2025/2441, in force since December 30, 2025, which made the operation of an investor citizenship program grounds for suspending visa-free travel to the EU. The rule covers citizenship granted for pre-determined payments or investments to people without a genuine link to the country. Friday did not say how a redesigned program would fare against that definition.
May framed the matter as Kingstown’s alone. “As a sovereign country, SVG cannot accept foreign interference in an internal matter of such great importance,” he said.
Using the market shorthand for residence and citizenship by investment (RCBI), he predicted a program unlike any other: “It should not surprise anyone when we see a new RCBI program, sui generis.”
SVG has also stayed close to the regional response. Its prime minister attended the July 10 summit in Roseau where the five CBI states agreed on a joint response to Brussels. Their statement listed him separately from the participating states.
On September 24, Saint Lucia’s Philip J. Pierre and Antigua & Barbuda’s Gaston Browne met Magnus Brunner, the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, in New York. ECCB Governor Timothy Antoine attended too, and neither side announced an agreement.
IMF caution
The IMF’s 2026 Article IV staff report on SVG, the Fund’s annual review of its economy, found that a CBI program could raise some revenue. Regional competition would likely keep gains modest, staff wrote, while reputational, legal, financial integrity, and fiscal risks could prove substantial.
Staff recommended a simple donation-only model over real estate or other investment routes, and urged that all proceeds go to debt reduction. According to the report, the authorities had asked the Fund for input on the program’s design.
Public debt reached 113% of GDP in 2025, the report noted, and Friday cited the same figure to Huie in describing the fiscal position his government inherited.
