Antigua & Barbuda has introduced amendments to its Citizenship by Investment Act 2013 that will subject the Citizenship by Investment Unit (CIU) to annual independent financial audits and biennial operational audits, and raise the post-citizenship residency requirement from five days to 30.
Prime Minister Gaston Browne presented the Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Bill 2026 in Parliament on Tuesday, the Antigua Observer reports.
The bill’s stated purpose is alignment with the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority (ECCIRA) Agreement, the framework adopted by the five Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) countries operating CBI programs. The regional regulator is expected to become operational in September.
Under the amendments, the operational audits must follow internationally accepted auditing and financial reporting standards. The CIU will also submit six-monthly reports to ECCIRA while continuing to report to Parliament, and its CEO must manage the program in accordance with the authority’s standards and directives.
The residency change applies to successful applicants and their dependents. Browne told Parliament the 30-day requirement had already been implemented administratively and that the amendment merely removes any inconsistency between domestic law and the regional agreement.
Coincidence, Not Capitulation
The bill arrives shortly after the European Commission wrote to all five Caribbean CBI states requesting that they phase out their programs by June 2028. The proximity may invite a causal reading, but those who have followed the regional reform process see the amendments as long in the making.
The reforms “are not a direct response to last week’s headlines,” argues Patrick Peters of Client Referrals, who traces them instead to the regional harmonization effort behind ECCIRA. The EU developments “certainly reinforce the importance of implementing them,” he concedes, but he considers the timing “largely coincidental rather than the catalyst.”
Nuri Katz, President of Apex Capital Partners, finds the announcement unsurprising for the same reason: All the Caribbean CIP countries agreed to the 30-day requirement long ago, and this is “just one more legislative move towards establishing that principle.”
Thus, he does not believe it is “in any way related to the information out of the EU last week.”
What 30 Days Actually Means
Peters is keen to correct a misreading he says is circulating: that new citizens must spend 30 days in Antigua & Barbuda every year. The requirement is 30 days over a five-year period, he points out, and it only begins “after citizenship has been granted and passports have been issued,” at which point travel to the country is straightforward for a passport-holder.
He expects little damage to the CIP as a result. Antigua & Barbuda has always had a residency requirement, and for most families, “spending a total of 30 vacation days in a tropical destination over five years is not only manageable but welcomed.”
Katz is less sanguine, though he agrees that the rule applies only to new applicants, not to existing citizens. The 30 days will add “a huge cost to the program,” he warns, both in money and in time away from work; for a family of four, flights to Antigua from almost anywhere “could be tens of thousands of dollars.” As such, he anticipates that the 30-day residency requirement “will put downward pressure on the programs.”
“Bring on the Audits”
The audit provisions draw unreserved approval from Peters, who has “always believed that properly governed, transparent programs are ultimately the strongest programs.” Cream rises to the top, he quips, “so bring on the audits, bring on the transparency, and bring on the enforcement of rules.”
He extends the same logic to how CBI proceeds are spent. Whether the money finances hotels that create employment, film productions, affordable housing, or new high schools, “the local population must see real value from these programs”; without that visible impact, “public support inevitably weakens over time.”
A Window or a Countdown?
Peters points to the Commission’s 24-month transition as evidence Brussels wants a negotiated outcome: had the objective been to suspend visa-free access today, “the EU already has mechanisms available to do so.”
Instead, he argues, Brussels “has left the door open for continued dialogue and negotiations.”
The window also gives the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) time to prove itself as a screening layer, he adds, citing Canada’s Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) as precedent.
Canada has kept visa-free travel intact while “electronically screening travelers before they board a flight,” and ETIAS could give the EU “a similarly effective layer of risk management.”
Katz sees no such opening. European technocrats are “simply morally against the idea of citizenship being bought and sold,” he contends, hiding behind security concerns despite there having been “almost never any security-related incidents related to a CIP citizen” in Europe.
The bureaucracy, in his telling, objects merely because “they don’t like that rich people can buy citizenship.”
The coming period, in Peters’ assessment, will be less about whether CBI programs exist and “more about which jurisdictions can demonstrate that they are well governed, responsibly managed and economically meaningful.”
He expects that countries able to show strong due diligence, appropriate volumes, transparent oversight, and genuine economic benefit “will be in a much stronger position than those that cannot.”
The five CBI states submitted a joint response to the Commission’s letter last week and agreed to send a high-level mission to Brussels. The next formal checkpoint comes in December, when the EU’s next Visa Suspension Mechanism report is due.
