The Government of St.Lucia has announced important changes to remote processing of applications in 2023. An average processing time of 45 days has been realised in efficiently streamlined processing applications for the grant of citizenship. This is due to the efficiency of our “pre-processing module”, which allows an applicant to submit core documents for law enforcement background checks before submitting a completed citizenship application form, at no additional cost. This makes CIP Saint Lucia one of the fastest CIP in the Caribbean at an affordable cost.
All in all, the total time to from the submission of application to receiving St Lucian passport is 3-4 months for most nationalities under the citizenship by investment program. All applications must continue to the uploaded on CIP portal to allow unit to review and submit to the Board for decision.
Steps and Time frame
- Pay application fee and due diligence fee ($9500) to file application (done by agent). Initial scan of documents must be uploaded. (1 week).
- Once initial approval is received, prepare other papers such as police report to complete citizenship application (2-3 weeks)
- Wait for CIP unit approval (6 weeks)
- Make the investment (1 week)
- Declaration of Oath
- Citizenship certificate to be issued (1 week)
- Passport issued (after 1-2 weeks) original birth certificate must be provided. (1 week)
Background checks
The Saint Lucia Citizenship by Investment Programme conducts robust due diligence during the application process, and works closely with its local law enforcement and regional intelligence partners. Applicants must submit police certificate from all the countries lived/worked more than one year in the past 10 years. Stateless people cannot apply and due to banking restrictions nationals from Iran are ineligible. If you have record of visa denial from UK/Schengen countries, this will make you ineligible to apply. To apply for CBI, you must have reissued the visa and cleared your refusal.
