Second Passport 2026: What Citizenship by Investment Costs and What It Gets You

Citizenship versus residence: the difference

A residence permit, as described in the overview of Plan B residency options, is a permission. You may live in the country, often work, sometimes open a bank account. It can expire, come with conditions and lapse after long absences. It does not give you a new passport; you keep travelling on your German one.

Citizenship by investment, CBI for short, works differently:

• You become a citizen, not a resident. The status is permanent and passes to children under the rules of the country concerned.
• There is no real residence. Most programs require no stay at all or only a symbolic one. That is exactly where the EU, the UK and the US are applying pressure.
• You pay with a donation or an investment, usually into a state fund or an approved property, plus fees for vetting and processing.
• The value is the passport itself: travel access, a second option for the family, in some cases access to visas Germans cannot get, or a second consulate if something goes wrong with the first.

For Germans this became legally simpler on 27 June 2024: since the nationality law reform, a German no longer automatically loses German citizenship when acquiring another one. What that means in detail is covered in the article on dual citizenship for Germans.

What still exists in 2026 and what is gone

Inside the EU the topic is closed. Cyprus ended its program in November 2020 after revelations about passports for questionable applicants. Malta held out longest, until the Court of Justice of the EU ruled on 29 April 2025 in Commission v Malta (C-181/23) that granting citizenship in exchange for predetermined payments is an impermissible commercialisation of EU citizenship. Malta has accepted no new applications under the investor program since and plans to replace it with naturalisation for exceptional services. If someone offers you an EU passport for money today, read it as a warning sign.

That leaves essentially seven programs relevant for Europeans:

• Five Caribbean states: St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia
• Vanuatu in the South Pacific
• Turkey, through a real estate route

There are smaller or newer programs in other regions. They are deliberately left out here because they are little tested or offer German applicants little.

The five Caribbean programs: a shared minimum price

The five Eastern Caribbean states undercut each other for years. Discounts and real estate structures in which far less than the official price actually changed hands were common. In spring 2024 the governments therefore signed a joint memorandum: since 1 July 2024 a minimum contribution of USD 200,000 applies to every route, together with mandatory interviews and a shared exchange on rejected applicants. As the next step, the states agreed on ECCIRA, a joint regulator for their programs, which is being set up during 2026.

The USD 200,000 is the floor, not the price. Current entry amounts for the fund route:

• Dominica: USD 200,000 into the Economic Diversification Fund for a single applicant, per the official program site.
• Antigua and Barbuda: USD 230,000 into the National Development Fund, the same contribution for a family of up to four, per the official fee schedule.
• Grenada: USD 235,000 into the National Transformation Fund for up to four people, per the Investment Migration Agency Grenada.
• St. Lucia: about USD 240,000 into the National Economic Fund, also a guide value from overviews published in 2026.
• St. Kitts and Nevis: USD 250,000 as the Sustainable Island State Contribution for the main applicant or a family of up to four, per the Citizenship by Investment Unit.

Real estate routes start higher in all five countries, usually at USD 300,000 in an approved project with a holding period of several years.

Vanuatu is cheaper: its Development Support Program asks, according to consistent reports, about USD 130,000 for one person and more for families. The price has a reason, see below.

Turkey does not sell through a fund but through investments, most often real estate worth at least USD 400,000 that may not be sold for three years. The money is not gone, it sits in an apartment whose resale value is your own risk.

Headline price versus real cost

The fund contribution is the number on the homepage. The bill is longer. Antigua's official fee schedule shows it well:

• Contribution: USD 230,000
• Processing fee: USD 10,000 for one person, USD 20,000 for a family of up to four
• Due diligence: USD 8,500 for the main applicant, 5,000 for the spouse, 2,000 for each child aged 12 to 17, 4,000 for each child aged 18 and over
• Passport fees and other costs the authority itself describes as subject to change

For a single applicant that comes to about USD 248,500 in government costs in Antigua. For a family with two teenage children you end up at about USD 267,500. St. Kitts, with its USD 250,000 contribution, USD 10,000 due diligence for the main applicant and USD 7,500 for each family member aged 16 or over, lands in a similar range.

What no official schedule shows is the intermediary's share. The programs accept applications only through licensed agents, whose fees are negotiated freely. As a rough guide value, agent, lawyer, translations and apostilles add several tens of thousands of dollars depending on the family and the complexity.

A rule of thumb for the Caribbean in 2026:

• Single person: about USD 210,000 to 270,000 in government costs depending on the country, plus the agent.
• Family with two children: about USD 250,000 to 300,000 in government costs, plus the agent.
• Adult children and parents cost noticeably more than minors almost everywhere. If you want to include grandparents, ask for a full calculation early.

A fund contribution is a donation. It does not come back, not even if the passport later loses value.

Process and timeline

The path is similar across all five Caribbean states:

1. Choose a licensed agent who files the application. Direct applications are generally not possible.
2. Collect documents: birth certificate, marriage certificate, police certificates, bank statements, proof of source of funds, medical certificates, all apostilled and translated.
3. Due diligence: the unit commissions external investigators who examine your history, assets and reputation.
4. Interview: mandatory since 2024, by video or in person depending on the country, now partly with biometric capture.
5. Approval in principle, then payment of the contribution.
6. Certificate of naturalisation and passport, in some cases with an oath.

Officially the programs quote three to six months. With interviews, tighter vetting and the backlog after the reforms, several programs take considerably longer in practice, in individual cases more than a year. If you have a date in mind, such as a visa or a move, plan generously.

The biggest risk: visa-free access

Most buyers want the travel document, not the country. That is precisely the value that is least certain in 2026, because it is not in the hands of the issuing state but in the hands of the countries you want to travel to.

The EU. Since 30 December 2025 the revised suspension mechanism of the EU visa regulation (Regulation 2025/2441) applies. What is new is that operating a citizenship scheme can in itself be a ground for suspending a country's visa-free access, without any abuse statistics. Vanuatu showed how that ends: partial suspension in 2022, full suspension from February 2023, and since 3 February 2025 Vanuatu has been permanently on the list of countries that need a visa. In June 2026 the Commission, according to the governments concerned, asked the five Caribbean states in writing to wind down their programs by June 2028. The letter has not been published; it is not a decision and nothing happens automatically. But the direction is unmistakable.

The UK. Since July 2023 citizens of Dominica and Vanuatu need a visa for the United Kingdom, and the British government explicitly cited their investor programs. St. Lucia followed in March 2026. As of October 2026, Antigua, Grenada and St. Kitts still travel visa-free to the UK.

The US. With Proclamation 10998, the US government restricted visitor, student and immigrant visas for citizens of Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica from 1 January 2026, again citing the lack of a residence requirement in their programs. Grenada, St. Kitts and St. Lucia were not affected.

For Germans the risk should be weighed soberly: if you keep travelling on your German passport, you lose nothing when the second passport loses value. You have only paid a lot of money for an option that has become weaker. The visa-free counts often quoted from indexes such as the Henley Passport Index are therefore always just a snapshot.

Banks, KYC and the automatic exchange of information

A common misunderstanding is that a Caribbean passport opens bank accounts that stay closed to a German. Usually the opposite is true.

• Banks know the programs. A passport from a CBI country often leads to more questions at account opening, not fewer. Source of funds, the reason for the second passport, residence and tax residence are asked about specifically.
• The OECD has flagged the programs. Since 2018 the OECD has kept a list of citizenship and residence schemes that pose a high risk to the automatic exchange of information (CRS). All five Caribbean states and Vanuatu are on it. Banks are expected to take that list into account in their due diligence.
• CRS follows tax residence, not the passport. A bank reports accounts to the country where the client is tax resident. If you live in Germany, you are reported to Germany, whatever passport you show. Using a second passport to fake a different tax residence is not a clever move, it can be a criminal offence.

If you want an account outside the EU, you usually do not need a second passport for it. The routes are described in the articles on banking outside the EU and the banking ladder from fintech to private bank.

What a second passport does not do for Germans

Germany taxes on the basis of residence and habitual abode, not nationality. It follows that:

• A second passport changes nothing about German tax. If you live in Germany, you remain fully taxable on your worldwide income, however many passports sit in the drawer.
• The German passport stays part of the equation. If you move away and remain German, a move to a low-tax country can trigger the extended limited tax liability of the Foreign Tax Act. A Caribbean passport changes nothing about that as long as the German one remains.
• It does not replace a residence. The tax advantages of the Caribbean states apply to people who live there. A passport without a residence makes nobody a tax resident.
• It is no shield against German authorities. German obligations such as registration, inheritance tax or exit taxation depend on residence and assets, not on the travel document.

How the nationality reform works in detail and when retaining German citizenship still matters is covered in the article on dual citizenship for Germans. The answer always depends on the individual case; this overview does not replace advice from a tax adviser and a lawyer.

The programs one by one

St. Kitts and Nevis

The oldest program, running since 1984. At USD 250,000 the most expensive in the Caribbean, but so far without a UK or US visa requirement. Interviews are mandatory and biometric capture is being introduced. Details in the article on St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship.

Grenada

The special case, because Grenada has an investment treaty with the US. Grenadian citizens can therefore apply for the US E-2 investor visa. For Germans that matters less than it often sounds, because Germany has such a treaty with the US itself. When the detour still plays a role is explained in the article on Grenada and the E-2 visa. If the E-2 is all you want, read the article on the E-2 visa with a US LLC first.

Dominica, Antigua and St. Lucia

The cheaper programs with the biggest problems: Dominica and St. Lucia need a visa for the UK, Dominica and Antigua are affected by the US restrictions. The three are compared in Dominica, Antigua and St. Lucia compared.

Vanuatu

The fastest and cheapest route, but without visa-free Schengen access since February 2023 and with a UK visa requirement since July 2023. Who it still makes sense for is explained in the article on Vanuatu citizenship by investment.

Turkey

Not a donation model but a property from USD 400,000 with a three-year holding period. Turkey also has an investment treaty with the US, which for Germans is secondary for the same reason as with Grenada. The math with exchange rates, resale and fees is in the article on Turkish citizenship by real estate.