The government of St. Lucia announced the safe reopening of all businesses and sectors of the country including tourism and hospitality services after the announcement of full recovery from infections of COVID 19. What came next is the enhancement that was made by the citizenship by investment unit on the investment streams, along with announcement of a new stream special bond investment stream called COVID 19 Relief Bond with no processing fees. The enhancements came into effect on May 12th, 2020 for a limited time till the end of December 2020, some of the amendments were as follows:
- Introducing the COVID 19 relief bond with half the investment amount on the original government bonds with different bond holding periods between 5 and 7 years giving a flexibility to the investor
- Decreasing the investment amounts required for the National Economic Fund for family applications of which an amount of 25,000 USD decrease for a main applicant and spouse and 40,000 USD decrease for a family of four members.
- Waiver on the administrative fees for the real estate investment project subject to certain conditions on the main applicant and dependents
- Adding dependents contribution amount amendments after the government have announced back in March the possibility of adding qualified dependents after the main applicant acquires the citizenship and passports.
Moreover, and on top of all the updates above, an amendment that was passed by the senate of St. Lucia on the 28th of May 2020, of which they have expanded the definition of qualifying dependents who can become citizens of St. Lucia through investment, adding to the list of qualifying dependents the possibility of adding siblings of the main applicant and/or the spouse who is unmarried and below the age of 18, and decreasing the age of dependent parents to be above the age of 55 instead of 65 years, as well as increasing the age limit of dependent children from only up to 26 to be up to 30 years who prove full financial support by the main applicant
The Board has also approved some changes for adding dependents to an already a citizen by making it possible to add a new born child and a spouse if the marriage occurred after the citizenship been acquired, and adding limitation of a five year time to add the dependents who existed when the application of citizenship of the main applicant was submitted.
Such enhancement and variety of investment options towards a direct citizenship is surely to expect high demand from investors to apply for the citizenship by investment program of St. Lucia.