Becoming a Citizen of Dominica
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines on this topic. That is the answer, not a gap - everything below is the rule you get, unchanged.
81 exceptions recorded across 33 countries · none match Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to Dominica · Becoming a citizen
Four doors, and they are not equally open. A Commonwealth citizen who has been ordinarily resident for seven years is entitled by the Constitution to be registered - an entitlement, not a favour. A spouse may be registered at the Minister's discretion after three years, a Commonwealth citizen after five. Everyone else naturalises under section 8 of the Citizenship Act: good character, adequate English, twelve months' residence immediately before the application and seven years in all. And then there is the fifth door, which is the one the world knows Dominica for: the Minister's power in section 8(2)(c) to waive the residence requirement in special circumstances, which is what the citizenship by investment programme runs on. Every naturalised citizen, however arrived, can be deprived of citizenship by Order of the Minister on grounds the Act lists.
At a glance
- Registration as of right, Commonwealth citizen
- 7 years' ordinary residence
Section 100(1)(a) of the Constitution. Section 100(1) says such persons "shall be entitled" to be registered on application and, for an alien of eighteen or over, on taking the oath.
- Registration at the Minister's discretion, spouse
- 3 years
Section 6(a) of the Citizenship Act, or a shorter period in the special circumstances of the case.
- Registration at the Minister's discretion, Commonwealth citizen
- 5 years
Section 6(c) of the Citizenship Act. The same person is entitled rather than merely eligible at seven years under the Constitution.
- Naturalisation, aliens
- 12 months immediately preceding, and 7 years in all
Section 8(1)(b) and (c) of the Citizenship Act. Both conditions apply together.
- Residence waiver
- Available in special circumstances
Section 8(2)(c). This is the provision the citizenship by investment programme rests on, and the Regulations require the applicant to complete a waiver of residence requirements form.
- Deprivation for a prison sentence
- 12 months or more, within 5 years of naturalisation
Section 10(3)(c) of the Citizenship Act. The investment Regulations go further: regulation 6(5) says a person sentenced to twelve months or more after naturalisation "shall be deprived", with no five-year limit and no discretion on its face.
- Deprivation for changing your name
- Within 5 years of a certificate of naturalisationas of 2024-06-28
Regulations 4(1)(c), 5 and 6(4) of the 2024 Regulations. The applicant certifies in advance that he will not; doing so anyway is a ground for deprivation under section 10(2) or (3) of the Act.
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
Section 6 of the Citizenship Act provides that a person is not prevented from being or becoming a citizen because he is a national of another country. The sentence survives in the stored reading only in part and is quoted as it reads.
- Application and registration fees charged by the Ministry
- EC$250 and EC$2,000
From the Government portal's citizenship page. EC$20 in adhesive stamps is asked for the forms and EC$20 for the oath.
- Passport fee for a citizen by investment
- US$300as of 2024-11-07
Part I of the First Schedule to the Passport Regulations, as replaced by S.R.O. 31 of 2024. An adult citizen otherwise pays EC$150 in Dominica. See the policy record on the investor fee premium.
Requirements
- For registration as of right: Commonwealth citizenship and seven years' ordinary residence immediately preceding the application
- For registration at discretion: marriage to a citizen and three years, or Commonwealth citizenship and five years, of residence or government service
- For naturalisation: full age and capacity, good character, adequate English and knowledge of a citizen's responsibilities
- For naturalisation: twelve months' residence immediately before the application, and seven years of residence or government service in all
- For citizenship by investment: an investment and the Minister's waiver of the residence requirement under section 8(2)(c)
- In every case: the oath or affirmation of allegiance in the Schedule to the Act, taken before registration or the certificate takes effect
In detail
Seven years, three times over
The number seven does three separate jobs in Dominican law and they are easy to confuse. Section 2(2)(b)(ii) of the Immigration and Passport Act deems a Commonwealth citizen ordinarily resident for seven continuous years to belong to the State, which takes him outside the prohibited-immigrant regime. Section 100(1)(a) of the Constitution entitles a Commonwealth citizen ordinarily resident for the previous seven years to be registered as a citizen. Section 8(1)(c) of the Citizenship Act requires seven years of residence or government service from an alien seeking naturalisation, on top of twelve unbroken months immediately before the application. Three statutes, three consequences, one period - and only the second is an entitlement.
The investment door is the same door
Nothing in Dominican law creates a separate citizenship for investors. Regulation 4(1) of the 2024 Regulations sends the applicant to section 8 of the Citizenship Act, and section 8(2)(c) lets the Minister waive the residence requirement in special circumstances. What the investor receives is a certificate of naturalisation, which is why the Passport Regulations had to invent a separate fee line for "a person who acquired citizenship by investment" and define it as "the grant of citizenship by the issue of a certificate of naturalisation following the making of an investment". Saint Kitts and Nevis took the other route and legislated a bespoke entitlement in section 3(5) of its Citizenship Act. Dominica's version is administratively cheaper and legally more fragile: the whole programme hangs on a discretion that could be exercised differently tomorrow.
The Act contradicts itself on five years and seven
Section 8(1)(c) requires seven years of residence or service. Section 8(2)(b) then lets the Minister "allow periods of residence or of service earlier than the five years preceding the date of the application to be reckoned in computing the aggregate period mentioned in subsection (1)(c)". The aggregate period in subsection (1)(c) is seven years, not five. The likeliest explanation is that subsection (1)(c) once said five and was raised to seven - the Act carries amendments by Act 10 of 1983 and Act 23 of 1991 at exactly this point - without subsection (2)(b) being brought along. We record the inconsistency rather than resolving it.
Deprivation, and the regulation that goes further than the Act
Section 10 of the Citizenship Act lets the Minister deprive a citizen by registration or naturalisation of citizenship where it was obtained by fraud, false representation or concealment, and on further grounds including disloyalty and a prison sentence of twelve months or more passed within five years of naturalisation. Section 10(5) forbids deprivation unless the Minister is satisfied it is not conducive to the public good that the person remain a citizen, and forbids it altogether where the person would be made stateless. Regulation 6(5) of the investment Regulations states the prison ground without the five-year window and in mandatory terms. A regulation cannot enlarge the Act it is made under, and we note the tension without saying how it would be resolved.
Country-level policy
Dominica charges a person who bought citizenship more for ordinary civil documents than it charges anyone else, and it does so by name. In November 2024 the Passport Regulations gained a line for "a person who acquired citizenship by investment" at US$300 for a passport, against EC$150 for an adult citizen in Dominica, and US$2,000 for a replacement against EC$500. The same month the fee schedule to the Vehicles and Road Traffic Act gained a private driver's licence at US$300 for the same class of person, against EC$100 for everybody else. Both are the same idea: an investor citizen holds the same certificate of naturalisation as any other naturalised citizen, and pays a different price at the counter. The instruments define the class rather than leaving it to practice, which is what makes this a policy and not a rumour.
Land in Dominica held by an unlicensed alien is forfeited to the State. The Aliens Land Holding Regulation Act 1995 is a separate statute from everything else in the relocation picture and it is the one most likely to catch a newcomer, because it bites on ownership rather than on status. What makes Dominica's version different from the Kittitian one is who counts as an alien: the definition excludes citizens of the OECS Member States, so an Antiguan, Grenadian, Kittitian, Saint Lucian or Vincentian buys land here on the same footing as a Dominican. Everyone else may hold one acre for residence or three for trade or business without a licence, on paying the Accountant General ten per cent of the market value, and needs a licence beyond that.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
We have no rule recorded that treats your citizenship differently here, so the general rule above is the one that applies to you. That is an answer, not a gap.
What the law says
«(a) any person who, being a Commonwealth citizen, is and for the previous seven years has been ordinarily resident in Dominica;»The strongest citizenship right in Dominican law for someone not born here, and it requires no investment, no marriage and no ministerial favour - only seven years and a Commonwealth passport.
«(c) that person is a Commonwealth citizen and of good character and has an adequate knowledge of the responsibilities of a citizen of Dominica and of the English language and that he has resided in Dominica, or has been in the service of the Government of Dominica, or has had partly such residence and partly such service throughout a period of five years, or such shorter period as the Minister may in the special circumstances of any particular case accept, immediately preceding the date of his application and he intends, if registered, to reside in Dominica or to enter or continue in the service of the Government.»Five years at the Minister's discretion, against seven as of right under the Constitution. The two run in parallel and the Act does not say which prevails.
«8. (1) The Minister may grant a certificate of naturalisation to any alien of full age and capacity who makes application therefor in the prescribed manner and satisfies the Minister-
(a) (i) that he is of good character;
(ii) that he has an adequate knowledge of the responsibilities of a citizen of Dominica and of the English language;»The naturalisation gateway, and the section the investment Regulations route their applicants through.
«(b) that he has resided in Dominica throughout the period of twelve months immediately preceding the date of his application;
(c) that he has resided in Dominica, or has been in the service of the Government, or has had partly such residence and partly such service throughout a period of seven years immediately preceding the date of his application; and»Twelve months immediately before, and seven years in all. The two conditions are cumulative; neither replaces the other.
«(c) waive the residence requirement in special circumstances.»Eight words that carry the entire citizenship by investment programme. The Act gives no criteria for a special circumstance and no limit on the power.
«10. (1) A citizen of Dominica by registration or naturalisation under this Act or under any other written law shall cease to be a citizen of Dominica if he is deprived of that citizenship by an Order of the Minister made under this section.»Only citizens by registration or naturalisation can be deprived. A citizen by birth under section 98 of the Constitution cannot be touched by this section.
«5. The grant of a certificate of naturalisation pursuant to an
application made under these Regulations is subject to the
condition that the holder of the certificate of naturalisation shall
not, before a period of at least five years have elapsed from the
date of grant of certificate of naturalisation, change or seek to
change his or her name otherwise than by marriage.»A condition on the certificate itself, not merely an undertaking by the applicant. The 2022 Regulations on change of name were repealed in 2025 by S.R.O. 18 of 2025; this condition sits inside the investment Regulations instead.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The government's collection: the Revised Laws of 1990 as chapters, plus Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders year by year.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current text of any Act: the chapters are the 1990 revised edition authorised to the mid-nineties, and later amending Acts sit in the collection without being folded in - the immigration chapter prints its last amendment as 1995 while the database lists six later ones. It must not be cited for completeness either: the visa-exemption Regulations actually in force are absent from it entirely, as are three Acts of one recent year, so an absence here is not proof of non-existence. Every chapter is an image-only scan, so a quotation from one is a recognition. And its catalogue titles are unreliable - one instrument is listed under a name that is not its short title.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«(5) A person who has after becoming naturalised been
sentenced in any country to imprisonment for a term of not less
than 12 months shall be deprived of citizenship of Dominica.»Compare section 10(3)(c) of the Act, which confines the same ground to a sentence within five years of naturalisation and leaves it to the Minister's discretion. The regulation has no time limit and says "shall".
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The government's collection: the Revised Laws of 1990 as chapters, plus Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders year by year.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current text of any Act: the chapters are the 1990 revised edition authorised to the mid-nineties, and later amending Acts sit in the collection without being folded in - the immigration chapter prints its last amendment as 1995 while the database lists six later ones. It must not be cited for completeness either: the visa-exemption Regulations actually in force are absent from it entirely, as are three Acts of one recent year, so an absence here is not proof of non-existence. Every chapter is an image-only scan, so a quotation from one is a recognition. And its catalogue titles are unreliable - one instrument is listed under a name that is not its short title.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«(ii) has been ordinarily resident in the State continuously for a period of seven years or more and since the completion of such period of residence, has not been ordinarily resident in any other Commonwealth territory continuously for a period of seven years or more; or»The same seven years, in a different statute, producing a different thing: a Commonwealth citizen resident seven years is deemed to belong to the State and is outside the prohibited-immigrant regime, whether or not he ever registers as a citizen.
Practical notes
This record rests on the Immigration and Passport Act, Chapter 18:01 as consolidated, including sections 5, 7, 9, 10, 18, 19 and 28 and the Immigration (Restrictions) Regulations printed with it, and on the Government portal's residence-permit, permanent-residence and extension-of-stay pages. None of them names a category of the kind this topic describes. The Act's own list of amendments stops at 1995 and six later amending Acts exist that the consolidation does not carry, so this is an absence in what we read.
The published Citizenship Act is a scan with no text layer and its sections appear out of order in the reading, with marginal notes interleaved. Every quotation here was taken from a passage that reads continuously, and the opening words of section 6 and of section 8(2) are lost in the capture.
The Government's own deprivation Orders are published: the law collection contains a Citizenship (Deprivation) Order 2024 and a Citizenship (Deprivation) (No. 2) Order 2024, which we did not read. Their existence is recorded here because it shows the power in section 10 being used.
The fee figures are the Ministry's published ones, from the Government portal's citizenship page. Regulation 23 of the Citizenship Regulations refers to fees set out in a Schedule, and the scan does not render that Schedule legibly.
- consolidatesThe Constitution of the Commonwealth of Dominica, Chapter 1:01 Schedule 1
Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica - Laws of Dominica
About this source
The government's collection: the Revised Laws of 1990 as chapters, plus Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders year by year.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current text of any Act: the chapters are the 1990 revised edition authorised to the mid-nineties, and later amending Acts sit in the collection without being folded in - the immigration chapter prints its last amendment as 1995 while the database lists six later ones. It must not be cited for completeness either: the visa-exemption Regulations actually in force are absent from it entirely, as are three Acts of one recent year, so an absence here is not proof of non-existence. Every chapter is an image-only scan, so a quotation from one is a recognition. And its catalogue titles are unreliable - one instrument is listed under a name that is not its short title.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- consolidatesCommonwealth of Dominica Citizenship Act, Chapter 1:10, Revised Laws of Dominica
Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica - Laws of Dominica
About this source
The government's collection: the Revised Laws of 1990 as chapters, plus Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders year by year.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current text of any Act: the chapters are the 1990 revised edition authorised to the mid-nineties, and later amending Acts sit in the collection without being folded in - the immigration chapter prints its last amendment as 1995 while the database lists six later ones. It must not be cited for completeness either: the visa-exemption Regulations actually in force are absent from it entirely, as are three Acts of one recent year, so an absence here is not proof of non-existence. Every chapter is an image-only scan, so a quotation from one is a recognition. And its catalogue titles are unreliable - one instrument is listed under a name that is not its short title.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- consolidatesCommonwealth of Dominica Citizenship by Investment Regulations, 2024 (S.R.O. 8 of 2024)
Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica - Laws of Dominica
About this source
The government's collection: the Revised Laws of 1990 as chapters, plus Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders year by year.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current text of any Act: the chapters are the 1990 revised edition authorised to the mid-nineties, and later amending Acts sit in the collection without being folded in - the immigration chapter prints its last amendment as 1995 while the database lists six later ones. It must not be cited for completeness either: the visa-exemption Regulations actually in force are absent from it entirely, as are three Acts of one recent year, so an absence here is not proof of non-existence. Every chapter is an image-only scan, so a quotation from one is a recognition. And its catalogue titles are unreliable - one instrument is listed under a name that is not its short title.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
- administersHow Do I Apply for Citizenship of the Commonwealth of Dominica?
Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica Web Portal
About this source
The labour, immigration and customs account of what the ministries require and charge - the only published source for residence and permanence fees and for the returning-resident concessions.
Standing: Applies the rule
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the law. Its fees contradict the Act by a factor of sixteen, its visa periods contradict the Regulations, and it states a five-year permanent-residence rule that exists in no instrument. Cite it for what a ministry charges and asks for, never for what the law requires, and never for a nationality list.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- consolidatesImmigration and Passport (Amendment) Regulations, 2024 (S.R.O. 31 of 2024)
Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica - Laws of Dominica
About this source
The government's collection: the Revised Laws of 1990 as chapters, plus Acts and Statutory Rules and Orders year by year.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must not be cited for the current text of any Act: the chapters are the 1990 revised edition authorised to the mid-nineties, and later amending Acts sit in the collection without being folded in - the immigration chapter prints its last amendment as 1995 while the database lists six later ones. It must not be cited for completeness either: the visa-exemption Regulations actually in force are absent from it entirely, as are three Acts of one recent year, so an absence here is not proof of non-existence. Every chapter is an image-only scan, so a quotation from one is a recognition. And its catalogue titles are unreliable - one instrument is listed under a name that is not its short title.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source