Investing in Haiti: No Residence by Investment, but Shares Buy an Exemption from the Work Permit
Answer
The general rule applies to you
No exception is recorded for citizens of Canada 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 Canada to Haiti · Residency through investment
Nothing we read creates a residence permit obtainable by investing. The immigration law has one permis de séjour and does not divide applicants by what they bring. What investment does buy is narrower and concrete: article 312 of the Labour Code lifts the work permit requirement from holders of shares in new undertakings as defined by the decree of 13 March 1963. So a foreign shareholder in a qualifying new company does not need a permis de travail or a permis d'emploi to be active in it - but still needs the ordinary residence permit to be in the country, because the Labour Code exemption touches the work permit only. The constitutional backdrop is restrictive in its own way: a resident foreigner may own one dwelling house per arrondissement, may not deal in rented property, and loses the ownership right five years after ceasing to reside in the country.
At a glance
- Residence by investment
- None found
Neither the immigration law nor the directorate's document list creates or prices such a route.
- Work permit exemption for shareholders
- Yes, in new undertakings
Article 312(a) of the Labour Code, by reference to the decree of 13 March 1963, which we did not read.
- Dwelling houses a resident foreigner may own
- One per arrondissement
Article 55-1 of the Constitution. Trading in property rentals is prohibited outright.
- Property right after leaving
- Ends five years after residence ceases
Article 55-4 of the Constitution, which also covers the end of a foreign company's operations.
- Land near the border
- Prohibited
Article 55-3: no foreigner may own a property bounded by Haiti's land frontier.
Requirements
- The ordinary residence permit file, lodged with the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration
- For the work permit exemption: shareholding in a new undertaking as defined by the decree of 13 March 1963
- For property: a purpose within article 55's limits - a dwelling for your own needs, or an agricultural, commercial, industrial, religious, humanitarian or teaching enterprise
In detail
What investing does and does not get you
There is no investor visa and no investment threshold. The permit a foreign investor needs in order to live in Haiti is the same permis de séjour everybody else applies for, on the same documents. What a shareholding does, if the company is a new undertaking within the decree of 13 March 1963, is remove the need for a work permit - which is worth having, because the ordinary work permit route runs through a labour market test, a training obligation and a five per cent cap on foreign staff. The exemption is from the Labour Code, so it is about the right to work and not about the right to be here.
What a foreigner may own
The Constitution grants the right of immovable property to a foreigner residing in Haiti for the needs of his dwelling, and separately to resident foreigners and foreign companies for the needs of agricultural, commercial, industrial, religious, humanitarian or teaching enterprises, within limits set by law. Then it narrows: one dwelling house per arrondissement, no trading in lettings, nothing bounded by the land frontier, and the right ends five years after the foreigner stops residing in the country. A reader planning to buy and leave should read article 55-4 before anything else.
Country-level policy
A Haitian residence permit is not granted for twelve months from the day it is issued. It is granted for a fiscal year, 1 October to 30 September, which means a permit obtained in August expires six weeks later. Renewal is annual and the application must be accompanied by the slip attesting payment of income tax for the fiscal year just ended. The permit therefore sits downstream of the revenue directorate: a foreigner who has not settled with the Direction Générale des Impôts cannot complete the immigration file. The same coupling appears from the other end in the immigration law, where the exit visa a departing foreigner needs is issued only on a certificate from the revenue administration that he is square with the tax authorities. Dominica's record holds the same coupling at one end - an exit certificate required by its Income Tax Regulations - and no record here holds it at both.
On 17 September 2026 Le Moniteur published, as Special No. 47 of its 181st year, a decree of the Council of Ministers instituting a state of emergency over the departments of the Ouest, the Artibonite and the Centre for three months. The Ouest is the department that contains Port-au-Prince, and with it the Direction de l'Immigration et de l'Émigration on Avenue John Brown, where residence permits are applied for. The decree's recitals describe a multiform crisis producing a situation of extreme urgency, marked by increased violence from armed gangs and a worrying humanitarian situation threatening the existence of the population and the foundations of the Republic. An earlier decree to the same effect had been published on 2 June 2026, so this is a renewal rather than a first measure. What we hold of the decree is its opening: the copy we could read carries the gazette heading, the title and the recitals and stops before the operative articles, so we cannot say what powers it confers or what it suspends.
Haiti's official journal, Le Moniteur, is still publishing - its Special No. 47 of 17 September 2026 is in these records - but it has no reachable archive of its own, and the Secrétariat Général du Conseil des Ministres, which hosts the government's collection of laws, did not answer a single request from here. The consequence is specific rather than general. Four instruments between them decide most of what a person moving to Haiti needs to know, and none of them could be read. The decree-law of 26 December 1978 on immigration and emigration is the one the immigration directorate itself cites by article number for the residence permit, and the one the law of 2002 names as imposing that permit at its article 30. The decree of 6 November 1984 on Haitian nationality is where the Constitution has pointed since 2011 for the conditions of naturalisation. The Code Fiscal enacted by decree of 20 January 2023 brings the whole tax code together and is published by the Ministry of Economy and Finance as a 244-page image whose only machine-readable text is a watermark reading "ne pas reproduire". And the decree of 13 March 1963 defines which new undertakings give a foreign shareholder an exemption from the work permit.
What applies to you
Nothing changes for a citizen of Canada
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
«Article 312. Les dispositions relatives à l'obtention du permis de travail ou du permis
d'emploi ne sont pas applicables aux étrangers ci-après:
a) ceux qui sont détenteurs d'actions dans les entreprises nouvelles telles que définies
par le décret du 13 mars 1963;
b) ceux de l'un ou l'autre sexe qui sont mariés à un ressortissant haïtien et qui
justifient de trois ans au moins de séjour ininterrompu dans le pays;
c) ceux qui résident dans le pays depuis au moins dix ans, ou bien qui sont au service
d'un employeur lié à l'État par un contrat de travail;
d) les membres du clergé et le personnel des missions diplomatiques accréditées en
Haïti;
e) le personnel des organismes internationaux.»Our translation - not official
The provisions relating to obtaining the work permit or the employment permit do not apply to the following foreigners: (a) those holding shares in new undertakings as defined by the decree of 13 March 1963; (b) those of either sex who are married to a Haitian national and who can show at least three years of uninterrupted residence in the country; (c) those who have resided in the country for at least ten years, or who are in the service of an employer bound to the State by a contract of employment; (d) members of the clergy and the staff of diplomatic missions accredited in Haiti; (e) the staff of international organisations.
The decree of 13 March 1963 defines which undertakings count as new. We did not read it, so we cannot say which investments qualify.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
A Haiti document archive holding about five thousand items - central bank circulars, customs statistics, electoral council decrees, and facsimiles of Le Moniteur going back to 1959. Used here because Haiti's own law collection at sgcm.gouv.ht would not answer a single request and Le Moniteur has no reachable archive of its own. What it serves for the instruments quoted here is the gazette's or the State Printing Office's own page image, so the artefact is the State's even though the host is not.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It is not the publisher of record and must never be cited where a Haitian government host serves the same file. It does no amendment tracking, so nothing taken from it is evidence that a text is current - the 1959 immigration law quoted here is known to have been overtaken at least in part by a 1978 decree-law we could not obtain. Its catalogue metadata is not reliable: it dates the immigration law "8 juillet 1959" where the document's own title page says 8 December 1959, and it attributes the Labour Code to the justice ministry when the PDF carries haitijustice.com as a watermark on every page. That Labour Code edition also replaces four articles - 426, 483, 505 and 507 to 510 - with a bracketed editorial summary instead of their text, so it cannot support a claim that the Code is silent on something.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
«Cependant, l'étranger résidant en Haïti ne peut être
> propriétaire de plus d'une maison d'habitation dans un même
> arrondissement. Il ne peut en aucun cas se livrer au trafic de location
> d'immeubles. Toutefois, les sociétés étrangères
> de promotion immobilière bénéficient d'un statut spécial
> réglé par la loi.»Our translation - not official
However, a foreigner residing in Haiti may not own more than one dwelling house in the same arrondissement. He may in no case engage in the trade of letting buildings. Foreign property development companies nevertheless enjoy a special status regulated by law.
The quotation carries the blockquote markers of the page it was captured from.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Jean-Pierre Maury's constitutional library at the University of Perpignan, which publishes the French text of the Constitution of Haiti of 29 March 1987 in its version amended on 9 May 2011, with every abrogated article struck through in place. It is used here because no Haitian state host we could reach serves the amended Constitution: the Government's own copy is the 1987 original.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: An academic transcription, not a gazette. It is not the authentic text, it carries no date of consolidation, and the strike-through marking of abrogated articles is the editor's apparatus rather than the legislator's. Quotations taken from it carry the blockquote markers and the strike-through tildes of the capture. It must be replaced the moment a Haitian state copy of the amended Constitution becomes reachable. Its reading of the amendments was cross-checked here against the Comparative Constitutions Project's annotated edition and the two agree on which articles were abrogated.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
«Ce droit prend fin cinq (5) années
> après que l'étranger a cessé de résider
> dans le pays ou qu'ont cessé
> les opérations de ces sociétés,
> conformément
> à la loi qui détermine les règlements à
> suivre
> pour la transmission et la liquidation des biens appartenant aux
> étrangers.»Our translation - not official
This right ends five (5) years after the foreigner has ceased to reside in the country or after the operations of those companies have ceased, in accordance with the law determining the rules to be followed for the transmission and liquidation of property belonging to foreigners.
A property right conditioned on continued residence, which is unusual in this comparison.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
Jean-Pierre Maury's constitutional library at the University of Perpignan, which publishes the French text of the Constitution of Haiti of 29 March 1987 in its version amended on 9 May 2011, with every abrogated article struck through in place. It is used here because no Haitian state host we could reach serves the amended Constitution: the Government's own copy is the 1987 original.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: An academic transcription, not a gazette. It is not the authentic text, it carries no date of consolidation, and the strike-through marking of abrogated articles is the editor's apparatus rather than the legislator's. Quotations taken from it carry the blockquote markers and the strike-through tildes of the capture. It must be replaced the moment a Haitian state copy of the amended Constitution becomes reachable. Its reading of the amendments was cross-checked here against the Comparative Constitutions Project's annotated edition and the two agree on which articles were abrogated.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This record rests on Chapter VI of the Labour Code and on Title IV of the Constitution as amended in 2011. Neither creates an investment route to residence, and the immigration law we read creates a single permit without categories. We did not read Haiti's investment legislation, including the decree of 13 March 1963 that article 312(a) depends on and the investment code, so nothing here should be taken as a survey of the incentives available to an investor.
The exemption in article 312(a) is defined by reference to an instrument we could not obtain. A reader cannot tell from the Labour Code alone whether their company is a new undertaking within it.
The Government's own copy of the Constitution that we could reach is the 1987 original as printed in Le Moniteur No. 36 of 28 April 1987. It is a scan whose text layer is a machine recognition and prints, among other things, "distinbtion" for distinction, "H~i tüme" for Haïtiens and "candi tians" for conditions. Quotations from it are left exactly as the layer has them, and the amended text of 2011 is quoted from a separate source because this one predates the amendments.
- reportsCode du travail - Décret du 24 février 1984 et Loi du 5 juin 2003 actualisant le Code du travail du 12 septembre 1961
HaitiDocs (edition watermarked www.haitijustice.com)
About this source
A Haiti document archive holding about five thousand items - central bank circulars, customs statistics, electoral council decrees, and facsimiles of Le Moniteur going back to 1959. Used here because Haiti's own law collection at sgcm.gouv.ht would not answer a single request and Le Moniteur has no reachable archive of its own. What it serves for the instruments quoted here is the gazette's or the State Printing Office's own page image, so the artefact is the State's even though the host is not.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: It is not the publisher of record and must never be cited where a Haitian government host serves the same file. It does no amendment tracking, so nothing taken from it is evidence that a text is current - the 1959 immigration law quoted here is known to have been overtaken at least in part by a 1978 decree-law we could not obtain. Its catalogue metadata is not reliable: it dates the immigration law "8 juillet 1959" where the document's own title page says 8 December 1959, and it attributes the Labour Code to the justice ministry when the PDF carries haitijustice.com as a watermark on every page. That Labour Code edition also replaces four articles - 426, 483, 505 and 507 to 510 - with a bracketed editorial summary instead of their text, so it cannot support a claim that the Code is silent on something.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
- reportsConstitution du 29 mars 1987, version amendée le 9 mai 2011
Digithèque MJP, Université de Perpignan
About this source
Jean-Pierre Maury's constitutional library at the University of Perpignan, which publishes the French text of the Constitution of Haiti of 29 March 1987 in its version amended on 9 May 2011, with every abrogated article struck through in place. It is used here because no Haitian state host we could reach serves the amended Constitution: the Government's own copy is the 1987 original.
Standing: Reports, establishes nothing
Cannot be cited for: An academic transcription, not a gazette. It is not the authentic text, it carries no date of consolidation, and the strike-through marking of abrogated articles is the editor's apparatus rather than the legislator's. Quotations taken from it carry the blockquote markers and the strike-through tildes of the capture. It must be replaced the moment a Haitian state copy of the amended Constitution becomes reachable. Its reading of the amendments was cross-checked here against the Comparative Constitutions Project's annotated edition and the two agree on which articles were abrogated.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source
- issuesConstitution de la République d'Haïti du 29 mars 1987, Le Moniteur No. 36 du 28 avril 1987
Ministère de l'Économie et des Finances d'Haïti - portail budget
About this source
The Haitian finance ministry's budget portal, which also hosts gazette issues. It serves the Constitution of 29 March 1987 as printed in Le Moniteur No. 36 of 28 April 1987, which is the only copy of the Constitution on a Haitian state host that we could reach.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: The constitutional text it serves is the 1987 original and does not carry the amendments made by the constitutional law of 9 May 2011, published 19 June 2012 - which abrogated five articles of Title II, including the prohibition on dual nationality and the five-year naturalisation rule. It must never be cited for the Constitution as it now stands. It is also a scan whose text layer is a machine recognition: it prints "distinbtion" for distinction, "H~i tüme" for Haïtiens and "candi tians" for conditions, and quotations from it carry those mistakes.
We re-read it every 180 days. More about this source