Country-wide policy
Saint Lucia Sells Citizenship and Will Not Accept Anyone Else's
The Eastern Caribbean Economic Union gives a citizen of a Protocol member state freedom of movement, the right to work without a permit and the right to drive on a home licence. Saint Lucia has written the same exclusion into two of those three in identical words: none of it applies to a person who became a citizen of that state through an economic or honorary citizenship programme, unless the Minister responsible for external affairs has approved that programme as comparable to Saint Lucia's own. Grenada has the same carve-out in one instrument and Saint Vincent has none at all. Saint Lucia's is the sharper position because Saint Lucia runs the programme it is measuring the others against, and because the exclusion arrived on 18 August 2014, the same day the Economic Union Treaty itself took effect here.
Topics it changes
- Residency under a regional treaty
- Residency through work
- Driving and licence exchange
- Becoming a citizen
What it requires
- Citizenship of a Protocol member state acquired otherwise than through that state's economic or honorary citizenship programme
- Or, if acquired through such a programme, a declaration by the Minister responsible for external affairs that the programme is comparable to Saint Lucia's
At a glance
- Statutes carrying the exclusion
- Two
The Labour (Work Permit) (Exemption) (Citizen of a Protocol Member State) Order, S.I. 83 of 2014, and section 30A of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act, inserted by Act 22 of 2014. The wording is the same in both, down to the spelling "honorary".
- Who decides comparability
- Minister responsible for external affairs
Not the labour or transport minister, and not the Citizenship by Investment Board. The same office in both instruments.
- Any programme approved as comparable
- None found
We found no Order, notice or Gazette entry declaring another state's programme comparable. The search covered the subsidiary legislation printed under the Labour Act and the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act in the revised edition and the Statutory Instrument listings for 2014, 2024, 2025 and 2026.
- In force
- 18 August 2014
The work permit Order and the commencement of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Act carry the same date.
- Carve-out in the entry provisions
- None
Section 6(2) of the Immigration Act gives a citizen of a Protocol Member State an indefinite stay and says nothing about how the citizenship was acquired. The exclusion exists only in the work permit Order and in section 30A of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act.
The same sentence, twice, on the same day
Saint Lucia implemented the Economic Union on 18 August 2014 and on the same day made the Order exempting Protocol citizens from the work permit requirement. The exclusion of economic citizens is subsection (2) of that Order. Act 22 of 2014 put the identical sentence into the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Act as section 30A(3), attached to the exemption from a visitor's driving permit. Two ministers made two instruments under two statutes, and both reserved the decision to a third - the minister responsible for external affairs. That is a deliberate policy rather than a drafting habit: the question of whether another country's passport-sale programme is as good as yours is a foreign-policy question, and Saint Lucia has said so in its road traffic law.
What this looks like from the other side
A person who buys a passport from Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada or Saint Kitts and Nevis has, on the face of the Economic Union Protocol, the right to live and work anywhere in the Economic Union Area. Saint Lucia has taken that away unless a minister says otherwise, and so has Grenada. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which has no programme of its own, has published nothing of the kind. The effect is that the two Eastern Caribbean states with the largest citizenship-by-investment programmes are the two that will not honour anybody else's, and the state without a programme is the one that will.
What the law says
«(2) Subsection (1) does not apply to a person who becomes a citizen of a Protocol Member State under an economic or honorary citizenship programme of that Protocol Member State, unless this programme is comparable to an economic or honorary citizenship programme in force in Saint Lucia and is approved as such by the Minister responsible for external affairs.»Grenada's equivalent is paragraph 3(2) of S.R.O. 24 of 2015 and spells it "honourary". Saint Lucia's came first by a year.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government printer. Prints the Gazette and publishes Acts and Statutory Instruments as enacted, year by year, as individual PDFs. This is the only place a Saint Lucian instrument later than the 2023 Supplement can be read, and it is where the amendments that matter most live: the grandparent descent route, the immigration fee-waiver power, the ECCIRA Act, the 2026 income tax changes.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: A printer, not a consolidator. Everything here is text as enacted: it shows what an Act did to another Act, never what the amended Act now says, and it is on the reader to apply it to the Chapter. It must not be cited for the current state of any provision. Its documents sit on opaque base64 download addresses whose contents cannot be guessed from the URL, so there is no way to reach an instrument you know the number of without opening the year listing and finding it - and a listing paginates, so reading only the first page loses instruments. It must also not be cited for completeness: the listings are the printer's record of what it printed, not a register of what is in force, and nothing on a PDF says whether a commencement Order has been made. Its print of a section number renders an em dash as a Chinese character, so a reading of it will carry foreign glyphs that are a font mapping and not an extraction fault.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«(3) Subsection (1) shall not apply to a person who becomes a citizen of a Protocol Member State under an economic or honorary citizenship programme of that Protocol Member State, unless such programme is comparable to an economic or honorary citizenship programme in force in Saint Lucia and approved as such by the Minister responsible for external affairs.»The same sentence, applied to the exemption from a visitor's driving permit. No other country in the records here has put the carve-out in its road traffic law; Grenada's sits in a work permit Order.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Revised Laws of Saint Lucia, published by the Legislative Drafting Department of the Attorney General's Chambers as a data bank reached by remote computer. It is not a convenience copy of the statute book: the Revised Edition of the Laws Act, Cap. 1.07 lets a revised edition exist in that form (s. 4(2)(e)), requires a Resolution of Parliament before the Attorney General may bring one into force (s. 10(4)), and provides that what results is, in all courts of justice and for all purposes whatsoever, the sole authentic edition of the laws (s. 10(5)). Knowingly altering it to deceive is an offence. Arranged by Chapter, each Chapter printing the Act with its subsidiary legislation, and printing on its face the in-force date of the principal Act and of every amending Act and Statutory Instrument - which neither the Grenadian nor the Vincentian portal does, and which is what makes a commencement question answerable here.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must never be cited for what the law is now. The current edition is the 2023 Supplement, in force 22 July 2025 by S.I. 112 of 2025, and the masthead says only 'Revised Laws of Saint Lucia (2023)' - nothing on any page says anything is missing. The Citizenship of Saint Lucia Act printed there reaches a parent and not a grandparent, because Act 7 of 2024 is not in it. The Immigration Act printed there has no section 22A, because Act 10 of 2024 is not in it, so the two 2025 fee-waiver Orders rest on a power the edition does not show. The Citizenship by Investment Regulations printed there show a National Economic Fund minimum of US$100,000, amended to S.I. 162 of 2023 and no further; the figure in force since 1 July 2024 is US$240,000 and three later instruments are invisible. It must also not be relied on for reachability: on 5 October 2026 roughly a third of section addresses answered with the publisher's own 'The page can't be found' or a content-management login page while serving the real text to a plain request, including the Immigration Act interpretation and entry sections, every Schedule to the Immigration (Visa) Order, the whole Citizenship of Saint Lucia Act, the whole Labour Act, the Income Tax Act interpretation section, and every operative section of both customs Acts. A negative claim must never be made from a page that would not load. It is also not the publisher of record for anything gazetted after the revision: that is the National Printing Corporation.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«'citizen of a Protocol Member State' means a person, other than a citizen of Saint Lucia, who is a citizen of a member state of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States that is a party to the Protocol of the Eastern Caribbean Economic Union;»The definition is by treaty participation, not by membership of the Organisation, so Montserrat and the associate members are outside it unless they are parties to the Protocol.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Government printer. Prints the Gazette and publishes Acts and Statutory Instruments as enacted, year by year, as individual PDFs. This is the only place a Saint Lucian instrument later than the 2023 Supplement can be read, and it is where the amendments that matter most live: the grandparent descent route, the immigration fee-waiver power, the ECCIRA Act, the 2026 income tax changes.
Standing: Issues the instrument
Cannot be cited for: A printer, not a consolidator. Everything here is text as enacted: it shows what an Act did to another Act, never what the amended Act now says, and it is on the reader to apply it to the Chapter. It must not be cited for the current state of any provision. Its documents sit on opaque base64 download addresses whose contents cannot be guessed from the URL, so there is no way to reach an instrument you know the number of without opening the year listing and finding it - and a listing paginates, so reading only the first page loses instruments. It must also not be cited for completeness: the listings are the printer's record of what it printed, not a register of what is in force, and nothing on a PDF says whether a commencement Order has been made. Its print of a section number renders an em dash as a Chinese character, so a reading of it will carry foreign glyphs that are a font mapping and not an extraction fault.
We re-read it every 30 days. More about this source
«(2) Subject to subsection (1) a citizen of a Protocol Member State shall be entitled to enter or remain for a stay of indefinite duration in Saint Lucia, except where such person is a prohibited immigrant or for reasons of national security.»Quoted for what it does not say. The two exceptions are being a prohibited immigrant and reasons of national security; buying the citizenship is neither.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Revised Laws of Saint Lucia, published by the Legislative Drafting Department of the Attorney General's Chambers as a data bank reached by remote computer. It is not a convenience copy of the statute book: the Revised Edition of the Laws Act, Cap. 1.07 lets a revised edition exist in that form (s. 4(2)(e)), requires a Resolution of Parliament before the Attorney General may bring one into force (s. 10(4)), and provides that what results is, in all courts of justice and for all purposes whatsoever, the sole authentic edition of the laws (s. 10(5)). Knowingly altering it to deceive is an offence. Arranged by Chapter, each Chapter printing the Act with its subsidiary legislation, and printing on its face the in-force date of the principal Act and of every amending Act and Statutory Instrument - which neither the Grenadian nor the Vincentian portal does, and which is what makes a commencement question answerable here.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: It must never be cited for what the law is now. The current edition is the 2023 Supplement, in force 22 July 2025 by S.I. 112 of 2025, and the masthead says only 'Revised Laws of Saint Lucia (2023)' - nothing on any page says anything is missing. The Citizenship of Saint Lucia Act printed there reaches a parent and not a grandparent, because Act 7 of 2024 is not in it. The Immigration Act printed there has no section 22A, because Act 10 of 2024 is not in it, so the two 2025 fee-waiver Orders rest on a power the edition does not show. The Citizenship by Investment Regulations printed there show a National Economic Fund minimum of US$100,000, amended to S.I. 162 of 2023 and no further; the figure in force since 1 July 2024 is US$240,000 and three later instruments are invisible. It must also not be relied on for reachability: on 5 October 2026 roughly a third of section addresses answered with the publisher's own 'The page can't be found' or a content-management login page while serving the real text to a plain request, including the Immigration Act interpretation and entry sections, every Schedule to the Immigration (Visa) Order, the whole Citizenship of Saint Lucia Act, the whole Labour Act, the Income Tax Act interpretation section, and every operative section of both customs Acts. A negative claim must never be made from a page that would not load. It is also not the publisher of record for anything gazetted after the revision: that is the National Printing Corporation.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
The exclusion bites on the exemption, not on entry. Nothing in either instrument says an economic citizen of a Protocol state may not enter Saint Lucia; it says they must get a work permit and a visitor's driving permit like anyone else.
We found no third instrument carrying the carve-out, and we can now say that the Immigration Act does not carry one. Sections 5 and 6 of that Act are stored and quoted: section 6(2) entitles a citizen of a Protocol Member State to enter or remain for a stay of indefinite duration with no reference to how that citizenship was acquired, and section 5 is the same. So the exclusion bites on the work permit exemption and the driving permit exemption and stops there - an economic citizen of another Protocol state is still entitled to enter and remain.