Updates

Corrected. The previous version opened by saying every other country in this comparison has a rule deciding when a person becomes tax resident. The records here say otherwise for at least four of them: Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago both record no statutory definition of residence and no day count, the Bahamas records no statutory test for individuals, and Bolivia records none at all. Antigua and Barbuda is one of several, not the exception, and the reason given for it still stands.

Corrected. The previous version said Chile is the only country covered that offers less than Argentina's single degree. Belize, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago all record that no residence category based on ancestry exists at all. What they give instead is citizenship by descent, which makes the ranking a different question from the one the sentence claimed to settle, so the claim is dropped rather than restated.

Corrected. The previous version said Brazil is the only country in this set whose migration law gives a migrant a statutory right to open a bank account, and that no other country covered here states it as a right in its migration statute. Guatemala's record holds article 32 of its Migration Code giving migrant workers and their families the right, and article 45 of its residence regulation listing it seventh among the rights of residence; Mexico's holds article 60 of its Ley de Migración, letting a foreigner make bank deposits whatever their migration status. What this record says about Brazil is otherwise unchanged.

in force from 2019-09-26

Corrected. The previous version said Brazil is the only Mercosur member Chile does not convert licences with, and that Brazil is out while the other four are in. Both are wrong against the ministry's own list, quoted in this same record: it names Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay, which is three of Mercosur's six full members, and leaves out Uruguay and Venezuela as well as Brazil. The arithmetic was ours and no quotation carried it.

Corrected. The previous version said Chile is the only other country in this set with a rule in this family. Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama all record a renunciation requirement as well. The contrast the record draws - that they take the other nationality away and Cuba keeps it while refusing it any effect - holds for all four.

in force from 2026-11-01

Corrected. The previous version named Chile as the only other country in this set asking a naturalising foreigner to renounce. Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama record the same requirement.

in force from 2026-11-01

The block-grant claim is restated as a fact about the records here. It survives the check - no other healthcare record holds a scheme that pays the Government to provide care rather than reimbursing the insured person - but the previous wording asserted it of every country.

The structural claim is restated as a fact about the records here. It survives the check and is the strongest thing on this record: Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and Saint Lucia each have a Citizenship by Investment Act of their own, and Saint Kitts and Nevis has section 3(5) of its Citizenship Act. Dominica alone has neither, and routes an investor through section 8, the ordinary naturalisation section, with the residence waived under section 8(2)(c). The previous wording asserted it of every programme anywhere.

Corrected. The previous version said every other Caribbean country covered here is in CARICOM. Cuba is not, and nothing in this record carried the claim. The point it was making - that the CARICOM frame does not reach the Dominican Republic - is unaffected and is now stated without the count.

Corrected, against another record on this site. The note on the economic-citizen carve-out said we have found no equivalent exclusion in any other OECS member's implementing law. Saint Lucia's is section 3(2) of the Labour (Work Permit) (Exemption) (Citizen of a Protocol Member State) Order, 2014, S.I. 83 of 2014, in almost the same words and a year earlier, and the Saint Lucian record here quotes it and says so.

Restated as a fact about the records here. The point stands and is worth keeping: the staff limb reaches managerial, technical and supervisory personnel through section 12(7A) of the Immigration Act itself, where the countries that implement the right of establishment by giving the Revised Treaty the force of law - Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago - carry it in the Treaty instead.

Corrected. The previous version said every other CARICOM country in this comparison is an island. Belize and Suriname are CARICOM members covered here and neither is. What the record is actually about - that a land frontier changes where a person may lawfully arrive - is unchanged.

Restated as a fact about the records here, and the nearest comparison is now named. Dominica's tax record holds an exit certificate required by its Income Tax Regulations, which is the same coupling at the leaving end; what no other record here holds is the coupling at both ends, on renewal and on departure.

Corrected. The previous version said every other country in this comparison expresses its migration thresholds in a currency that moves against the dollar. Ecuador and El Salvador use the United States dollar itself, as the catalogue and El Salvador's own tax record both record. The point about Panamanian thresholds needing no arithmetic is unchanged.

Corrected against a later section of this same record. The summary said the deferred start of domicile is a delay no other country covered here offers; the section two below it already said Colombia defers residency to the second year where the days straddle a year boundary. The difference is that Peru defers whenever the threshold is crossed and Colombia only in the straddling case, which is what the summary now says.

Corrected. The previous version said this is the only country in the comparison whose Immigration Act names a second regional bloc alongside CARICOM. Antigua and Barbuda's Immigration and Passport Act, 2014 names three in the same statute: the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States at section 21(1)(a), its Protocol at section 21(1)(b) and CARICOM at section 22(1), with a further limb at section 23(1) for service providers of an EU Member State. The six-year note is restated as a fact about the records here rather than as a claim about every country. It survives the check - the next longest outer limit on an entry permit in this comparison is Guyana's three years from the date of entry - but the previous wording asserted something no record carried.

The road traffic claim is restated as a fact about the records here. It survives the check - Grenada put its economic-citizen carve-out in a work permit Order and Saint Vincent has none - but the previous wording asserted something no record carried.

The same restatement applied to the note on the road traffic citation, so the two places that carry the claim carry it in the same form.

in force from 2014-08-18

Corrected. The record said a person becomes liable to be treated as a prohibited immigrant "which includes overstaying a permit", and no quotation here carries that. Every Saint Lucian provision we hold uses the term without defining it - sections 5, 6, 12 and 25 all assume the meaning - and the defining provision is not in the store. The parenthesis is removed and the gap is stated instead.

Corrected. The section heading said four Schedules is three more than anyone else publishes, and that is a count nothing carries: the Barbados record holds two lists in the Second Schedule to its Immigration Act, and the Bahamian record holds a waiver list and a visa-required table. Four is still the most in the records here, and the claim is now stated that way.

Restated as a fact about the records here. It survives the check: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia all hold an investment-citizenship record on this site, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines holds none. The two readings the section already names are what the claim rests on and they are unchanged.

Checked against the other three full free movement states and narrowed. Belize has legislated for full free movement and is not an OECS member; Barbados has no equivalent Act on its own record; Dominica is the only other state that could hold all three, and its record finds no implementing instrument - while saying that the Government of Dominica's published law collection has gaps in 2025. So the claim rests on an absence in another country's record that may be the publisher's rather than Parliament's, and now says so. Dominica's Caribbean Community (Movement of Factors) Act 2026 was checked and is not it: that Act implements the right of establishment, a different regime.

in force from 2025-10-01

Corrected. The previous version said every other country in this comparison inherits the common-law rule that a treaty does nothing domestically until Parliament enacts it. That is true of the common-law countries covered here and was never read of the civil-law ones, whose treaty rules this site has not recorded. The claim is narrowed to the two countries the record actually names.

The diaspora claim is restated as a fact about the records here rather than about every country. It survives the check - nothing else covered here holds a standalone Act creating a diaspora status, as against the returning-resident customs schemes of Dominica and Jamaica - but the previous wording asserted something no record carried.

Restated as a fact about the records here rather than about every country. The finding is unchanged: the investment statute removes the discretion to refuse residence and work permission to the personnel of a favoured enterprise, and makes the aliens department responsible for checking the facility.

Restated as a fact about the records here rather than about every country. The bridge itself is unchanged: the holder works from the start of the short stay, with recognition running in parallel and only a refusal stopping it.

Corrected. The previous version said Chile is the only other country covered here that requires a naturalising applicant to renounce an existing nationality. Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama record the same requirement. The renunciation rule is set out as it stands rather than as something unusual, and the point about sex in the Constitution is unchanged.

Corrected. The previous version said this is the only place in the comparison where a descent route lapses by time rather than by generation. Article 9 of the Bahamian Constitution gives a child born abroad to a Bahamian mother an entitlement to register only between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, which is the same shape of window, and the Bahamian record here quotes it.

Corrected, and it was wrong about another country's record on this site. The previous version said Trinidad and Tobago is the only country in this comparison that implemented the right of establishment by making the Treaty itself the law, and that this is stronger than Barbados, which merely wrote an exemption into its Immigration Act. The Barbados record here holds section 3(1) of the Caribbean Community Act, Cap. 15 - the Treaty shall have the force of law in Barbados - and notes that the whole text is printed as its First Schedule. The two records disagreed and the Barbadian one has the quotation.

Corrected. The previous version said no other country covered here asks a naturalising applicant for ten years. Saint Kitts and Nevis records fourteen years for naturalisation and Brazil records fifteen for its extraordinary route, both in their own records on this site. Venezuela's ten years is long, and it is not the longest.

The DGM permanent-residence page gives one year in its description and five years' worth of cards in its eligibility list. Reglamento 631-11 arts. 50 and 51 PIII both say five years.

Article 269 of the tax code was substituted by Ley 30-26 art. 12 on 18 June 2026, adding technical-assistance services to the foreign-source limb. The DGII compilation of the code still prints the pre-2026 text, so the two readings disagree and the gazette is the later one.

Reglamento 631-11 art. 81(a) says sixty days; the DGII tourist-card page says thirty; Ley 199-67 art. 5 says fifteen. All three are current Dominican government publications. Recorded as a conflict rather than resolved.

First write-up. The abrogations were checked twice: against the French text, which strikes the abrogated articles through, and against the Constitute Project's English edition, which annotates each one with the constitutional law of 9 May 2011 / 19 June 2012. The naturalisation conditions are left unstated because the decree of 6 November 1984 could not be read, and the abrogated five-year rule is named as abrogated rather than repeated.

First write-up. The ten thousand dollar deposit and the two hundred dollar attestation are both carried, neither is reconciled, and the record says which document each comes from. The decree-law of 26 December 1978 would settle it and could not be obtained.

First write-up. The thirty-day card and the ninety-day courtesy stay are both Haitian government statements and they conflict; neither is presented here as the answer. The decree-law of 26 December 1978, which the embassy cites by article, could not be obtained from any host we could reach, so the possibility that it replaced the 1959 figures is open and is said so in the data.

First write-up. Two Haitian statements of the same rule, sixty days apart, both carried.

First write-up. The statutory concession and the embassy's threshold are both carried and are not reconciled.

The motor vehicle concession that every secondary account repeats does not exist; the Ministry that runs the programme denies it in terms. The two ministries also give different qualifying periods and different procedures.

Page counts taken by extracting each page of each file separately and counting those returning under forty characters.

The common claim that Jamaican descent is unlimited is right about generations and wrong about parents: section 3C excludes a parent who naturalised or who registered otherwise than by marriage.

Sections 3(2) and 4(2) are identical. Checked against the page images of the publisher's scan and against the amending Act of 2013, which says in terms that the same paragraph goes into both.

Section 2 of the Income Tax Act has no definition of resident or residing. Established by reading the page images for the definitions between relative and statutory income, because those pages have no text layer.

The Agency's six-month ceiling for non-Commonwealth visitors has no counterpart in the Aliens Act; the twelve-month Commonwealth ceiling is in the Commonwealth Act twice, in s. 13(1) and s. 15(1).

First write-up. The extent of the 1993 repeal was read off the arrangement of sections of the Exchange Control Act, which marks each repealed block, and checked against the sections that still print in the body. The Financial Obligations Regulations were checked for post-2016 amendment against every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026; the only one is section 22 of the Finance Act 2025, a cross-reference correction, which is cited here.

First write-up. The absence of investment and marriage routes was tested against the full arrangement of sections of the Citizenship Act and every section in Part I, including the two repealed in 1978. The staleness of the Commonwealth list in section 18(3) was checked against the publisher's own footnote and against the legal notices of 2022 to 2026. The published Chapter is frozen at 31 December 2016. Every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 and the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts were checked for an amending Act, and the chronological lists of legal notices for 2022 to 2026 for subsidiary legislation. Nothing touching the provisions relied on here was found.

First write-up. The Act was extracted locally with pdftotext rather than through the extraction service, which has lost pages out of long statutes elsewhere in this corpus; the stored reading is 1.5 million characters. The Customs and Excise Division's own site timed out on every attempt and no agency page is relied on. Post-2016 amendments to the Customs Act were traced through every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026; the three that touch it were read and none reaches the exemption items quoted here.

First write-up. The Notice under section 56A(2) was found in the Chapter's own index of subsidiary legislation and read in full, both columns and both pages. The absence of a replacement Notice was checked against the legal notices of 2022 to 2026. The published Chapter is frozen at 31 December 2016. Every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 and the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts were checked for an amending Act, and the chronological lists of legal notices for 2022 to 2026 for subsidiary legislation. Nothing touching the provisions relied on here was found.

First write-up. The absence of an entitlement provision was checked against the whole arrangement of sections of the Regional Health Authorities Act and against a search of the stored reading for the words entitled, eligible, resident and citizen, which return only employment-related and corporate-succession uses. The Ministry page was read in full and says nothing about eligibility or cost. It would not load through the extraction service and was fetched directly. The published Chapter is frozen at 31 December 2016. Every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 and the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts were checked for an amending Act, and the chronological lists of legal notices for 2022 to 2026 for subsidiary legislation. Nothing touching the provisions relied on here was found.

First write-up. The list in the Proclamation was checked section by section against the Act as enacted, including the internal structure of section 11(c) and of section 20(b).

First write-up. Each item of the substituted Fourth Schedule was compared against the item it replaced and the renumbering of paragraph B's cross-references checked item by item.

First write-up. The absence of a Proclamation for Act No. 8 of 2026 and of any Order designating a website was checked against the full chronological list of 2026 legal notices in the Digital Legislative Library, 822 entries, searched for law revision, designated website and proclamation. The automated check for sections listed but not printed flagged 63 sections across six Trinidadian readings; each was looked for by hand and each prints. The cause is the publisher's layout, not a lost page.

First write-up. The two-generation limit was read from section 17(3) of the Constitution and sections 5(1) and 5(2) of the Citizenship Act together; the absence of any residence-by-descent route was tested against the closed list in section 6(1) of the Immigration Act. The published Chapter is frozen at 31 December 2016. Every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 and the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts were checked for an amending Act, and the chronological lists of legal notices for 2022 to 2026 for subsidiary legislation. Nothing touching the provisions relied on here was found.

First write-up. The negative was tested against both closed lists in the Act, against the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts to 2026 searched for any instrument naming residence, retirement or remote work, and against the legal notices for 2022 to 2026. Nothing of the kind appears. The published Chapter is frozen at 31 December 2016. Every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 and the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts were checked for an amending Act, and the chronological lists of legal notices for 2022 to 2026 for subsidiary legislation. Nothing touching the provisions relied on here was found.

First write-up. The absence of an investment route to citizenship or residence was tested against both closed lists in the Immigration Act, against the whole of the Citizenship Act, and against the alphabetical register of Acts in the Digital Legislative Library, which runs to 2026 and shows no Act whose title names investment citizenship or economic citizenship. The published Chapter is frozen at 31 December 2016. Every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 and the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts were checked for an amending Act, and the chronological lists of legal notices for 2022 to 2026 for subsidiary legislation. Nothing touching the provisions relied on here was found.

First write-up. The absence of citizenship by marriage was tested against the whole arrangement of sections of the Citizenship Act and against every section in Part I, including the two repealed by Act No. 25 of 1978. The published Chapter is frozen at 31 December 2016. Every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 and the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts were checked for an amending Act, and the chronological lists of legal notices for 2022 to 2026 for subsidiary legislation. Nothing touching the provisions relied on here was found.

First write-up. The partial commencement was read off Legal Notice No. 70 of 2023 against the section numbering of Act No. 9 of 2022 as enacted; section 13 and the Schedule V limb of section 20(b) are absent from the list. The claim that no Caribbean Community (Movement of Factors) Act exists was tested against the alphabetical register of Acts under C and under M to 2026 and against the Chapter numbering at 81:09 to 81:13. The claim that nothing implements the 2025 protocol was tested against the same register and against every legal notice of 2024, 2025 and 2026.

First write-up. The absence of a retirement category was tested against the closed list in section 6(1) and the closed list in section 9(1) of the Immigration Act, and against the alphabetical register of Acts in the Digital Legislative Library to 2026. The published Chapter is frozen at 31 December 2016. Every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 and the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts were checked for an amending Act, and the chronological lists of legal notices for 2022 to 2026 for subsidiary legislation. Nothing touching the provisions relied on here was found.

First write-up. The agreement between the Division's published fees and the Fourth Schedule was checked item by item against the Schedule as substituted and against the Schedule it replaced. The published Chapter is frozen at 31 December 2016. Every Finance Act from 2017 to 2026 and the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts were checked for an amending Act, and the chronological lists of legal notices for 2022 to 2026 for subsidiary legislation. Nothing touching the provisions relied on here was found.

First write-up. The finding that no Caribbean Community (Movement of Factors) Act exists in Trinidad and Tobago was tested against the Digital Legislative Library's alphabetical register of Acts under C and under M, each paginated to the end, against the Chapter numbering at 81:09 to 81:13 on the Law Revision Commission's site, and against the full-text search of the same library. Act No. 2 of 2005, which inserted the reference, was read in full.