St Lucia has taken top spot in Best CBI rankings for 2021. Dominica in second place, followed by Grenada in third spot.
Caribbean countries have captured top spots due to the significant changes they made to their programs . This comes as no surprise considering Caribbean is the birthplace of citizenship by investment.
Our PBS (points based scoring) model, which we designed last year, is one of a kind in the industry, ranks Best CBI program taking into account 37 important factors looking by clients before deciding on their favorite investment citizenship program
Covid had a huge impact on CBI programs this year causing a dramatic shift in rankings for this year. CBI Programs that require personal visit or trips have fallen in rankings this year as Covid has made it impossible to travel for investors.
St Lucia has made astounding jump from bottom of the table last year to first spot this year. The St Lucia government has made huge improvements in transparency, due diligence, governance and announcing various covid offers to CIP making St Lucia one of the best flagship products in the world, scoring top marks in CBI rankings.
Vanuatu has improved its position from bottom to fourth place tied with St Kitts. In 2020, Vanuatu has made great improvements to the DSP and VCP schemes by processing applications faster than any country in the world and increasing passport validity to ten years.
| Rank | CBI | PBS score |
| 1 | Saint Lucia | 252 |
| 2 | Dominica | 250 |
| 3 | Grenada | 248 |
| 4 | St Kitts and Nevis | 235 |
| 4 | Vanuatu | 235 |
| 5 | Antigua and Barbuda | 234 |
| 6 | Bulgaria | 208 |
| 7 | Malta | 202 |
| 8 | Turkey | 196 |
| 9 | Montenegro | 193 |
| 10 | Samoa | 164 |
| 10 | Egypt | 164 |
| 11 | Jordan | 156 |
Source: Best CBI Rankings
Ranking factors
We have considered these 37 important factors into our PBS scoring model. Each ranking factor is assigned 10 points making it a total of 370 points.
- Pricing
- Popularity
- Easy Application process
- Govt bonds
- Safety score (low crime)
- Visa free to Big 6 – EU schengen, UK, USA, Canada, Russia, China (70 points)
- Wealth (GDP per capita)
- Passport time (months)
- Processing speed (days)
- Residence requirement
- Voting rights
- EU citizenship
- E-2 treaty with US
- Education Rank
- Healthcare Rank
- HDI Rank (Human development)
- Privacy – Publish CBI names
- Tax free advantages
- Due Diligence and Vetting
- CBI Transparency
- Passport Validity
- Personal visit exemption
- Lifetime Citizenship
- Covid discount
- Post citizenship additions
- Family friendly (siblings, grandparents etc)
- Real estate prices
- CBI e-platform
- Stateless people
- Consulates abroad
- Limited Quotas
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