Until now, each of the five Eastern Caribbean countries that sell citizenship has regulated its own programme, under its own law, with its own unit. That is changing. In September 2025 the five agreed to create a shared supervisor: the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority, known as ECCIRA. This post explains what the authority is, what its founding agreement says it will do, whether it has started, and what it is likely to change for people applying.
Everything here comes from the agreement itself, as scheduled to an enacted national Act, and from official statements by the governments and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank.
Who signed, and when
Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and St Kitts and Nevis signed the agreement on 18 September 2025, Saint Lucia on 22 September and Grenada on 23 September. The agreement enters into force on the thirtieth day after the fifth country deposits its instrument of ratification, and it can be applied provisionally once three countries declare that they will do so.
Each country then had to make the agreement part of its own law. All five have done so; four enacted it between October and November 2025, and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank reported in December 2025 that all five had legislated.
| Country | National law | Assent |
|---|---|---|
| St Kitts and Nevis | Act No. 24 of 2025 | 22 October 2025 |
| Saint Lucia | Act No. 21 of 2025 | 3 November 2025 |
| Antigua and Barbuda | Act No. 18 of 2025 | 6 November 2025 |
| Grenada | Act No. 19 of 2025 | 24 November 2025 |
| Dominica | Enacted; the Act's number and text were not located | Reported as enacted by 1 December 2025 |
One detail in those Acts explains a lot about the timing. In the four whose texts we could read, the Act comes into force on a date the responsible minister appoints by order, rather than on assent. Passing the law was therefore only the first step: each government still has to switch it on, and the five have said they will do so together once the authority can operate.
What the authority will do
Article 8 of the agreement lists the authority's functions. Read together, they make it the region's standard-setter and supervisor for every part of the industry that touches an application:
- developing, applying and enforcing uniform standards and procedures for the programmes;
- regulating the national citizenship units themselves, as well as agents, due diligence providers, developers and promoters;
- setting minimum due diligence standards, and auditing and monitoring how they are applied;
- reviewing and approving the frameworks that decide which applicants are eligible;
- keeping a regional register of licensed and authorised persons;
- investigating complaints and breaches, sharing information between the five states, and publishing annual reports.
Who gets licensed
The licensing role is the part most applicants will notice. Under Article 36, the national units vet would-be agents, promoters, due diligence providers, developers and escrow agents against the agreement's fit-and-proper standards, and the authority keeps the regional register of those who pass. In practice that should mean one regional list against which you can check anyone offering to file your application in any of the five programmes.
Uniform rules for applicants
Article 45 requires the authority to issue and enforce common eligibility, documentation and due diligence standards across all five programmes. The agreement spells out what those standards must cover:
- prohibited categories of applicant, including people under sanctions or on watch-lists, and nationals of countries subject to a suspension order;
- disqualifying circumstances, such as prior convictions or incomplete disclosure;
- police clearances from every relevant jurisdiction;
- biometrics;
- proof of a lawful source of funds;
- a declaration of tax residence, tax status and compliance.
The last item links to wider international concern about tax reporting under the OECD's Common Reporting Standard, which treats some investment-citizenship schemes as a risk to its integrity.
The 30-day presence rule
The agreement also brings a residence element. As enacted in Antigua and Barbuda, its Article 48.2(a) requires each main applicant and dependant to spend 30 days in the country, a figure that replaces Antigua's current shorter requirement once it applies. For Dominica, Grenada and St Kitts and Nevis, which have no residence rule in force today, it would be the first; Saint Lucia's law already requires residency but has not yet set out what that means.
Has it started?
Not yet. The latest official statement we found, from the St Kitts and Nevis citizenship unit in late September 2026, says the regional framework takes effect only once the authority is operational and all five states agree and communicate a start date. In April 2026 the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank said an interim commission was recruiting a chief executive to get the authority running later in the year. No start date has been announced.
What it does not do
Two points are often misunderstood. The agreement contains no discount or rebate clause: the region's common price floor, and the ban on discounting below it, come from a separate memorandum signed in 2024, explained in our post on the USD 200,000 floor. And it does not abolish the national units: the agreement regulates them, and gives them the job of vetting agents and other service providers under Article 36.
What changes for applicants
Until the authority operates and a start date is agreed, nothing in the application process changes. When it does, our reading of the agreement is that applicants should expect:
- more uniform document requirements across the five, including police certificates from every country you have lived in and a tax-residence declaration;
- the 30-day presence requirement, which turns a paper citizenship into one that needs a trip;
- a single regional register to check your agent against;
- less room for one programme to accept a file another would refuse, since eligibility frameworks will need the authority's approval.
For anyone applying now, the practical advice is to ask your agent which of these standards the national unit already applies, and how a file submitted today would be treated if the framework starts while it is being processed. Our Caribbean comparison sets out each programme's current rules, and the guide to checking an agent explains how to use today's national lists.