Dominican Passport Provides Expanded Travel & Residential Options
The Commonwealth of Dominica is one of only two countries in the world to offer citizenship and passport through investment. With a price starting at only US$75,000 for a single applicant (US$100,000 for a family), you don’t need to be wealthy to obtain Dominican economic citizenship and passport. You just need to have a clean background, a genuine interest in Dominica, and the ability to speak English fluently.
One of the little-known benefits of a passport from Dominica is its membership in the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM. A longstanding CARICOM initiative is the free movement of goods, services, and people throughout all 16 CARICOM countries.
A Dominican passport provides a substantially expanded ability to live or work in any of these countries, which in addition to Dominica are Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago.
Another benefit of Dominica—at least for current or former U.S. citizens—is that it's almost totally off the radar screen with respect to the United States. Indeed, the United States doesn't have an embassy—or even a consulate—in Dominica. The official U.S. diplomatic mission for Dominica is in Barbados, nearly 200 miles away.
Dominican passports are now fully "machine-readable," making them acceptable for border crossings in nearly 90 countries, including many other members of the British Commonwealth. (For other countries, you must possess the appropriate visa.) However, if you have a handwritten Dominican passport issued prior to 2006, you must renew it, even if it is nowhere close to expiration. The Dominican government recently extended the deadline for renewing handwritten passports from June 30 to Dec. 30, 2007. After that date, you won't be able to use a handwritten Dominican passport at border crossings anywhere in the world.
If you'd like to learn more about passport and citizenship in the Commonwealth of Dominica, contact me at assetpro@nestmann.com.
Copyright © 2007 by Mark Nestmann
