The widget the live cost page is still running
The cost chapter names all five programs and a headline donation figure for each, but its interactive control does one thing regardless of which country or household you pick: it shows a flat $200,000 investment plus $15,000 to $30,000 in fees. For a single applicant that output lands at $215,000 to $230,000. That number is not Dominica's, not Antigua's, not anyone's official all-in. It is a placeholder dressed as a calculator.
The fix is not a nicer slider. It is reading five official fee schedules line by line, because the fees genuinely differ by country, by route, and by who is in the household. A spouse changes Dominica's price band. A parent or a sibling only qualifies, and only at a real extra cost, in Antigua and Grenada. St Kitts and Nevis cannot even agree with itself on the real estate minimum. None of that survives a single generic slider, so this extra replaces it with five tables and a calculator that reads them.
1. Dominica — Economic Diversification Fund vs approved project
Source: Commonwealth of Dominica Citizenship by Investment Regulations, 2024, S.R.O. No. 8 of 2024, Schedule 1, gazetted 28 June 2024. The live CBIU website was captcha-gated on the fetch behind this article, so every figure below comes from the gazette text, not from agent restatements of it.
| Household | Contribution |
|---|---|
| Main applicant alone | $200,000 |
| Main applicant and up to three qualifying dependants | $250,000 |
| Each additional dependant under 18 | +$25,000 |
| Each additional dependant 18 or older | +$40,000 |
A spouse is a dependant, so a couple sits in the $250,000 band, not the $200,000 single price. On top of the contribution every EDF file pays $7,500 due diligence for the main applicant, $4,000 for each other dependant (the SRO does not print an age on this clause, though regulation 4(13) sets due diligence at 16 and over generally, an unresolved gap), $1,000 per interview for everyone 16 and over, $1,000 processing per application, and $500 per person for the certificate of naturalisation.
| Household | Government fee on top of $200,000/main applicant |
|---|---|
| Main applicant alone | $75,000 |
| Main applicant and up to three dependants | $100,000 |
| Each extra dependant under 18 | +$25,000 |
| Each extra dependant 18 or older | +$40,000 |
The real estate minimum is $200,000 per main applicant, not per family, and two or more main applicants may share one project provided each puts in the full $200,000.
2. Antigua and Barbuda — National Development Fund vs real estate
Sources: Antigua and Barbuda's official schedule of fees, its NDF and real estate investment-option pages, and its dependants page, all on cip.gov.ag. NDF contribution is flat at $230,000 through a family of four, then processing rises with headcount.
| Household | NDF | Processing | Due diligence | Passports | All-in gov |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single | $230,000 | $10,000 | $8,500 | $300 | $248,800 |
| Family of 4, two children 0-11 | $230,000 | $20,000 | $13,500 | $1,200 | $264,700 |
| Family of 4, children 12-17 and 18-30 | $230,000 | $20,000 | $19,500 | $1,200 | $270,700 |
| Family of 5, + parent 55+, two children 0-11 | $230,000 | $30,000 | $17,500 | $1,500 | $279,000 |
Who counts as a dependant is wide: spouse, a child 0 to 30 who is financially dependent, a disabled child 18 or older who is fully supported, a parent or grandparent 55 or older who is financially dependent, an unmarried sibling of the main applicant or spouse, a future spouse for $50,000, and a future child of a dependent child for $10,000 under six or $20,000 aged six to seventeen. Adding a dependant after the grant costs $10,000 for a child 0 to 5, $25,000 for 6 to 17, and $50,000 plus standard due diligence and a passport for 18 or older.
Antigua's own citizenship page states the five-day rule as a deprivation risk, not a mere renewal inconvenience: citizenship may be deprived if the citizen does not spend at least five days in Antigua and Barbuda during the five calendar years after being granted citizenship, with no repayment of any investment, contribution or purchase price.
3. St Kitts and Nevis — SISC vs PBO vs real estate, and a schedule that disagrees with itself
Sources: the CIU's Sustainable Island State Contribution and Public Benefit Option pages, its private real estate page, and S.R.O. 20 of 2024, hosted on ciu.gov.kn.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Main applicant or family up to four | $250,000 |
| Extra dependant under 18 | +$25,000 |
| Extra dependant 18 or older | +$50,000 |
| Due diligence, main applicant | $10,000 |
| Due diligence, each spouse/dependant 16+ | $7,500 |
| Application processing | $250 per applicant |
SISC and PBO share the same headline and due-diligence numbers, but PBO adds a post-approval-in- principle schedule under S.R.O. 26: $25,000 for the main applicant, deducted from the $250,000 contribution rather than added to it, plus $15,000 for a spouse, $10,000 for each dependant under 18, and $15,000 for each dependant 18 or older, all additive. A family of four on SISC lands at $268,500 government all-in; the same family on PBO lands at $303,500. A recent agent claim that the two routes were unified at $250,000 from 1 August 2026 describes the headline only, not the S.R.O. 26 extras.
Real estate is where the official sources disagree with themselves. S.R.O. 20 of 2024 sets developer real estate and a private condo or share at $400,000 and a private single-family home at $800,000. The live CIU website prices the same three categories at $325,000, $325,000 and $600,000. No later amending instrument reconciling the two was found on this pass, so both columns are shown in the calculator rather than one being picked as current.
4. Grenada — National Transformation Fund vs approved project
Sources: S.R.O. 15 of 2024, gazetted 28 June 2024 and in force 1 July 2024, the Investment Migration Agency's Becoming a Citizen fee charts and Enquiries FAQ on imagrenada.gd, and the dependant definition in Act No. 3 of 2019. The old cbi.gov.gd schedule-of-fees page returns a 404; do not use the stale $150,000 or $200,000 figures still cached from that host.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| NTF, main applicant and up to 3 dependants (excluding (f)/(g)) | $235,000 |
| Each extra ordinary dependant | +$25,000 |
| Class (f), parent/grandparent 55 or under, fully supported | +$50,000, never a slot in the $235,000 |
| Class (g), sibling 18+, single, no children | +$75,000, never a slot in the $235,000 |
| Approved project, sole/independent unit | $350,000 |
| Approved project, shared unit, per share | $270,000 |
| Government contribution, real estate, up to 3 ordinary dependants | $50,000 |
A "family of four" that is main applicant, spouse and two children costs $235,000. A "family of four" that is main applicant, spouse, a parent aged 50 and a sibling costs $235,000 plus $50,000 plus $75,000, because (f) and (g) never occupy one of the four slots in the headline band. The IMA's own live pages disagree on the due diligence fee: the Becoming a Citizen chart prints $5,000 per applicant 17 and over, while the Enquiries FAQ on the same host, fetched the same day, prints $6,000. This article does not resolve that clash; the calculator lets you toggle between them.
Grenada's official Enquiries FAQ states approval within sixty business days of submission, subject to a satisfactory due diligence check and funds received, with a mandatory online interview and no visit required.
5. Saint Lucia — National Economic Fund, National Action Bond, and real estate
Sources: the live CIP Saint Lucia investment page and its FAQ, both on cipsaintlucia.com. The two pages do not agree, and that disagreement is the cleanest official-site error in this entire article.
| Route | Base | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| NEF, up to 4 | $240,000 | +$10,000 per extra dependant under 18, +$20,000 per extra 18+ |
| NAB | $300,000 | Non-interest-bearing, 5-year hold, plus $50,000 non-refundable admin, any number of dependants |
| Real estate | $300,000 | Plus non-refundable admin: $30,000 alone, $45,000 with spouse, +$5,000 per child under 18, +$10,000 per dependant 18+ |
The investment page also lists processing at $2,000 for the main applicant and $1,000 per dependant, and due diligence at $8,000 for the main applicant and $5,000 per dependant 16 or older. Saint Lucia's interview is payable by the main applicant only, but the dollar amount is not printed on the fetched page. The live FAQ on the same domain still lists 2015-era NEF pricing: $100,000 alone, $140,000 with a spouse, $150,000 with a spouse and up to two dependants. That page is stale against the $240,000 investment page, and this article quotes both so the clash is visible rather than quietly resolved.
A worked family of four with two children under 16 on the NEF lands at roughly $258,000 government all-in, not $240,000 and done. Saint Lucia's sibling eligibility is narrower than the family chapter's language suggests: only a sibling under 18 qualifies here, unlike the broader sibling rules in Antigua, Grenada and St Kitts.
Common mistake
Reading a hub-level sentence like "Dominica is cheapest for a single, Antigua is best for a family of four" as an all-in comparison. On the official government-only numbers behind this article, Dominica is genuinely cheapest for a single applicant. For two adults and two young children, Grenada's NTF and Saint Lucia's NEF both undercut Antigua's NDF, and Antigua only barely undercuts Dominica. If "best" survives for Antigua, it is on non-price grounds, the UWI scholarship access or the five-day presence tolerance, not on the dollar total.
What the live cost page's calculator should have asked
Country, route, and household composition, with age bands that actually change the price, not a partner-and-kids preset that flattens five different legal instruments into one guess. The tool below does that using the rules transcribed above: Dominica's couple-moves-the-band rule, Antigua's flat $230,000 through four with rising processing, St Kitts' $250,000-covers-four with the PBO deduction quirk, Grenada's (f) and (g) dependants that never eat a headline slot, and Saint Lucia's $240,000 band with its own extras.
Price your household, by country and route
Recoverable component: $0. Non-recoverable: $265,500.
Agent professional fees are not on any official schedule. Market quotes run roughly $15,000 to $40,000.
| Line item | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| EDF contribution | $250,000 | Any dependant moves the $200,000 single band to the $250,000 family band, S.R.O. 8 of 2024 Schedule 1 §1(3)(a)-(b) |
| Due diligence, main applicant | $7,500 | |
| Due diligence, spouse | $4,000 | SRO wording says "each dependant" with no age; reg. 4(13) sets 16+. Named gap. |
| Interview, all applicants 16+ | $2,000 | |
| Processing | $1,000 | Per application, not per person |
| Certificate of naturalisation (2) | $1,000 | |
| All-in government total | $265,500 |
Every clash the underlying research found is exposed as a toggle rather than resolved silently: the Dominica enhanced due-diligence surcharge, Grenada's $5,000 versus $6,000 due-diligence figure, and St Kitts' two real-estate minima. None of the toggles default to the more expensive reading, because neither official page has been superseded on this pass.
Where the money is not recoverable
Every donation route, EDF, NDF, SISC, PBO, NTF and NEF, is a non-recoverable contribution. Every real estate route is a purchase, recoverable in principle at resale after a hold period, seven years on Dominica and St Kitts, unstated in Grenada's S.R.O. 15, five years on Saint Lucia's bond. Due diligence fees are non-refundable on every program even after a rejection. None of the five units publish a refund schedule for a declined application beyond that basic rule.
Frequently asked
Why does the live cost page get this wrong?
Because it prices one generic household. The control on /countries/caribbean/cost shows a flat $200,000 investment plus $15,000 to $30,000 in fees for every country and every family shape. That is nobody's real number. Dominica's own donation schedule moves from $200,000 to $250,000 the moment a single dependant is added, and St Lucia's official investment page prices a family of four at $258,000 all in, not $215,000 to $230,000. The generic widget hides the exact fact that makes this decision interesting, which is that the ranking of the five programs flips depending on household size.
Which country is actually cheapest?
It depends on the household. On official government-only numbers fetched 21 August 2026, Dominica's EDF is cheapest for a single applicant at $210,000. For two adults and two young children, Grenada's NTF at roughly $257,000 and Saint Lucia's NEF at roughly $258,000 undercut Antigua's NDF at roughly $264,700, and Antigua only barely undercuts Dominica at roughly $266,500. The site's own copy elsewhere says Dominica is cheapest for a single and Antigua is best for a family of four. On the arithmetic in the official schedules, that second half only survives if Antigua's non-government advantages, the UWI scholarship access and the shorter presence obligation, are the tiebreaker, not the dollar total.
Does a spouse count as a dependant?
On Dominica's EDF, yes, and it matters. The main-applicant-alone contribution is $200,000. The moment a spouse or any other qualifying dependant is added, the household moves to the $250,000 band, which covers up to three dependants. Agent tables that keep a couple at $200,000 are describing a row that does not exist in S.R.O. No. 8 of 2024. On St Kitts, Antigua, Grenada and St Lucia a spouse sits inside the flat family-of-four band, so the arithmetic is different program by program. Check the table for the country in question rather than assuming one rule applies everywhere.
What about parents and siblings?
Grenada and Antigua both let a parent or grandparent qualify, but only above defined ages and only for an extra fee outside the main household band. Grenada's schedule calls this a class (f) dependant, aged 55 or under, fully supported, at an extra $50,000, and it never occupies one of the four slots inside the $235,000 contribution. Antigua's dependants page sets the age at 55 or older. Siblings are narrower still. Grenada's class (g) sibling must be 18 or older, single, with no children, for an extra $75,000, again outside the main band. Antigua accepts an unmarried sibling under its dependants schedule. Saint Lucia only extends to a sibling under 18. Dominica and St Kitts do not price a sibling row in the schedules we could confirm. The calculator below only offers a sibling option where the brief confirms one.
Is the real estate route cheaper than the donation?
Not on the numbers, once government fees on top of the purchase are counted, and in St Kitts the numbers do not even agree with themselves. S.R.O. 20 of 2024 sets developer and private-condo real estate at $400,000 and a private home at $800,000, while the live CIU website prices the same three categories at $325,000, $325,000, and $600,000. We could not find a later amending instrument that reconciles the two on this pass, so the calculator shows both columns rather than picking one. Dominica's approved-project route is $200,000 per main applicant, which sounds cheaper than its own $250,000 donation band for a family, but it then adds $75,000 to $100,000 in government fees on top, plus due diligence, so the two Dominica routes land close together for a family.
Are these numbers all a licensed agent will charge?
No. Every figure in this article and in the calculator is a government fee taken from a statute, an S.R.O., or a live official CIU, IMA or CIP page. A licensed agent is mandatory on all five programs, and typical market quotes for that professional fee run roughly $15,000 to $40,000 per file, on top of everything shown here. That range is not official and is not in the calculator's default total. The calculator has a single optional field where you can type your own agent quote to see the combined number, but it defaults to empty so the government-only total is never quietly inflated by an invented figure.
Named gaps
- Dominica's CBIU website and its 2026 Application Process Guide PDF were captcha-gated on this pass. Every Dominica figure above comes from S.R.O. 8 of 2024, not from that live HTML.
- Dominica's EDF due-diligence clause says "each dependant" with no age; regulation 4(13) sets 16 and over generally. Left unresolved rather than guessed.
- Dominica's list of "specified countries" for enhanced due diligence is not published in the S.R.O.
- Grenada's cbi.gov.gd schedule-of-fees page is a 404. Cached pre-July-2024 figures on that host ($150,000/$200,000) are stale and not used here.
- Grenada's due diligence fee is $5,000 on the Becoming a Citizen chart and $6,000 on the Enquiries FAQ, same host, same day. Not resolved; the calculator toggles between them.
- Grenada's passport and oath fees are not on the official IMA chart.
- Grenada's real estate hold period is not stated in S.R.O. 15 of 2024.
- St Kitts' S.R.O. 20 of 2024 prices real estate at $400,000/$400,000/$800,000; the live CIU website prices the same three categories at $325,000/$325,000/$600,000. No later amending instrument reconciling the two was found.
- St Kitts' interview and passport fees are mandatory but have no printed dollar amount.
- Antigua's interview fee is not on the official schedule; agents quote roughly $1,500.
- Antigua's UWI Fund page returned a 404 on this pass.
- Antigua's official business-route schedule prints a $75,000 spouse due-diligence cell next to a $5,000 cell for the same column on a larger household, an apparent table error not repeated here.
- Saint Lucia's interview fee is payable by the main applicant only, with no printed dollar amount.
- Saint Lucia's live FAQ still lists 2015-era NEF pricing ($100,000/$140,000/$150,000) against the current $240,000 investment page.
- No unit publishes a median days-to-passport series for any of the five programs. A processing-times extra is not ready and is not attempted here.
- Licensed-agent professional fees are not official and are not tabulated beyond the optional field.
- The site's own sitemap.xml returned a 500 during this research pass.
Sources
- Commonwealth of Dominica Citizenship by Investment Regulations, 2024, S.R.O. No. 8 of 2024, Schedule 1, gazetted 28 June 2024. dominica.gov.dm
- Antigua and Barbuda, official schedule of fees, NDF and real estate investment options, and dependants page. cip.gov.ag/schedule-of-fees, cip.gov.ag/investment-options/ndf, cip.gov.ag/citizenship/dependants
- Antigua and Barbuda citizenship page, five-day deprivation rule. cip.gov.ag/citizenship
- St Kitts and Nevis CIU, Sustainable Island State Contribution, Public Benefit Option, and private real estate pages. ciu.gov.kn/sustainable-island-state-contribution, ciu.gov.kn/public-benefit-option, ciu.gov.kn/private-real-estate-investment
- St Kitts and Nevis, S.R.O. 20 of 2024, hosted on the CIU website. ciu.gov.kn/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/sro-20-of-2024.pdf
- Grenada, S.R.O. 15 of 2024 (Amendment No. 2), gazetted 28 June 2024, in force 1 July 2024, and the Investment Migration Agency's Becoming a Citizen and Enquiries pages. imagrenada.gd, S.R.O. 15 of 2024, imagrenada.gd/becoming-a-citizen, imagrenada.gd/enquiries
- Grenada Citizenship by Investment (Amendment) Act No. 3 of 2019, section 2 dependant definitions, hosted copy of the official text. imidaily.com, Act No. 3 of 2019
- Saint Lucia, CIP investment page and FAQ. cipsaintlucia.com/citizenship-by-investment, cipsaintlucia.com/faqs
- Our own Caribbean cost chapter, which this extra sits under and corrects.
- Methodology: every page above opened, or attempted and recorded as blocked, on 21 August 2026.
Not legal advice. Figures here reflect S.R.O.s, statutes and live official CIU, IMA and CIP pages as available on 21 August 2026. Fees change; confirm current schedules with the relevant unit and a licensed agent before committing funds.