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Hi there,
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Nauru's citizenship by investment program will increase prices after June 30th.
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You're going to see a lot of emails about this.
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Most of them will tell you to rush in before the deadline.
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We want to take a different approach and help you think through whether this actually matters for your situation (and what it tells us about the broader market).
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When Nauru makes sense?
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Every program fits a certain profile.
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Nauru is a good option if you're specifically looking for citizenship in the Pacific and Vanuatu doesn't work for you (for example, if you'd prefer not to travel for the required consulate visit for biometrics).
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It also makes sense if one of the countries on Nauru's specific visa-free list is particularly important to you.
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Outside of those cases, most of our clients end up looking elsewhere.
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Nauru's passport covers a similar number of visa-free countries as Vanuatu, Sierra Leone, or São Tomé, but at a generally higher price point.
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The process is also the slowest of the three, with one of the more demanding due diligence procedures: extensive KYC, medical assessments that require sign-off from your personal doctor (and even KYC from her), and a long list of supporting documents.
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None of this makes Nauru a bad program. But the conditions where it's the best choice are fairly specific.
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So what other options are there?
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If you're looking for a Plan B passport in this price range, there are a few programs worth exploring.
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Vanuatu is the most direct comparison to Nauru. Both are Pacific island programs with a similar number of visa-free destinations. However, the process is faster and more straightforward than Nauru's.
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Like Nauru, Vanuatu has lost visa-free access to the UK, as well as the Schengen Area, and its reputation in the industry has become controversial, which is something to weigh if long-term stability matters to you.
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Sierra Leone is more affordable than the previous options, with a more efficient and less document-heavy process than Nauru. It comes with ECOWAS membership, which gives you freedom of movement across West Africa, a fast-growing region that's increasingly on people's radar.
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The trade-off here is reputational: Sierra Leone doesn't carry the same perception as some other programs, and that matters to some applicants more than others.
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The process is streamlined and fully remote, no consulate visits, no in-person biometrics.
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Visa-free access to Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, and El Salvador, plus e-visa to the UAE. For most of you, that covers the destinations that actually matter.
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São Tomé is also part of the CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries), which opens residency pathways in places like Brazil and connects you to a growing network across Africa and beyond.
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Right now, it's one of the fastest programs on the market and the most affordable.
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That doesn't mean it's right for everyone. But it checks the most boxes for the majority of the people.
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Why we're writing this now.
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Not to push you toward one program or away from another, nor to scare you into a deadline.
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We're writing because Nauru is just the latest example of something we've watched play out over and over: programs get more expensive, requirements get stricter, options close.
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Spain's golden visa. Malta's citizenship by investment program. Caribbean's repeated price increases. It only moves in one direction.
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You can't buy insurance once the house is on fire. And in this world, nobody has ever woken up to the news that a program just got cheaper or easier. It's always the opposite.
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The current pricing and terms are the best they're ever going to be. We don't know when that changes, but we know that it will.
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