Bermuda · Residency by investment
Economic Investment Residential Certificate
Open. Launched in 2021, it has attracted over USD 600 million of associated investment across its first five years.
Bermuda is a genuinely blue-chip jurisdiction. It is the world's reinsurance capital, two hours from New York, with no income or capital gains tax, and an EIRC that has pulled in over USD 600m in five years. Its honest limitation is that it is designed to take your capital and your 90 days without ever letting you become Bermudian. If a client understands they are buying indefinite residence and never status, it works. If they think they are buying a British passport, they are being misled.
Qualifying routes
USD 2.5m, spread across one or more of the following: Bermuda residential or commercial real estate, Bermuda Government bonds, the Bermuda Sinking Fund or Bermuda Trust Fund, a Bermuda-registered charity in sports development, youth, seniors or health, an existing or new Bermudian business, or other ventures that benefit Bermuda.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- $2.5M
- Total landed cost
- The qualifying investment is USD 2.5m, and it has to stay at that value for at least five years. On top of that, budget for government application and certificate fees and legal costs. Bermuda real estate open to non-Bermudians is limited to high-ARV properties and comes with a substantial licence fee on purchase. Model this carefully. It can add materially to the headline number.
- Route type
- Residency by investment
- Timeline
- 3–9 months (Assessed by the Ministry of Labour / Department of Immigration.)
- Physical presence
- You need a minimum of 90 days in Bermuda in each calendar year for five years, on top of maintaining the USD 2.5m investment. This is a real, enforced condition, not a box to tick.
- Family
- SpouseSpecified dependants
- Permanent residency
- After five years of holding the EIRC, and meeting the investment and presence conditions the whole time, the holder can apply for a Residential Certificate. That allows indefinite residence for the holder and their family.
- Citizenship
- Effectively none. The EIRC does not confer Bermudian status, spouse-of-Bermudian status, or a Permanent Resident's Certificate (PRC). Bermuda closed the PRC route to most people decades ago, and Bermudian status is, in practice, not something you can get through investment.
- Language test
- Not applicable
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- A qualifying investment of USD 2.5m, maintained at that threshold for 5 years90 days of physical presence in Bermuda in each of those 5 calendar yearsA clean police recordGood characterHealth insurance
- The EIRC expressly does not entitle the holder to Bermudian status, to spouse-of-Bermudian status, or to a Permanent Resident's Certificate. This is not a drafting oversight. Bermuda's immigration politics are unusually protective, and the absence of a status endgame is the deliberate design. Anyone selling this as a route to a British passport is misrepresenting it.
- The USD 2.5m must be maintained at threshold value for five years, and you must be physically present at least 90 days in each of those five calendar years. Both conditions are continuing. Failing either puts the certificate at risk.
- Bermuda is one of the most expensive places on earth to live. Housing, healthcare, food and utilities are extraordinary even by Caribbean standards, and non-Bermudians can only buy at the top of the market. The zero-tax result is substantially clawed back through cost of living.
- There is no income tax in Bermuda. But payroll tax on employment income is real, and the employee portion reaches roughly 12.5% at the top band. That matters only if the client actually works in Bermuda. Investment income remains untaxed.
- Land tax runs to 18.23% of annual rental value in the top band on residential property. That is a meaningful annual carrying cost, and it falls on exactly the sort of property an EIRC holder buys.
- The 15% corporate income tax that takes effect from 1 January 2025 applies only to MNE groups with EUR 750m+ revenue. It has no bearing on the individual investor. But it does signal that Bermuda's zero-tax brand is negotiable under international pressure.
- Hurricane exposure is material, and Bermuda sits alone in the North Atlantic. Logistics and insurance are priced accordingly.