Cabo Verde · Citizenship by investment
Nationality by Investment (Lei n.º 33/X/2023, article 14)
Codified, yes. Operational, no, and it never has been. Article 14 of Lei n.º 33/X/2023 creates nationality by investment, but every amount is left to be fixed by a future law, and that law was never passed. The preamble to the amending Lei 37/X/2024 admits as much, acknowledging that without an approved regulation, the nationality law would have no practical application. Decreto-Lei n.º 29/2024 delivered the general regulation and expressly excluded investment cases. No investment-nationality regulation exists as of July 2026.
This is a textbook case for why we flag dead programmes. The statute is real, so agencies can point to an actual law and quote a plausible-sounding EUR 200,000. But the legislature itself noted that the law cannot apply without a regulation. Then it wrote that regulation to expressly exclude investment cases.
Qualifying routes
The EUR 200,000 figure circulating in the market has no legal basis whatsoever. The statute leaves every amount to be fixed by a law that was never passed.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- €200k
- Total landed cost
- Not applicable. No amount has ever been fixed in law.
- Route type
- Citizenship by investment
- Physical presence
- Not applicable
- Permanent residency
- Not applicable
- Citizenship
- Use the real routes instead. There is naturalisation after 5 years of legal residence with no language test, marriage after 4 years, and an unusually wide diaspora route under which great-great-grandchildren of a Cabo Verdean of origin can acquire nationality by simple declaration.
- Language test
- None required for naturalisation.
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Not operational, and never has been. The EUR 200,000 figure has no legal basis. The statute leaves every amount to be fixed by a separate law, and no such law was ever passed.
- Cabo Verde's own legislature admitted, in the preamble to Lei 37/X/2024, that without the regulation the nationality law would have no applicability. Decreto-Lei n.º 29/2024 then expressly excluded investment cases.
- The real routes are better than the fake one. Naturalisation is available after 5 years with no language test. Marriage qualifies after 4 years. A diaspora route reaches all the way to great-great-grandchildren of a Cabo Verdean of origin.
- Even if it launched, the passport would give 64 destinations and no Schengen access.