Ghana

No. There is no codified diaspora-citizenship statute. Year of Return and Beyond the Return are tourism and heritage marketing campaigns, not immigration law. The grants that do happen are discretionary naturalisations under Article 9 and Act 591, and each one requires Presidential approval. Roughly 1,000 applications have been made in total since 2016, all processed by hand at a single venue in Accra. Anyone marketing this as citizenship by investment is misrepresenting it. The real, codified route behind the diaspora-return story is the Right of Abode under section 17 of the Immigration Act 573.

Yes, and this is the single most important fact in the Ghana file. Ghana taxes its citizens as residents by default. Escaping that status requires a permanent home abroad, lived in for the entire year. Residents are taxed on worldwide income, at rates up to 35%. So a client who accepts Ghanaian citizenship for heritage reasons or simple optionality picks up a worldwide tax hook by nationality alone. That is the opposite of how diaspora applicants are usually advised, and it needs to be modelled carefully before anyone accepts a heritage passport.

It is more than advertised, and it gets misreported everywhere. Regulation 13 of the Immigration Regulations 2001 (LI 1691) requires residence throughout the 24 months immediately preceding the application. On top of that, it requires at least five years' aggregate residence in the seven years before that. In practice, that works out to roughly seven years across a nine-year lookback. It is not simply seven years total with two years continuous, as it is often described. Right of Abode is genuinely valuable. It grants an indefinite right to enter, live and work without a permit. But it also depends on discretionary, unappealable Presidential approval.

Yes, under section 16(1) of the citizenship legislation. However, dual citizens are barred from a list of public offices. Naturalisation also carries a language requirement that catches many applicants off guard. Section 14(3) makes the ability to speak and understand an indigenous Ghanaian language the only non-waivable qualification. That sits awkwardly against the ceremonial diaspora naturalisations that have been granted.

Yes, and this is time-sensitive. The GIPA Bill 2026 passed Parliament on 2 April 2026 and repeals the GIPC Act 865 on assent, which had not occurred as of 15 July 2026. The Bill abolishes the USD 200,000 and USD 500,000 minimums for most sectors. It drops trading to USD 500,000 but tightens localisation to at least 75% skilled Ghanaians, and it expands automatic expatriate quotas to 12. Anyone contemplating a USD 500k structure purely to satisfy Act 865 should wait for assent. Committing to a soon-to-be-abolished minimum would be an expensive error.

It lapses if you leave. Under Section 15(3) of Act 573, an absence of more than 12 consecutive months causes automatic loss of Indefinite Residence status. Reinstatement then requires a fresh application. For a globally mobile family, this can be devastating. The status you spent years qualifying for can evaporate after a single extended absence. To obtain it in the first place, you need 12 months' continuous residence, plus five years' aggregate residence in the preceding seven.

There is no separate inheritance tax. Gifts, though, are treated as income for tax purposes, so lifetime transfers can still be taxed. Capital gains rules are unclear and often misstated. Individuals may elect a flat 25% or be taxed at marginal rates up to 35%. The widely cited 15% figure could not be reconciled with the law and should not be relied on. Combined with the worldwide taxation of citizens, Ghana's tax profile is heavier than the heritage-passport marketing suggests.