Which Caribbean Passport Is the Most Powerful One?

A Caribbean passport is a valuable instrument for any traveler. As a rule, a Caribbean passport provides visa-free access to the Schengen zone countries and Great Britain. However, the list of countries that the Caribbean passport holder can enter without a visa will be different in each case. Which Caribbean passport is the strongest? How can you obtain a Caribbean passport? How can you become a Caribbean citizen without too much trouble and within a very short period? We discuss these questions below.

Why is it so important to have a strong passport? Because you can freely enter a large number of foreign countries with such a passport. If you have only a weak passport, many doors will be closed for you. If you want a travel document that can increase your freedom of movement to a large degree, please consider acquiring a Caribbean passport. You can obtain the passport in exchange for an investment. Let’s compare the strengths of the passports of different Caribbean countries.

Barbados has the strongest passport in the Caribbean

Below please find a list of the most powerful Caribbean passports as of the beginning of 2023. The rating has been prepared by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The Caribbean passports are ranked in accordance with the number of foreign countries that the passport holder can enter without a visa, or acquire an electronic visa, or a visa-on-arrival.

Overseas territories of European states in the Caribbean (such as Saint-Barths or Martinique, for example) have been disregarded. Please also note that the countries of the Commonwealth of Dominica and the Dominican Republic are not to be confused. These are different countries located on different Caribbean islands in different parts of the region.

Rank	Caribbean country	Number of visa-free destinations
1	Barbados	163
2	Saint Kitts and Nevis	157
3	Bahamas	155
4	Antigua and Barbuda	151
5	Trinidad and Tobago	151
6	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	150
7	Saint Lucia	147
8	Grenada	146
9	Dominica	145
10	Belize	103
11	Guyana	88
12	Jamaica	87
13	Suriname	78
14	Dominican Republic	70
15	Haiti	49

So, Barbados ranks first in the Caribbean for the strength of its passport. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to acquire a passport of Barbados. You can do so by naturalization only and it takes years. However, all the Caribbean countries that administer citizenship-by-investment programs rank rather high too. Acquiring the passport of one of these countries is a matter of a few months only.

Key visa-free destinations

The sheer number of visa-free destinations that the Caribbean passport offers should not be considered the sole factor that determines its strength. There are places on the platen that are more popular with travelers and those that are less popular. Below we list the countries and territories that attract the largest numbers of foreign visitors:

• Schengen zone countries;
• USA;
• Great Britain;
• Canada;
• Russia;
• China.

The table below will give you a better understanding of the power of each Caribbean passport. It shows that the passport of Antigua and Barbuda does not provide visa-free access to the USA, for example, while the passport of the Bahamas does.

If you find that the destination where you would like to travel is unavailable on a visa-free basis with this or that Caribbean passport, you should not despair. You can use your Caribbean passport when applying for a visa. It may well be the case that the process is going to be much easier if you use your second Caribbean passport instead of your home country’s passport. This is especially true if you hold one of the so-called ‘toxic’ passports.   

What is CARICOM and what is a CARICOM passport?

When discussing Caribbean passports, we must mention the organization called CARICOM – Caribbean Community. The organization has 15 member states and it is the Caribbean analogue of the European Union. Similarly to the passport of one of the EU countries, the passports of a CARICOM country allows the following:

• Freely traveling within the region;
• Relocating to another country in the region to live/ work/ engage in business/ study there.

All CARICOM passports have a uniform design (their covers are dark-blue) and each passport carries a CARICOM mark on the cover.

Besides, the states of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines have formed a smaller regional union. It is called the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Citizenship of the OECS allows using other identification documents in addition to the passport when crossing national borders. These include the following ones:

• Driving license;
• National identity card;
• Voter card;
• Social security card.

Caribbean countries: immigration and relocation opportunities

Relocating to a foreign country is a serious enterprise without doubt. Before you make the ultimate decision to move to a foreign country for good, you may want to spend some time there, learn more about the place and develop an understanding of how it feels to live there. One of such opportunities is acquiring a digital nomad visa that will legalize your presence in the country for several months (normally, 6 to 12). Another opportunity is obtaining a ‘golden visa’ that is a long-term residence permit available to wealthy foreign citizens. Far from all Caribbean countries issue digital nomad or golden visas, but some of them do. Please see the table below.

	Digital nomad visa	Citizenship by investment	Golden visa / residence for wealthy individuals/ retirees/ entrepreneurs
Antigua and Barbuda	☑	☑	☑
Bahamas	☑	⛝	☑
Barbados	☑	⛝	☑
Belize	☑	⛝	☑
Haiti	⛝	⛝	⛝
Guyana	⛝	⛝	⛝
Grenada	☑	☑	⛝
Dominica	☑	☑	☑
Dominican Republic	⛝	⛝	☑
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	⛝	⛝	⛝
Saint Kitts and Nevis	⛝	☑	⛝
Saint Lucia	☑	☑	⛝
Suriname	⛝	⛝	⛝
Trinidad and Tobago	⛝	⛝	☑
Jamaica	⛝	⛝	☑

The fastest and the simplest way of acquiring a Caribbean passport is applying for citizenship by investment. Five countries in the regions administer citizenship-by-investment (aka economic citizenship) programs: Saint Kitts, Saint Lucia, Antigua, Dominica, and Grenada. Regardless of which Caribbean country you choose, you can acquire its passport remotely. The formalities are not too tough to handle and the timeframes of foreign passport acquisition are rather short. St Kitts issues passports to foreign investors in the fastest manner: you can obtain the passport of the country within six to eight weeks.

Rank	Country	Number of visa-free destinations
1	Saint Kitts and Nevis	157
2	Antigua and Barbuda	151
3	Saint Lucia	147
4	Grenada	146
5	Dominica	145

You can become a citizen of other Caribbean countries too: it is not impossible. But then you will have to legally reside there for many years to become a naturalized citizen and obtain a passport. Alternatively, you can marry a local person and then the process of citizenship acquisition is going to be shorter but you can’t get the passport in an instant anyway.

The Caribbean countries offering citizenship-by-investment opportunities put forward transparent requirements. All of them offer at least two financial options: you can make a non-returnable donation that ranges between US$ 100,000 and US$ 150,000 or you can make a returnable investment. The amount of the required investment is about two times as high as the amount of donation.

Speaking about the golden visa, which is a long-term residence permit, it is a more expensive way of relocating to a foreign country. You will need at least US$ 1 million to obtain a golden visa in the Caribbean. Please consult our experts to learn more about the opportunities to acquire citizenship or legal residence in one of the Caribbean states.

Which is the strongest passport in the world?

What if we look beyond the Caribbean basin and find out what countries of the world offer the strongest passports in terms of the number of visa-free destinations? The passport of Japan turns out to be the most powerful passport in the world: you can visit 193 countries and territories without a visa if you hold a Japanese passport. Singapore and South Korea offer visa-free (electronic visa, visa on arrival) access to 192 countries, which makes their passports extremely strong travel documents too.

After these Asian countries, come many European states. The German and Spanish passports give visa-free access to 190 destinations. Then come the passports of Finland, Italy, and Luxembourg (189 each). Passports of Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden give visa-free access to 188 foreign countries each.  Passports of France, Ireland, Portugal and the UK – to 187 countries. Passports of New Zealand, the USA, Belgium, Norway and Switzerland – to 186. Can you guess which passport is the weakest one? It’s the passport of Afghanistan, not surprisingly. Holders of Afghani passports can visit only 27 other countries without a visa.

We will gladly help you acquire a strong Caribbean passport

An increased number of visa-free travel destinations is not the only benefit that a Caribbean passport can bring. If you hold the passport of one of the Caribbean countries, you can legally reside on a paradise island as long as you wish! Moreover, with the passport of one of the CARICOM countries, you can live and work in any other member state of the union. Especially if you work from home, this is an opportunity that you must consider without any doubt.

Besides, you can use your second passport when applying for banking services. The banking sector in some Caribbean countries is very strong and there you can find some banking opportunities that are not available to you at home. In addition to that, with a foreign passport, you can gain access to some international investment projects that you could not enter with your home country’s passport. Finally, if anything goes wrong in your home country – politically or economically – you can leave it in an instant.

What is especially pleasing about the Caribbean region is that it is legally possible to acquire citizenship in paradise by investment. As far as the price of the Caribbean passport is concerned, we are not talking about millions of dollars, not at all! The price of Caribbean passports is quite affordable for a large number of people.

This said, however, acquiring foreign citizenship and a second passport is a rather complicated legal process. Why does it have to be so? If a country issues passports to foreign investors, it experiences pressure from the countries that grant visa-free excess to its passport holders. Thus, a large number of visa-free destinations that a national passport gives has a reverse side to it if the country administers a citizenship-by-investment program. Understandably, the governments of foreign countries do not want a criminal with an Antiguan passport, for example, to freely enter their territories. Therefore, they apply pressure to Antigua and other Caribbean states ‘selling’ passports to foreigners. They make them conduct strict due diligence checks when foreigners apply for their passports.

This is the reason why the application processing takes several months. The immigration authorities of the Caribbean countries granting citizenship and passports to foreign investors have to send numerous requests to various international agencies such as the Interpol, for instance. They want to make 100% sure that no person with a criminal past can obtain their passports. This is why collecting the proper application document package and putting it in the right order is a very delicate matter.

Offshore Pro Group has helped a large number of people from all over the world to obtain second passports – in the Caribbean and other parts of the planet. We listen very carefully to every client, analyze his or her personal situation deeply, and offer the second-passport solution that will suit this particular person in the best possible way. Please apply for a free consultation on acquiring a second passport and we will find an attractive option for you. If you would not qualify for foreign citizenship, we will openly tell you so.