St Kitts & Nevis — CBI.
Est. 1984 — the original CBI program, now behind a new regional regulator.
At a glance
What changed
St Kitts and Nevis — the world's first modern CBI program, running continuously since 1984 — passed legislation through its National Assembly on 17 October 2025 establishing the Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority (ECCIRA), a regional due-diligence body intended to harmonize compliance standards across all five Eastern Caribbean CBI programs. Applicants filing after 14 April 2026 must also provide biometric data as part of the application, a new requirement layered on top of the program's existing Sustainable Island State Contribution (SISC) and Public Benefit Option (PBO) donation routes.
How crypto moves today
Crypto-funded applications are accepted in select cases, exclusively through licensed agents who convert the holding to fiat before remittance to the SISC fund, a public benefit project, or approved real estate — the same pattern across nearly every program in our directory except El Salvador.
Why St Kitts leading on ECCIRA matters
As the longest-running program in the region, St Kitts & Nevis effectively wrote the rulebook the other four Eastern Caribbean programs — Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Lucia, and Grenada — are now converging toward under the new regional authority. Whatever due-diligence standard ECCIRA settles on here is likely to become the floor across the whole Eastern Caribbean, digital-asset-funded applications included.
What ImmiCrypt's rail would add
Mandatory biometrics plus a new regional regulator both point toward one direction: standardized, auditable applicant records. A digital-asset-funded application deserves the equivalent standard for its source-of-funds trail, not an ad-hoc agent conversion. See Compliance.