We are here in Sierra Leone with the program administrators who just announced some very noteworthy changes to the Sierra Leone Citizenship by Investor program.
The base price is still $140,000, or $100,000 if you can demonstrate African descent.
But you can now add a business partner for $30,000. Once you factor in the standard due diligence fee of $5,000, the effective per person cost will be $87,500, making it the most affordable Citizenship by Investment on a per person basis for unrelated parties.
Normal dependents are $10,000 each. Multiple wives are now an option as well for our Muslim friends.
There is now a new category of extended dependents for $20,000 that includes adult children, siblings and spouses of siblings.
Essentially, it has been structured in a way that the whole clan can be included in an application.
Additionally, main applicants will get a free local company with guaranteed banking if they want. We met representatives of three banks on this trip and some of them were keen to take on new business and provide top-notch service to their clients.
Sierra Leone has not signed up to CRS, so it does not automatically share banking information. Big regional banks operate here. Online banking works well, and there aren’t any capital controls nor foreign exchange controls. Some of these banks were shoving application forms in our hands for retail and business accounts when they heard we were a delegation of HNWIs who either obtained Sierra Leonean citizenship or are intending to do so.
Finally, we will be able to offer full online document notarization services to facilitate application processing.
We discuss these positive changes with Stephen the program administrator in the video below:
The red carpet is being rolled out
What is clear from this trip is that the red carpet is being rolled out by the government for foreign investors. Offering citizenship is a way to give investors a stake in the country and also make them feel fully secure with their investments in the country.
We met with the Chief of Immigration, the Speaker of Parliament, the Minister of Energy, the Minister of Tourism and Culture, the Policy Director at the National Investment Board. Everyone is on board and is actively working to promote their beautiful country. They are very much aware of the poverty levels in their country (GDP per capital of less than $1,000) and are eager to attract foreign investment to build capacity, employ youth, build infrastructure, grow industry and develop agriculture with goal of becoming a middle income country.
A greater regional opportunity
The opportunity is not just Sierra Leone, but ECOWAS in general as well. With a Sierra Leonean passport you get visa-free access to most of West Africa, including relatively large economies such as Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal as well as very easy residency rights in these countries.
Having spent most of my twenties in Africa, I see the potential. I understand the benefits. I am very seriously considering applying myself.
We are licensed agents for this program and are actively processing applications and citizenships. More information on the Sierra Leone Citizenship by Investment program.
And feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions by replying to this email.
To a World of Opportunities,
The Wandering Investor.
Services in Sierra Leone:
Articles on Sierra Leone:
- Sierra Leone Citizenship by Investment – a conversation with the program architect
- Sierra Leone Citizenship by Investment program – Who should apply?
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Transcript of “Breaking News Update on the Sierra Leone Citizenship by Investment Program”
LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello, everyone. Ladislas Maurice of The Wandering Investor, today in beautiful Freetown, in Sierra Leone, in West Africa. And we have breaking news concerning the Citizenship by Investment program here, together with Stephen, who’s the program architect. Stephen, how are you?
STEPHEN: I’m good. It’s been a really good day today. First day of the delegation. Another three to go, possibly four. Looks like we’ll extend it. Going great.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Stephen has invited us, as well as a few of our clients, to come down to Sierra Leone to meet government officials, to discover Freetown, to get a better understanding of the program, of the city, of the opportunity of ECOWAS as well. We’ll discuss this a little bit more. But you just announced, just literally three hours ago, that there are changes to the program.
STEPHEN: Yeah, we didn’t want the market to understand out the starting gate that we wanted to actually undergo a product market testing fit exercise. We didn’t want to force a particular type of structured program onto the market. We wanted to understand what would be the best approach from a design perspective, anticipating the objective, which is to attract foreign direct investment.
Having now gone through the process with 13 families and understood what the market actually needs from a program like this, we’ve been able to make recommendations to the Chief Immigration Officer as to how we could enhance the program, and after extensive deliberations and determinations, we’ve been able to finalize the design specification, and we announced that to the world today.
LADISLAS MAURICE: We got to meet the Chief Immigration Officer this morning, really nice man.
STEPHEN: Indeed.
What dependents can I add to the Sierra Leone CBI?
LADISLAS MAURICE: We went to his office. During the initial six months of the program, the deal was $140,000 for a single applicant, and then $10,000 per dependent, essentially, a spouse, parents, and children.
STEPHEN: Yeah, indeed.
LADISLAS MAURICE: But now there are quite a few changes.
STEPHEN: We have three classes of dependents. Normal dependents, who are charged at $10,000 per head. These are the normal spouse, children under the age of 18. And now we’ve added grandparents to that category of normal dependents. We have a special dependent category which anticipates multiple spouses, which anticipates family members of spouse accompanying spouse of the main applicant, including their children and their partner, and a wider approach to seeking to qualify those family members who would ordinarily fall into a family unit for the purposes of a new citizenship initiative. We don’t want families to say, no, we don’t want the foreign direct investment intentions to fail just because we’ve been very tight in understanding how family units are constructed.
Most CBI programs think about the nuclear family model, but that’s clearly not appropriate in certain contexts, such as the Middle East, such as Africa, indeed. It became very obvious to us that we needed to think about the family from a wider perspective and anticipate that they should be able to participate, which they can now do for $20,000.
Adding a business partner to the Sierra Leone CBI
STEPHEN: I think the real big positive change is that the market told us that if main applicants were participating in the program in order to invest, typically, they have business partners. They don’t want to invest by themselves, that the opportunity for them to include a business partner into the program specifications would enhance the ability to actually deliver on the intention to attract foreign direct investment.
Now we offer a business partner incentive. It’s called the Plus One Business Partner Incentive, for $30,000.
LADISLAS MAURICE: This is huge. It means that if you are two unrelated people from a family point of view, you can now pool your application and it will cost you $175,000, which means $87,500, including due diligence fees, including all fees, really, and that will be the most affordable citizenship by investment program for two unrelated parties applying together. This now beats Sao Tome, if you’re two applying. If you’re on your own, Sao Tome is still more affordable.
Sierra Leone passport for ECOWAS access
LADISLAS MAURICE: If you’re two, Sierra Leone is more affordable, but then Sierra Leone offers ECOWAS access, which is huge. Can you elaborate a little bit on what is ECOWAS and why that is so important?
STEPHEN: Well, Sierra Leone itself is a small market. It’s only got 8 million people. But it’s access to ECOWAS, the Economic Cooperation of West African States, which is like the EU of West Africa, creates a market of more than 450 million people, including Nigeria, for example. The ability to participate in this program gets you residency and freedom of movement into those jurisdictions. Sierra Leone can be your launching point, and it then enables you to move into other jurisdictions in the ECOWAS grouping.
In fact, some of our first citizens have specifically participated in the program because they want to have regular access to Ghana, for example, which is difficult to get visas for, Nigeria, because you’re going to be able to sit across the table when you’re negotiating there as a fellow African. And just a country like Gambia and other places camp there that have got inherent attractions of their own, and where they’re generally nice places to invest and nice places to live if you’ve got the wherewithal to deal with the immigration challenges associated with entering those markets.
Bank account and business entity in Sierra Leone
LADISLAS MAURICE: What are some of the other changes?
STEPHEN: We also came to understand that if we’re seeking to create the conditions to attract foreign direct investment, we should enable that to actually happen from a structural perspective. All main applicants now get a locally incorporated company as part of the program fees and a guaranteed bank account for that entity with one of our banking partners, who are Sierra Leone Commercial Bank, who are government-owned, or Access Bank, who are Nigerian-listed, the biggest bank in Africa, 63 million customers throughout the continent.
The banks are keen to create the conditions to support foreign direct investment and the funds under management motif is the main game as far as the banks are concerned, they’re not wanting to bog people down with the unnecessary bureaucracy associated with getting bank accounts established. And we’ve agreed with both banks that if the due diligence exercise that leads to the grant of citizenship is good enough for the country, then that’s good enough for the banks from a KYC perspective. We just supply a copy of the due diligence report to the bank, and then the KYC is complete.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Essentially, a free company with the citizenship application?
STEPHEN: Right, and a free bank account, too.
Can I obtain the Sierra Leone CBI remotely?
LADISLAS MAURICE: Any other changes?
STEPHEN: We’ve got the entire process now ensconced online, including documentation verification and notarization. It’s all about Zoom calls, you don’t have to leave home, you don’t have to go scrambling around in the snow looking for a notary to do something at last minute. Yeah, we’ve been able to consolidate everything into a 100% online application experience.
LADISLAS MAURICE: This effectively means that the Sierra Leone citizenship by investment process will be the easiest to go through from a paperwork point of view. It’s just going to be made very, very seamless.
Where to apply for the Sierra Leone CBI
LADISLAS MAURICE: I mean, at The Wandering Investor, we’re registered licensed agents for this program, so we can help you apply from A to Z.
STEPHEN: Indeed.
LADISLAS MAURICE: If you’re interested in finding out more about the Sierra Leone Citizenship by Investment program, there’s a link below with all of the information. There’s the largest FAQ that exists online on that page as well. And again, we’re licensed agents, we can help you with the process from A to Z, so feel free to reach out, and we’re happy to answer all your questions.
Stephen, thank you very much.
STEPHEN: My pleasure, sir.
