Bermuda · Residency by investment
Economic Investment Residential Certificate
Open. Launched 2021 and has attracted over USD 600 million of associated investment across its first five years.
Bermuda is a genuinely blue-chip jurisdiction — the world's reinsurance capital, two hours from New York, no income or capital gains tax, and an EIRC that has pulled in over USD 600m in five years. Its honest limitation is that it is designed to take your capital and your 90 days without ever letting you become Bermudian. If a client understands they are buying indefinite residence and never status, it works. If they think they are buying a British passport, they are being misled.
Qualifying routes
USD 2.5m across one or more of: Bermuda residential or commercial real estate; Bermuda Government bonds; the Bermuda Sinking Fund or Bermuda Trust Fund; a Bermuda-registered charity in sports development, youth, seniors or health; an existing or new Bermudian business; or other ventures benefiting Bermuda.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- $2.5M
- Total landed cost
- USD 2.5m qualifying investment, which must be MAINTAINED at that threshold value for at least five years, plus government application and certificate fees and legal costs. Bermuda real estate available to non-Bermudians is restricted to high-ARV properties and carries a substantial licence fee on purchase — model this carefully, as it can add materially to the headline.
- Timeline
- 3–9 months — Assessed by the Ministry of Labour / Department of Immigration
- Physical presence
- Minimum 90 days in Bermuda in each calendar year for five years, alongside maintaining the USD 2.5m investment. This is a real, enforced condition, not a formality.
- Family
- spousespecified dependants
- Permanent residency
- After five years of holding the EIRC and satisfying the investment and presence conditions, the holder may apply for a Residential Certificate, allowing indefinite residence for the holder and family.
- Citizenship
- Effectively none. The EIRC expressly does NOT confer Bermudian status, spouse-of-Bermudian status, or a Permanent Resident's Certificate (PRC). Bermuda closed the PRC route to most people decades ago and Bermudian status is, in practice, unobtainable by investment.
- Language test
- n/a
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- USD 2.5m qualifying investment, maintained at threshold for 5 years90 days' physical presence in Bermuda in each of those 5 calendar yearsclean police recordgood characterhealth insurance
- The EIRC expressly does NOT entitle the holder to Bermudian status, to spouse-of-Bermudian status, or to a Permanent Resident's Certificate. This is not a drafting oversight — Bermuda's immigration politics are unusually protective and the absence of a status endgame is the deliberate design. Anyone selling this as a route to a British passport is misrepresenting it.
- The USD 2.5m must be MAINTAINED at threshold value for five years and you must be physically present at least 90 days in each of those five calendar years. Both conditions are continuing; failing either puts the certificate at risk.
- Bermuda is one of the most expensive places on earth to live. Housing, healthcare, food and utilities are extraordinary even by Caribbean standards, and non-Bermudians can only buy at the top of the market. The zero-tax result is substantially clawed back through cost of living.
- There is no income tax, but payroll tax on employment income is real and the employee portion reaches roughly 12.5% at the top band — relevant only if the client actually works in Bermuda. Investment income is untaxed.
- Land tax runs to 18.23% of annual rental value in the top band on residential property — a meaningful annual carrying cost on exactly the sort of property an EIRC holder buys.
- The 15% corporate income tax from 1 January 2025 applies only to MNE groups with EUR 750m+ revenue. Irrelevant to the individual, but it signals that Bermuda's zero-tax brand is negotiable under international pressure.
- Hurricane exposure is material and Bermuda sits alone in the North Atlantic — logistics and insurance price accordingly.