Cabo Verde · Citizenship by investment
Nationality by Investment (Lei n.º 33/X/2023, article 14)
Codified but NOT operational, and it never has been. Article 14 of Lei n.º 33/X/2023 creates nationality by investment, but every amount is left 'fixado por lei' — to be fixed by law — and never was. The preamble to the amending Lei 37/X/2024 concedes the legislature was 'ciente de que, na prática, sem a aprovação do regulamento, a lei da nacionalidade não terá aplicabilidade'. Decreto-Lei n.º 29/2024 delivered the general regulation and expressly excluded investment cases. No investment-nationality regulation exists as of July 2026.
A textbook example of why we mark dead programmes. The statute exists, which lets agencies point at a real law and quote a real-sounding EUR 200,000. The legislature itself recorded that the law is inapplicable without a regulation, and then wrote a regulation that expressly excluded investment cases.
Qualifying routes
the EUR 200,000 figure circulating in the market has no legal basis whatsoever — the statute leaves every amount to be fixed by a law that was never passed
The facts
- Minimum investment
- €200k
- Total landed cost
- Not applicable — no amount has ever been fixed in law
- Physical presence
- not applicable
- Permanent residency
- not applicable
- Citizenship
- Use the real routes instead: naturalisation after 5 years' legal residence with no language test, marriage after 4 years, or the unusually wide diaspora route under which great-great-grandchildren of a Cabo Verdean of origin may acquire nationality by declaration
- Language test
- none for naturalisation
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Not operational and never has been. The EUR 200,000 figure has no legal basis — the statute leaves every amount 'fixado por lei' and no such law was passed.
- Cabo Verde's own legislature admitted in the preamble to Lei 37/X/2024 that without the regulation the nationality law would have no applicability, and Decreto-Lei n.º 29/2024 then expressly excluded investment cases.
- The real routes are better than the fake one: naturalisation after 5 years with no language test, marriage after 4 years, and a diaspora route reaching great-great-grandchildren of a Cabo Verdean of origin.
- Even if it launched, the passport gives 64 destinations and no Schengen access.