Cabo Verde · Residency by investment
Green Card (Estatuto de titular de segunda residência)
In force since 31 December 2021 under Lei n.º 30/IX/2018, Decreto Regulamentar n.º 1/2020 and Portarias 61/2021 and 62/2021. It grants permanent residence directly, skipping the normal five-year ladder. Its headline tax benefit may have been gutted: the benefits were keyed to IUP (1.5%), which was repealed on 1 January 2026 and replaced by IPI (0.1%) and ITI (1%). Whether the Lei 30/IX/2018 benefits carried over is unverified.
A codified route to immediate permanent residence for EUR 80,000, with a family grouping, no evident presence requirement and a naturalisation route five years later with no language test. It is the most under-marketed instrument in the region — precisely because no agency earns a large fee on it.
Qualifying routes
8,821,200 CVE; steers buyers to Brava, Maio and São Nicolau — thin, illiquid markets
13,231,800 CVE — includes Sal, Boa Vista and Praia
The facts
- Minimum investment
- €80k
- Total landed cost
- EUR 80,000-120,000 of property paid with funds transferred from abroad. The Green Card fee schedule could not be located, so any family-of-four total rests on an unverified fee assumption.
- Physical presence
- No physical presence requirement was found — though this is absence of evidence rather than affirmative verification
- Family
- family grouping expressly covered
- Permanent residency
- This IS permanent residence, granted directly and skipping the normal 5-year ladder — which is what makes it genuinely unusual
- Citizenship
- Naturalisation after 5 years' legal residence under Article 13 of Lei n.º 33/X/2023, with NO language requirement. Marriage reduced to 4 years. Whether Green Card time counts toward the 5-year clock is critical and unresolved.
- Language test
- none for naturalisation — the language requirement bites at ordinary permanent residence, not naturalisation
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- property built or under construction, for residenceEUR 80,000 or EUR 120,000 depending on the municipality's GDP per capitapurchase funds transferred from abroadclean record
- Do not become tax resident here. Cabo Verde taxes residents on a worldwide basis, has CFC rules (25%+ holding in a clearly more favourable regime) and only three tax treaties. The 'low-tax island base' story is false for anyone who actually moves. Use it as a second residence, not a tax plan.
- The headline tax benefit may no longer exist. The Green Card benefits were keyed to IUP at 1.5%, which was repealed on 1 January 2026 and replaced by IPI (0.1%) and ITI (1%). Whether the statutory benefits carried over is unverified — the statute's headline benefit now references a tax that does not exist.
- Citizenship by investment is codified but NOT operational, and the EUR 200,000 figure circulating has no legal basis. Lei n.º 33/X/2023 art. 14 creates nationality by investment but every amount is 'fixado por lei' — to be fixed by law, and never was. The preamble to the amending Lei 37/X/2024 admits that without the regulation the nationality law would be inapplicable, and Decreto-Lei n.º 29/2024 expressly excluded investment cases. Anyone selling Cabo Verde citizenship by investment is selling a statute its own legislature declared inapplicable.
- A Cabo Verde passport does not give Schengen access. The EU relationship is a Mobility Partnership plus short-stay visa facilitation — cheaper and simpler Schengen visa procedures, not visa-free travel. CPLP mobility likewise gives facilitated procedures, not free movement. Any agency implying otherwise is misrepresenting.
- The EUR 80,000 tier steers you to Brava, Maio and São Nicolau — genuinely thin and illiquid property markets where exit may be difficult at any price.
- Whether Green Card time counts toward the 5-year naturalisation clock is unresolved and critical to any long-term plan.
- The government's own AAI portal still cites the repealed Lei 80/III/90, and agency claims of a 10-year naturalisation period are wrong — the statute says 5.
- Cabo Verde is not a durable CRS holdout: it has committed to first exchanges by 2027.