Seychelles · Residency by investment
Permanent Residence Permit by Investment
Open but far narrower than marketed. The investment-promotion agency lists seven CUMULATIVE criteria, not alternatives — including USD 1m invested AND at least 5 years' business association AND roughly 5 years actually resident on a Gainful Occupation or Dependant Permit. A 2013 State House guide presented these as alternatives; the current official page presents them as cumulative. Assume cumulative until Immigration confirms otherwise.
This is the route agencies mean when they advertise 'Seychelles residency by investment for USD 1 million'. In reality the money is the easy part: the criteria appear to be cumulative, requiring five years of genuine business association and five years of actual residence first. There is no money-in, PR-out route.
Qualifying routes
USD 1m+ invested AND 5+ years' business association AND 5 years' residence on a GOP/Dependant Permit AND self-support for 1 year AND no absence over 1 year AND no 1-year+ sentence AND not a prohibited immigrant
The facts
- Minimum investment
- $1M
- Total landed cost
- USD 1m invested plus SCR 1,000 processing and an SCR 350,000 approval fee (roughly USD 24,000-26,000). We could not establish a reliable family-of-four total beyond the approval fee.
- Timeline
- 6–24 months — no published service standard; the five-year residence prerequisite dominates the real timeline
- Physical presence
- Substantial — roughly 5 years actually resident on a GOP or Dependant Permit before PR can be sought
- Family
- spousedependent children
- Permanent residency
- This is the permanent residence status — it confers the right to work without a GOP and to buy land or residential property at 50% of sanction fees
- Citizenship
- No investor citizenship route survives — repealed by Act 25 of 2023
- Language test
- 80% in a qualifying examination in English, French or Seychellois Creole
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- USD 1m+ invested in a Seychelles businessat least 5 years' business association or affiliationapproximately 5 years' residence on a GOP or Dependant Permitmeans of self-support for 1 yearno absence exceeding 1 yearno sentence of 1 year or morenot a prohibited immigrant
- The criteria are almost certainly cumulative, not alternative. The official Invest in Seychelles page lists them as a conjunctive set; a 2013 State House guide framed them as alternatives. This conflict is unresolved and material — verify with Immigration before committing USD 1m.
- You must already have lived in Seychelles roughly five years on a GOP or Dependant Permit. The USD 1m does not shortcut the residence requirement.
- PR still does not deliver citizenship. The investor citizenship section was repealed in December 2023.
- USD 1m into a Seychelles business is a concentrated bet on a micro-economy of roughly 100,000 people, heavily dependent on tourism and tuna.
- Non-Seychellois-owned residential property attracts an annual Immovable Property Tax of 0.25% of market value.
- Since January 2025 non-Seychellois may again buy residential property, but only above a market value of SCR 10 million, and sanction duty rose from 11% to 12%.