CBI Document Checklist 2026: The Complete List for Your Citizenship by Investment Application

What documents do you need for a Citizenship by Investment application?

Answer: Every CBI application requires documents in 10 categories: passport and identification, police clearance certificates, source-of-funds evidence, medical certificates, bank statements and financial statements, marital and family documents, employment or business records, passport-style photographs, sworn affidavits, and programme-specific application forms. All government-issued documents must be apostilled or legalised; foreign-language documents need certified translations into English.

The exact wording on the checklist varies between Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Saint Lucia, Grenada, and Vanuatu, but the substance is broadly harmonised under the OECS regional framework and ECCIRA (Eastern Caribbean Citizenship by Investment Regulatory Authority, established December 2025). Every Caribbean Citizenship Investment Unit (CIU) screens against the same four risk dimensions: identity verification, criminal-history clearance, financial provenance, and medical fitness.

Before we step through each category, three practical points to understand from the outset:

• Every applicant — including children and parents added as dependants — produces a full personal document set. A family-of-four application is therefore not a single file; it is four parallel sub-files that must arrive coherently at the CIU.
• Documents have shelf lives. Police clearances are typically valid 6 months from issue. Medical certificates 3 months. Bank statements 3 months. The sequencing of when you obtain each document matters more than most applicants realise.
• Submission format matters. Most CIUs require originals or certified true copies for police clearances, marriage certificates, and birth certificates. Bank statements and source-of-funds correspondence are typically accepted as certified scans.

If you have not yet selected a programme, our complete Caribbean CBI programme comparison covers cost, processing time, and family-eligibility differences in detail before you start gathering paperwork.

What personal identification documents are required?

Answer: Each applicant and dependant must submit a clear scan of the biodata page of every currently valid passport, a national identity card or driver's licence (where applicable), and a certified-copy birth certificate. Applicants who have changed their name require certified evidence of the change. Holders of multiple nationalities must declare and submit all passports — concealment is grounds for refusal and future blacklisting.

The identification set is the foundation of the file because every subsequent check — criminal record, financial verification, sanctions screening — is run against the names and dates of birth declared here. Errors at this stage cascade into delays at every other stage of due diligence.

Practical document specifications:

• Passport biodata pages: colour scan of every page that contains personal information, including signature page. If the passport will expire within 12 months, renew first.
• Previous passports: some programmes require disclosure of passports held in the past 10 years. Keep cancelled passports.
• National ID / driver's licence: required where issued; provides a secondary check on residential address and signature.
• Birth certificate: long-form, certified-true copy, apostilled or legalised. Short-form certificates are typically rejected for adult applicants.
• Name-change documentation: marriage certificate, deed poll, court order — apostilled, in original or certified-true copy.

Holders of dual or triple nationality should expect specific questions about which travel document they used for entry to which jurisdiction in the past 10 years. Be prepared with a brief written timeline.

What police and background check documents are needed?

Answer: Each applicant aged 16 or above must produce a current police clearance certificate from every country in which they have resided for six months or more during the past 10 years, plus a separate certificate from their country of citizenship. Certificates must be issued within the previous 6 months, in English (or translated), and apostilled or legalised in the issuing jurisdiction.

This is the document category where most self-managed applications get delayed. The reasons are predictable: applicants underestimate how long the issuing authority takes (some take 3-4 months), forget jurisdictions where they lived briefly during studies or postings, or obtain a certificate so early that it expires mid-review and must be re-issued.

What we instruct every client to do at the start of file preparation:

1. Map your 10-year residency history. Every country where you resided 6+ months — including university towns, expatriate postings, second-home use.
2. Identify the competent authority in each. Examples: UK ACRO Criminal Records Office; USA FBI Identity History Summary Check (channelled, with fingerprints); UAE Ministry of Interior good-conduct certificate; Germany Führungszeugnis from BfJ.
3. Order all certificates in parallel within the same 30-day window, not sequentially, so the 6-month validity windows align cleanly with your expected submission date.
4. Sequence apostilles and translations on the same parallel track to avoid waiting on certificate issuance before initiating legalisation.

Disclosure point that catches retail applicants: if you have any arrest, charge, conviction, or formal investigation in your history — even one ultimately dismissed — declare it in the sworn affidavit. CIU due-diligence panels invariably uncover historical records. Concealment is far more damaging than disclosure.

What source-of-funds documents will you need to submit?

Answer: Source-of-funds (SoF) documentation must trace the investment capital from its origin to the applicant's account at submission. Required documents typically include: 3-5 years of audited business accounts or tax returns, bank statements covering the same period, employment contracts and salary records, contracts of sale for high-value asset disposals, inheritance documentation, investment portfolio statements, and any other evidence supporting the wealth narrative. CIU panels routinely trace through multiple jurisdictions and counterparties.

This is the highest-friction category and the one where Mirabello's pre-screening adds the most value. Caribbean CIUs spent significantly more on due diligence in 2024-25 than ever before — Saint Lucia alone budgeted EC$133 million for due-diligence fees in FY24 — and the depth of verification has increased accordingly.

The principle: every dollar of the investment must have a documented origin. A CBI investment of US$250,000 is not the document; the documents are the salary stubs, business profits, property sale, or inherited estate that produced those funds in the years before they reached your investment account.

Wealth narratives we routinely build for clients:

• Salaried professional: 5 years of payslips, employer letters, bonus confirmations, P&L from any side businesses, tax returns from each jurisdiction.
• Business owner: incorporation documents, 5 years of audited accounts, shareholding ledger, dividend resolutions, bank statements of the operating company linked to personal extractions.
• Investor: brokerage statements showing accumulation over time, contract notes for major positions sold, capital-gains tax filings.
• Property seller: title deed, sale contract, completion statement from the conveyancer, bank statement showing receipt.
• Inheritance: grant of probate, will, executor's distribution letter, valuation of the estate, transfer record into the applicant's account.
• Family gift: notarised gift deed, source-of-funds for the donor (the donor's wealth must also be traceable), bank transfer record.

Where multiple sources contribute to the investment capital, the file must reconcile them: this US$250,000 derives 60% from salary accumulated 2020-2024, 30% from sale of property in Q3 2023, and 10% from grandparental gift in 2022 (donor source-of-wealth attached at Annex 7). That kind of clarity is what distinguishes a clean Mirabello file from a typical retail submission.

What medical documents are required?

Answer: Each applicant and dependant aged 12 or above must produce a medical certificate from a licensed practitioner confirming HIV-negative status and freedom from contagious tuberculosis, typhoid, leprosy, syphilis, and other notifiable diseases. The certificate must be issued within 3 months of submission and dated, signed, and stamped by the examining doctor.

Most CIUs publish a specific medical form to be completed by the practitioner. Use the official form rather than a generic letter. The form covers a brief physical examination, weight, height, vision, and a tick-box declaration on each notifiable condition.

For children under 12, a simpler paediatric form is typically accepted, sometimes without the HIV component. Pregnant applicants should consult their consultant on timing — some programmes allow medical examinations after delivery rather than during pregnancy.

Practical sequencing point: medicals expire in 3 months. Schedule them late in the document-preparation cycle, after police clearances are confirmed in hand. Otherwise the medicals time out and require a second appointment.

What financial documents are required?

Answer: In addition to source-of-funds, applicants must produce 6-12 months of current personal and business bank statements, supporting the applicant's ability to fund the investment, programme fees, and ongoing tax compliance post-citizenship. Statements must be on bank letterhead, stamped by the issuing branch, and reconcile with the source-of-funds narrative without unexplained large transactions.

This category overlaps with source-of-funds but serves a different evidential purpose. Source-of-funds explains how the wealth was built. Personal bank statements demonstrate that the wealth exists today and has been held in compliant accounts.

Specifications most CIUs require:

• Personal current account: 6-12 months, branch-stamped.
• Personal savings account: if separate.
• Brokerage / investment account: recent statement of holdings.
• Joint accounts with spouse: where applicable.
• Business operating account: if applicant is the principal of an active business and salary or dividends flow through it.

Large credits during the statement period — anything materially above ordinary salary or business income — will be queried. Pre-empt the query by attaching an explanatory note: credit of US$180,000 on 14 March 2025 is the completion proceeds from the sale of property at [address], full conveyance pack at Annex 4.

What marital and family documents will you need?

Answer: Applicants applying with a spouse must submit a certified-true copy of the marriage certificate, apostilled. Applicants who have divorced require certified copies of the decree absolute, and any prior marriage certificates. Each dependent child requires a long-form birth certificate naming both parents, apostilled. Where a child is from a previous relationship, custody or parental-consent documentation is required.

Family documents are typically the second-largest source of delay after police clearances, and for similar reasons: certificates issued decades ago are sometimes held in jurisdictions where apostille turnaround is slow, or are missing entirely and require court-ordered duplicate issuance.

Specific cases that need early planning:

• Married overseas: the marriage certificate must come from the country of marriage, not the country of subsequent residence. UK couple married in Italy: order the certificate from the Italian comune.
• Children born overseas to nationals abroad: some jurisdictions issue a consular birth certificate and a local birth certificate; provide both.
• Step-children or adopted children: court orders of adoption or step-parent recognition, where applicable.
• Parents added as dependants: proof of financial dependency on the principal applicant, typically 12-24 months of remittance records or shared household evidence.

Where a former spouse must consent to a child's relocation or new citizenship under family-law arrangements, that consent must be obtained, notarised, and included. CIUs will not adjudicate family-law disputes and will reject files where unresolved parental consents are detected.

What photos and forms are required?

Answer: Each applicant and dependant submits six recent passport-style photographs, taken within the past 6 months, against a plain white background, with face fully visible and unobstructed. Sizes vary slightly between programmes — 35mm x 45mm is the most common Caribbean standard. Photographs must be signed on the reverse by the applicant or witnessed by a notary.

Programme-specific application forms are downloaded from each CIU or accessed through an authorised agent. They typically include: the main application form, supplementary forms for each dependant, declaration of source-of-funds form, sworn affidavit of accuracy, family-relationship affidavit, and a registration of agent form.

Photo specifications catch retail applicants regularly. Selfies from smartphone cameras are rejected. Use a professional passport-photo service that knows the Caribbean specifications and provides 6 prints plus a digital copy.

Do documents need to be apostilled or notarised?

Answer: Yes. Almost every government-issued document — birth certificates, marriage certificates, police clearances, court orders — must carry an apostille from the issuing country's designated competent authority. Documents from countries that are not parties to the Hague Apostille Convention require full embassy legalisation, a longer multi-step process. Notarised true copies are required where originals cannot be released.

The apostille is a standardised certificate that confirms the authenticity of the signature, seal, or stamp on a public document for use in another Hague Convention country. The Hague Conference on Private International Law maintains the current list of competent authorities issuing apostilles in each member country.

For non-Hague countries — including some Middle Eastern and African jurisdictions — documents must instead go through embassy legalisation: signed by a domestic notary, then certified by the foreign ministry, then attested by the embassy of a relevant Hague country (or directly by the CIU's recognised diplomatic representative). This takes 4-8 weeks instead of the typical 1-3 weeks for an apostille.

Translations: any non-English document requires a certified translation by a sworn or court-appointed translator. The translator's certification page is itself usually apostilled.

How long does it take to gather all CBI documents?

Answer: Document preparation typically takes 6-10 weeks when items are pursued in parallel, longer for complex source-of-funds narratives or applicants with residency in non-Hague countries. Sequential preparation — waiting for each item before starting the next — stretches the timeline to 4-5 months and is the single biggest cause of self-managed application delays.

A realistic Mirabello-managed sequence runs as follows:

• Week 1: file kick-off, full residency map, name-history confirmed, source-of-funds narrative drafted, photos taken.
• Weeks 1-3: all police clearances ordered in parallel, all birth and marriage certificates ordered.
• Weeks 2-4: source-of-funds dossier assembled — financial statements gathered, contracts retrieved, gaps in the wealth narrative identified.
• Weeks 3-6: apostilles issued on every document as it arrives.
• Weeks 5-8: certified translations completed.
• Week 8-9: medical examinations scheduled (close to submission).
• Week 10: sworn affidavits signed before a notary; final file assembly and pre-submission audit.

Applicants residing in multiple jurisdictions, with historical asset transfers, or with non-Hague residency periods should plan for 12-16 weeks instead. Speak to our team for a personalised timeline based on your specific circumstances.

How does the document checklist differ between Caribbean CBI programmes?

Answer: The five Caribbean CBI programmes — Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia — share roughly 90% of their checklists under the OECS framework. Differences appear in specific forms, family-eligibility rules, sworn-affidavit wording, and country-specific declarations. Vanuatu's separate Pacific framework requires modestly different paperwork.

Programme-specific points to know:

• Antigua and Barbuda: generous dependant rules (children up to 30, siblings, parents); each dependant set is required in full.
• Saint Kitts and Nevis: biometric enrolment now required since the 14 April 2026 launch of the National Biometric Enrolment Programme. Schedule a biometric appointment as part of file preparation.
• Dominica: stricter source-of-funds review since the September 2024 suspension of Iranian-national applications. Wealth narrative depth matters more here than on price-comparable programmes.
• Grenada: additional declaration tied to the United States E-2 treaty pathway. Investors planning a subsequent E-2 visa must declare that intention from the outset.
• Saint Lucia: 6-9 month current processing window following the FY24 application surge. Plan timelines around the longer worst case.
• Vanuatu: separate Pacific framework; processing fastest in the global cohort but visa-free EU access withdrawn December 2024. Document set leaner but due-diligence remains rigorous.

For a granular side-by-side, our Caribbean CBI comparison guide sets out documentation differences alongside cost and timeline.

What are the common CBI document mistakes to avoid?

Answer: The most frequent file errors are: police clearances filed too early and expiring mid-review; missing apostilles on foreign birth or marriage certificates; source-of-funds narratives that cannot reconcile to bank statements; unsigned or unstamped medical forms; selfie-style photographs; and undeclared previous nationalities or arrests. Each of these is straightforward to avoid with structured pre-submission review.

The five mistakes that produce the most CIU clarifications:

1. Stale police clearance. File when 4-5 months of validity remain, not when 1 month remains.
2. Missing translator certification. A translated document without the sworn translator's stamped certification is treated as if untranslated.
3. Source-of-funds gaps. A wealth narrative starting from "savings accumulated over many years" without specific income evidence year by year will be challenged.
4. Inconsistent name spellings. Names appearing differently across passport, birth certificate, marriage certificate, and bank statements need an explanatory affidavit and supporting evidence.
5. Incomplete dependant files. A spouse missing a single document delays the entire family file, not just their part.

How does Mirabello Consultancy manage your CBI document preparation?

Answer: Mirabello Consultancy's process layers ACAMS-grade anti-money-laundering review onto the standard CIU document set. Each client is assigned a dedicated case manager working out of Zurich or Dubai, supported by an in-house legal team and authorised-agent partners on each Caribbean island. Our 99% approval rate across 250+ CBI cases comes from disciplined file construction, not from after-the-fact damage control.

What we do specifically:

• Initial 60-minute file diagnostic. We map your 10-year residency, name history, family composition, and wealth sources, then write you a personalised document plan.
• Parallel-track document chase. Our operations team initiates police clearances, certificate orders, and apostilles concurrently rather than sequentially.
• Source-of-funds narrative drafting. Our legal team writes the wealth narrative around your documents, flags evidential gaps before submission, and supplies the language CIU panels expect.
• Pre-submission audit. A second case manager reviews the assembled file against a 50-point checklist before it goes to the CIU.
• Authorised-agent submission. Files are submitted exclusively through licensed agents on island, with direct CIU contact channels for clarifications.
• Post-grant support. Passport issuance, ETIAS preparation, banking introductions, and tax-residence advice continue once citizenship is granted.

As IMC Members and ACAMS Certified specialists, we know what each Caribbean regulator expects to see in 2026 — and what the European Union, US Treasury, and Financial Action Task Force will scrutinise next. The Investment Migration Council framework underpins our work, alongside Swiss financial-services compliance standards.

What are the most frequently asked questions about CBI documents?

Answer: The questions below cover the six issues we are asked most often by prospective Mirabello Consultancy clients: translation requirements, police clearance validity, original-versus-scan format, dependant document sets, missing-document remedies, and how to begin the process. Each answer reflects current 2026 Caribbean CIU practice.

Do I need to translate my documents into English?

Yes. Every Caribbean CIU operates in English and requires certified translations of any document not originally in English. Translations must be performed by a sworn or court-appointed translator and accompanied by the translator's stamped and signed certification page, which is itself usually apostilled. Self-translations and online machine translations are rejected.

How recent do my police clearance certificates need to be?

Police clearance certificates must be issued within 6 months of submission to the CIU. Because file preparation typically takes 6-10 weeks and CIU review takes 4-9 months, applicants should aim to order clearances roughly 4 months before expected submission, leaving 5-6 months of validity. Order all clearances in the same 30-day window to keep validity periods aligned.

Can I use scanned documents or do they need to be originals?

Most CIUs require certified-true copies of originals (notarised) for police clearances, birth certificates, and marriage certificates. Bank statements and source-of-funds correspondence are typically accepted as certified scans. Photographs must be hard-copy prints, signed on the reverse. When in doubt, submit originals or certified true copies — never plain photocopies.

Do my children need their own document set?

Yes. Every dependant — spouse, children, parents — produces a full document set: passport, birth certificate, police clearance (if aged 16+), medical certificate (if aged 12+), photographs, and any name-change or relationship documents. A family-of-four application is effectively four parallel sub-files that must arrive coherently together.

What if I don't have all the required documents?

Most missing documents can be replaced. Lost birth certificates can be re-issued by the country of birth; lost marriage certificates by the country of marriage; lost passports by your country of citizenship. The key is to plan around the longest-lead-time replacement and start early. If a document genuinely cannot be obtained, a sworn affidavit explaining the circumstances may be accepted at the CIU's discretion — but only after demonstrable efforts to retrieve the document have failed.

How do I start with Mirabello Consultancy?

Book a free 60-minute confidential consultation with our Zurich or Dubai team. We will map your 10-year residency, family composition, and wealth narrative, then send you a personalised document plan and programme recommendation. As IMC Members and ACAMS-certified specialists with 250+ successful CBI cases and a 99% approval rate, we accept the cases we believe will succeed — and we tell you honestly when a route is not the right fit. Book your free consultation to begin.