The Y family sat in my LA living room for most of an afternoon last spring. Both parents are in their mid-fifties, manufacturing background, three decades of building the business and now mostly running succession for the next generation. They have two kids. The younger daughter is 21, studying in Boston. The older son is 29 — and that age is the whole story — he left an investment bank role in Hong Kong nine months ago, came home to help manage the family's offshore assets, has never married, and is financially dependent on his parents.
Their question was direct. They wanted a second passport that could include the 29-year-old son in the same application.
Why Grenada landed at the top of the Y family's shortlist
Of the eight Caribbean and adjacent CBI programs we actively work with, only Grenada and Saint Kitts allow an unmarried adult child under 30 in the same family application without forcing them to be in full-time education. Antigua does include adult children but only if enrolled in a full-time program — the Y son had been working for years, so that path was out. Dominica's adult child age cap is also 30, but the July 2026 due diligence overhaul made the financial dependency test stricter, and adult children who recently held cross-border employment get flagged for additional review.
Between the two remaining options, Saint Kitts requires a $250,000 minimum NDF contribution and Grenada $235,000 — the spread is small. The real differentiator is the US E-2 treaty channel. Grenada holds an E-2 treaty with the US; Saint Kitts does not. The Y son wants to eventually open a small US business, so that single fact pushed Grenada to the top.
What the 2026 IMA reform changed about the financial dependency test
This was the question Mrs. Y kept circling back to. She said: "My son did work for almost five years on his own. His 2024 Hong Kong tax filing shows roughly HKD 500,000 in annual income. Won't IMA decide he is not really dependent on us?"
I pulled up our approval records from the past 14 months covering seven similar families. The pattern is consistent. IMA looks at the financial dependency relationship at the point of application submission, not the applicant's entire earnings history. The specific requirement is a sworn affidavit of financial support signed by the parents stating they currently provide substantive economic support for housing, healthcare, insurance, and daily expenses, paired with a declaration signed by the adult child explaining that no stable full-time income has been received in the past 12 months and that day-to-day expenses are covered by the parents.
The 2024 Hong Kong income still has to be disclosed in the source of funds section. It does not invalidate the dependency relationship as long as the adult child's earnings stopped before the submission date and the parents have been the financial source since. The Y son left his bank in September 2025, has had zero earned income since, and the family is filing in mid-2026 — that nine-to-twelve-month gap is exactly the window IMA's current rules treat as a real dependency.
The mandatory 17+ interview Y's son had to clear
As of May 2026, IMA requires all applicants 17 and older to attend a mandatory interview. For the Y family that meant four interviews — both parents, the 21-year-old daughter, and the 29-year-old son. The interviews are run by a UK due diligence firm contracted by IMA, conducted on video, lasting 30 to 45 minutes each. The questions are not legal trivia. They are: why are you applying, how do you plan to use this passport, what is your relationship to the principal applicant.
For the son's interview I gave him two pieces of advice. First, he has no history with Grenada, no business, no friends there. IMA will not reject him for that, but he has to be straightforward: the goal is to support the family's global identity plan, and personally he hopes to use this passport as the basis to develop a US business. Second, when the dependency question comes up, do not say "I am young, I am not in a rush." Say "I am currently restructuring my life and career direction, and my parents provide complete financial support during this phase."
The Y family's real ledger
| Item | Amount (USD) |
|---|---|
| NTF contribution (4 people) | 235,000 |
| Due diligence fees (three 17+ adults) | 22,500 |
| Government processing + application fees | ~12,000 |
| Medical, notarization, translation, authentication | ~6,500 |
| Total before our professional fee | ~276,000 |
Mrs. Y took the spreadsheet home and called me a week later with one sentence: "We are moving forward." We filed six months later. The case is currently in the second-round DD stage. The son's interview already cleared. In 11 years of CBI work and over 300 client approvals, this is not the largest file we have handled but it is one of the cleanest — clear goals, complete document chain, aligned family communication.
The thing 90% of agents will not tell you: for the adult unmarried child track, the actual approval decision does not come down to the literal wording on the financial dependency affidavit. It comes down to whether the family's overall cash flow at the point of submission is really supporting that child. After 11 years in this business, the way I help clients avoid mistakes is never about teaching them how to "package" a profile. It is about teaching them how to translate the real family situation into a language IMA can verify. Not the most expensive, not the cheapest — only the right fit. If you have a 25-to-30-year-old child who has not yet formed an independent household and is currently relying on you financially, message WhatsApp +15595666666 with the note "Adult Child Track" and I will share the past 12 months of approval cases and our document checklist.
