No syndication. No rehashes. No PR fluff. First-hand CBI industry observations, policy analysis, and client case debriefs — 11 years of field experience.
May 19, 2026 Saint Kitts CIU released the real Priority One timeline nodes: 60-day clock starts at acknowledgment, biometrics mandatory July 1, three-layer source-of-funds trace required. Ken decodes from his home in LA.
May 18, 2026 Portugal and Sao Tome signed a medical referral MOU compressing the public-hospital channel from 60-90 days to 21 working days. $95K entry, three-generation coverage, lusophone medical depth.
Across the 9 mainstream CBI passports, Grenada is the only one carrying both the US E-2 treaty benefit and Chinese visa-free entry. Ken Huang walks through the 2026 economics, who fits the profile, the real $235K-to-E-2 path, and the compliance details most agents will not mention.
Antigua is the only one of the nine active CBI passports that ties a physical landing requirement to renewal. Five days inside five years. The number is small. The 2026 renewal evidence pack is where families trip, and here is what immigration actually checks.
EU formally removed Vanuatu from visa-exempt list on 12 December 2024; visa-free count fell from ~110 to 93; ETIAS coming late 2026. Who Vanuatu still fits, who it does not.
A founder couple in their late forties walked into my Los Angeles consultation in late April 2026 with the Turkey CBI on a shortlist of three. The headline number was the USD 400,000 real-estate floor and the three-year holding rule. What the case file actually showed was more interesting than the headline.
Two years after the OECS five-country MOU locked the Caribbean CBI floor at USD 200,000, Dominica still holds the line. But the fund route and the real-estate route at that same floor cost a family of three about 50,000 USD apart, with a secondary-market liquidity story most agents skip.
Antigua all-in 270k to 280k USD; Saint Lucia 280k to 300k USD; gap under 20k. Four watersheds: residency, interview, speed, visa-free count.
Saint Kitts CIU is processing in 90 to 120 days, with a real five to six month door-to-door window. Eight client questions, working answers.
The Grenada Investment Migration Agency confirmed the 30-day residency requirement and the due-diligence fee uplift will come into force inside the April-June 2026 window. Here is the breakdown of which days count, which family members can carry the burden, and what the price ledger looks like once the new fees post.
The Sao Tome CIU crossed 220 applications by mid-April 2026, eight months after launch. The volume curve is not the story. The four amendments published on April 10 are. Here is what the file traffic looks like from the operational floor in May 2026, and where the program is likely to sit twelve months from now.
Turkey is sold as a G20 nationality, four to eight months end to end, and the second E-2 corridor. The reality of lira volatility, inflated CBI property pricing, and a visa-free list that misses the corridors HNW Chinese families care about, makes this passport less of a fit than the brokers will tell you.
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