Vanuatu passports

Marco Francis Coffen and Zhou Xiang Huang, both from Australia, appear on a list of people who purchased citizenship from Vanuatu for US$130,000 last year.

A Vanuatu passport allows visa-free travel through 130 countries, including the EU and UK, and Vanuatu also operates as a tax haven, with no income, corporate or wealth tax. The application process typically takes just over a month and can be conducted without ever setting foot in the country.

Trade in citizenship for investment has been an increasingly significant revenue earner for Vanuatu in recent years. This year, as the Covid-19 pandemic has caused an increase in citizenship sales in general around the world, Vanuatu is tracking for a record level of sales.

As of mid-August, Vanuatu had earned around $US84.6m in revenue from citizenship sales in 2020, a rare economic success in a cyclone-hit year of fiscal strain for the Pacific nation.

Jeffrey Markson's comments followed a report on French television that Vanuatu was selling passports for 130,000 euros.

The director claimed the report was false and said people couldn't buy their way to Vanuatu to try and flee Covid-19.

"Vanuatu is one of the countries that is Covid-free. To come to vanuatu we have all our border measures in place and there are strict border measures that we have in place and there is no such requirement that you can buy a passport to come to Vanuatu."

Foreign Minister Ralph Regenvanu told the Financial Times that the review, which will be completed by March, would look at strengthening due diligence.

Currently, the citizenship programme allows foreign nationals to obtain a Vanuatu passport for $US150,000.

The passport sales earn Vanuatu millions of dollars each year but have been criticised by some leaders, including the president.

The government's citizenship sales programme has brought in millions of dollars in revenue but public criticism of it has intensified in recent years.

Those who buy citizenship are eligible to hold passports.

"Records showed that since June 2019, 4000 passports have been sold under the Citizenship Program to foreigners who have no interest to invest in Vanuatu, thus diminishing our economic development and destroying the very status that has been given to our people by the framers of the Constitution," the president was quoted as saying by the Vanuatu Daily Post.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, staff will be working on submissions lodged before the date of closure.

The ministry will resume taking new passport applications after 23 July.

Technicians will upgrade the Vanuatu passports validity for a longer lifespan and they will feature upgraded security features.

The upgraded passports will have a 10 year-validity compared to the current five-year lifespan.

The current lifespan of Vanuatu Passport is valid for 5 years

“It is lowering our dignity as Ni-Vanuatu and Melanesian people,” Sokomanu told the Vanuatu Daily Post.

“It is degrading, it is totally unacceptable and non-negotiable in any way you can think. We the people of Vanuatu cannot accept this.”

Sokomanu became the first President of the Republic of Vanuatu on July 30, 1980. He stressed the country won its political independence from Britain and France through political struggle and sheer determination.

Earlier this month the Vanuatu government backtracked on an announcement just days earlier that it would accept the cryptocurrency.

The media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post Dan McGarry said the government had been driving the plan, just the latest in a series of citizenship programmes.

He said it hadn't shown consistency over the years.