Commonwealth-Backed Mobility Beyond the EU Perimeter

No. Vanuatu citizenship is acquired remotely and creates no automatic residency or tax-domicile change in the EU. Your existing tax residency continues to govern your worldwide income; Vanuatu simply adds a second nationality and the corporate, banking and travel privileges that come with it.

Yes. Vanuatu is a Commonwealth member and a recognised sovereign state, and the Vanuatu passport is accepted at all EU external borders. UK and Schengen access currently requires a visa. Vanuatu Citizens have 98%+ Schengen visa approval rate. Source https://www.axa-schengen.com/en/visa/schengen-area/easiest-country-to-obtain-a-schengen-visa-from#5. Standard short-stay Schengen visa procedures apply.

Yes. A primary applicant may include a spouse, dependent children up to age 25 if in full-time education, and dependent parents over 50. All family members receive identical citizenship rights. Family due diligence is conducted in parallel, keeping the consolidated timeline close to the single-applicant baseline of approximately 45 days.

Vanuatu is a CRS-participating jurisdiction. Any account opened in Vanuatu by an EU tax resident is reported by the Vanuatu financial institution to the Vanuatu Competent Authority, which exchanges with the account holder's EU country of tax residence annually. There is nothing to hide and nothing irregular — CRS visibility is part of why Vanuatu remains banked by Tier-1 correspondents.

Schengen visa-free access for Vanuatu nationals has been suspended since 2022 pending an EU review of Vanuatu's CBI due-diligence framework. Vanuatu has since enacted a strengthened Citizenship Act and Commission reforms. No firm restoration date has been published; in the interim, Vanuatu nationals apply for a standard short-stay Schengen visa, which is granted on the normal evidentiary basis.

Vanuatu citizenship is fully disclosable and does not prejudice ongoing Maltese, Cypriot, Portuguese or Greek residency or naturalisation files; in fact, holding additional nationalities is routinely disclosed and accepted in those programs. We coordinate with your EU residency counsel so that Vanuatu's grant is sequenced cleanly against any pending EU file.

No. The DSP contribution and CIIP investment are payments to a foreign government and do not generate an EU income-tax deduction. They are also not a capital investment generating return; they are the price of citizenship. EU tax treatment is therefore neutral — neither a deductible expense nor a taxable acquisition.

Yes. UK nationals apply on identical terms to EU27 nationals — Vanuatu makes no distinction. Post-Brexit, UK applicants frequently use Vanuatu citizenship specifically to restore Asia-Pacific and Commonwealth mobility lost relative to pre-2020 EU passport reach, and to add a non-EU jurisdictional hedge alongside any Irish, Maltese or Cypriot file they may also hold.

All notarisation and apostille work is performed locally in each family member's jurisdiction under the Hague Apostille Convention, then consolidated into a single dossier. Biometric capture is scheduled at a single Dubai, Hong Kong or mobile-consul appointment that the family attends together, avoiding any need for cross-jurisdictional coordination of in-person steps.

DAC6 applies to cross-border tax arrangements with specified hallmarks, not to the acquisition of a second citizenship as such. A purely personal citizenship grant, with no associated tax-aggressive structure, is generally outside DAC6 scope. Where a Vanuatu IBC or trust is subsequently used in a cross-border structure, your EU tax counsel should review hallmark exposure independently.