Saint Lucian nationals must now obtain a visa to travel to the United Kingdom, including for transit through the UK.
Details of the change appear on the UK government’s official website, which states that Saint Lucia and Nicaragua will be removed from the list of countries whose nationals are eligible to enter the UK with an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA).
According to a press release issued by the Government of Saint Lucia, UK authorities advised that the new visa requirement took effect on March 5, 2026, at 11:00 am Eastern Caribbean time.
A six-week transition period will remain in place until midday on April 16, 2026. During this time, Saint Lucian nationals who already hold an ETA and booked travel before the policy change may still enter the United Kingdom visa-free, provided they arrive before the end of the transition window.
According to UK authorities, the visa requirement will mean Saint Lucian nationals travelling to the UK will be assessed against immigration rules before arrival.
Reasons for the policy change were said to be a rise in asylum claims by Saint Lucian nationals, as well as concerns linked to the country’s Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme.
Information published on the UK government website indicates that between January 2022 and December 2025, “360 nationals of St Lucia claimed asylum, of which 128 (36%) were made at port.” Officials described the figure as high relative to Saint Lucia’s population of about 180,000.
The UK government also said asylum claims place a burden on the country’s border and migration system.
“There were 222 nationals of St Lucia receiving asylum support at the end of the most recent published quarter (December 2025), of which 213 were residing in accommodation provided by the Home Office,” the website said.
The UK government also classified Saint Lucia’s Citizenship by Investment programme as “high risk”. While acknowledging steps taken by the Government of Saint Lucia to strengthen oversight of the programme, the UK cited increases in passport applications in 2023 and 2024 as a concern.
“In 2023-24, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the St Lucian programme received around 5,642 applications, representing 423% annual growth in application volumes. This growth has directly coincided with an increase in those who have subsequently been detected using St Lucian passports to access the UK, going on to either claim asylum or work illegally,” the website stated.
Responding to the policy shift, the Government of Saint Lucia said it remains engaged with UK authorities: “The Government wishes to reassure citizens that active diplomatic engagement with the United Kingdom is ongoing, and that Saint Lucia will continue discussions with UK authorities to better understand the decision and to explore pathways for maintaining strong mobility arrangements between both countries.”
“The Government of Saint Lucia will provide further guidance to the public on visa application procedures and travel requirements as additional information becomes available.”
And somehow the St.Lucian government still thinks selling our birthright is a good idea. The CBI Programme will continue to cost St.Lucians much more that the monetary value of the programme, the EU and other countries are taking similar steps against St.Lucia further weakening our passport. Which foreign national will want to buy it then.
Stop the CIP madness. Our passports are purchased then individuals use them to enter the UK and claim asylum? People have to stop supporting political parties as if they are drug crazed zombies. The politician you support is not God or better than you….tell them stop selling passports.
Someone will always spoil it for others. Very soon the Schengen countries will put in a visa regime for Saint Lucia. And this will make our passport useless and powerless like those African Countries.
I need a government that will cancel this CBI programme.
I, an opponent of CIP, always knew that CIP will be our downfall. How quickly we fall is a matter for debate. With wars and other conflicts between and among countries expanding around the world, migrations will be vetted for maximum security. CIP involves people of all imaginable cultures possessing the same passport. Think about that.
It’s crucial to find which group of people violated UK’s immigration policy first, whether it derived mainly from the “new citizens” by CBI. Then we shall move to reassess the impact of CBI programme.
It may be an alternative method to introduce Residency by Investment instead and attracting foreign capitals to invest AND STAY to boost local economy and job opportunities. For this motivation, Saint Lucia is better to recover its name from the ETA list of the UK and acquire visa free from Japan.
I guess a few can make it bad for the many.
Making it more difficult for legal migrants to travel, while leaving the back door open for all the dinghies and illegals coming across the channel with no paperwork.
The UK government is backwards.
The British never cease to amaze me with their blatant hypocrisy and sanctimony. This medium size nation in the backwaters of Europe is once again taking the moral high ground and trying to boss it’s way around like it once did many years ago… And so I have just read and heard about the imposition of visas on St Lucian nationals.
To say that I am appalled dismayed and disgusted by such a move would be an understatement. The excuses that they are offering for imposing this visa regime are feeble and unavailing. There is mention about Asylum and the CIP program which have been offered as the reasons why visas should be imposed on our easily frangible island nation which Britain committed many abominable sins against during slavery and subjugation not that long ago. As if that was not enough they are now revisiting our beautiful island of at least or under 200,000 inhabitants with travel restrictions.
I have written extensively about the British lack of remorse for the crimes they committed against our people which started on a grand scale in Africa. They had no compunction in taking our people across the Atlantic ocean before subjecting them to endless beatings and whippings during the brutal slave trade. Our ancestors went through a hell-of-a-time with these impenitent British slavers. They were vicious, ferocious, callous and unrelenting in their barbaric treatment of our people during slavery. Lest we forget that.
Now as though this was not enough they have added a new chapter to the bow as they continue to finish where they left off. We in the Caribbean have called for reparations but our pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Britain should step up to compensate our people both in the Caribbean and in Africa for the wanton suffering they inflicted on black people during and after the deplorable and disgraceful transatlantic slave trade. The Jews who claimed to have been persecuted by Hitler not so long ago were compensated for the injustice they suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Now if Germany can pay them compensation, why can’t Britain do the same to the Caribbean and Africa?
The imposition of visas on St Lucia is a diabolical and despicable act which is being unleashed by a woman with zero credibility in the UK political circles. This is a woman whose selection caused some dissent in the constituency Labour party. She was controversially selected in the end despite her views which does not align with Labour party’s policies. This woman should not have been touched with a bargepole let alone be allowed to join the ranks of a British political party. She is bombastic, blathering and extremely brash. The Labour party is just as racist as the conservative party in the UK. I can name so many incidents where their lopsided policies have revealed their true selves as blatant hypocrites and racists.. But time will not permit me to delve into it, perhaps another time.
Britain is in no position to give anyone lectures about morality and what is good for a small nation like St Lucia . They very things that they are accusing our island/s of are the very things they are doing with the greatest of ease. They have afforded loads of dodgy and contemptible Russians , Arabs and other Middle Easterners passports for money. There’s a plethora of shady and dubious sums of money floating around the various banks in London. London is awash with money laundering and launderers and very little is being done about it by the authorities yet they want to tell St Lucia and the other islands not to do what they have done and are continuing to do to bring in the bacon. The Afghans are setting up shops on the high streets of London with money from the heroine and poppy trade yet they allow them to sail into England. The Taliban is all over London using their ill gotten gains to boost the UK economy by opening shops in the black communities like Kilburn and Harlesden.
The CIP have been able to put a lot of things in place which would not have otherwise be done without it. A lot of countries and islands have benefitted from it’s largesse. Tourism and agriculture are the mainstay of our economy and other than that we have nothing else to help bolster the coffers of the country’s public purse. The British are stingy , parsimonious and ungenerous when it comes to giving. They will only give as a last resort and only if they cannot help it and there is something in it for them. Why can’t they offer St Lucia an alternative if they don’t want the island to recoup or benefit from the CIP program? The very people who come to Britain using our passports are the very ones the British would have welcomed had they not been greedy and asking for much more in the CIP plan.
St Lucia and the other islands are generous and very welcoming. The island has a lot to offer the investor and other tourists on the whole. Our friendly and hospitable people, the lovely beaches, the food, ambiance and warm blue seas. It is enough to entice voyagers to this splendid island unlike the UK with its awful and unpleasantly cold weather. They are envious of the beautiful Caribbean and its pleasant weather and people.
I was raised in the UK but have never liked the hypocrisy and the double -dealings of the British. I faced racism from a very early age as did many of my peers. I still face racism at my age – I am in my late 60s and still go through the motions of having white English people looking down their noses at me and giving me that cold steer as if I am nothing. I have lived it my whole life. I have relocated to another land and have been residing there for many years. It is not perfect but it feels much more like home than Britain does. I go for the odd visit but will not return to live in a land that does not treat it’s black citizens with respect and dignity.
However Britain treated us without is the same way she is treating us within. They owe us compensation and should pay us for the suffering and misery they put us through. They have no right to be imposing a visa regime on our island. That is a very backward step which should be immediately rescinded and revoked without hesitation.
I am calling on the Home Secretary to revoke this decision and to allow for a reversion of things they way it was. Since you will not afford us reparation the least you can do is to allow us a visa free regime. If not I am asking the St Lucia government to consider a reciprocation of the deal. The Prime Minister should explore every avenue to counter this unbalanced move. The Home secretary is unable to think in a clear and sensible way. She is non compos mentis. I hope she sees the error of her ways and to revoke this decision. They came to our islands without passports and visas and now we have to come to theirs with passport and visas.. They came to plunder. That is not fair.
St Lucia we love! Viva St Lucia the land of my beautiful mother.
Malcolm L’Overture
St Lucian-Haitian
Benidom Spain
The UK does not have an embassy in St. Lucia. No more travelling through the UK for me. Dead and gone! My last trip was what it is. The Uk authourities need to come up with solid evidence of what they have claimed with regards to asylum. The officials at Home Office do lie a lot. and they do so brazenly. Yes I said it because I know it. The other nationalities you people need to worry about are already in and is offcourse your problem. And trust us, little St lucia is the least of UK immigration problems and statistics.
I would recommend:
1. Check which group of people that violated the UK immigration rules, whether it is “new citizens” by investment or not. Specified issue, specified solution;
2. Consider the possibility of residency by investment with clear route to the citizenship instead. The key is to attract foreign capitals to invest and STAY to boost local economy and job opportunities;
3. Strategy to regain UK ETA status and Japan visa free to stand out in the region.
Question – was every asylum seeker a CIP recipient? Please provide me with the data so I can make a relevant post? Thank you.
No visa can make up for reparations. This has to be paid not only for African slavery but Indian indentureship. So kindly include that as part of the reparations agenda and place the genocide of the indigenous people at the forefront too. The Americans and Canadians have to pay for that. The indigenous people were gone at their hands throughout the Americas continent and Caribbean islands. So here are the countries that have to pay: England, Portugal, Spain (so draw in Latin America), France, America and Canada. And given that the Germans paid for World 2, we must be paid for genocide, slavery and indentureship. Reparations cannot be based on colour. That is how racism functions at its roots.
Are the UK asylum seekers claiming persecution in St.Lucia OR in their country of birth? But they so happen to possess a CIP St.Lucia passport?
How rigid is the CIP vetting process in St. Lucia? My understanding is that local lawyers are preferrng it over passport sales. Each passport they don’t sell means less money in their pocket. Then we also heard about our passports being sold in Asia and the Middle East through ‘discounting’. If those creating a security threat in the UK or claiming assylum as a roundabout way to get UK citizenship can be identified then the trail should lead back to a lawyer’s due dilligence or lack of it. Hence we need an independent audit of the CIP department.
We always blame everybody but ourselves. Barbados, Bahamas, St. Vincent, Grenada, St. Kitts, Antigua and Guyana do not need visas to go to the UK. Bermuda, Cayman, Turks and Caicos, Anguilla, BVI and Montserrat all have UK passports so they are not in it. Last time I looked they had similar racial profiles as us. CIP is the problem and this serves as another warning, after Dominica, about inconsistencies and discipline in CBI programs. Ralph was right it seems. 47 years old and cannot take responsibility and fix the problem.
Everyone has a right to their opinion(s)
The UK is only following what the US is doing because they are puppets that Trump controls as and when.
All an income scheme for them, a country that is designed to keep people in debt!!
Where is the proof that CIP recipients are the ones claiming asylum in the UK? Sometimes, we are too quick to cast judgement. If someone is willing to pay that amount of money for a St Lucia passport and is willing to seek asylum in the UK, then something is relatively wrong.
Concrete evidence for CIP asylum seekers would make this argument very clear cut but until then…
So if CIP is the problem who put CIP in place and why does Pierre still have him as deputy? Truth be told, no one in St lucia benefits from the passport sales. So does Pierre have any control over his passport bro?
An investor paying hundred of thousands of dollars in CBI programs, does not need to seek asylum. Simply because he and his family can transfer through th canal to UK in much cheaper than this price. Also, CBI programs are present in most of Caribbean islands, and there is no such a big difference in their price, so why they chosen St Lucia in particular?…. Government should treat the Labor’s government in the same way and obstacles for British citizens….
Peep what is happening peep are these two better dayz CIP is not worth it. I guess the mood is RED
Ohh well ! As we didn’t see this coming. We might as well cancel CIP….. it’s bringing too much scrutiny. We are not getting any kind of financial assistance from the UK but some of us just love the British and would have gladly push our hands in fire for the Queen when she was around. We don’t need to be selling our passports for lucrative investments we just need to repackage St Lucia as a more viable robust destination for business and leisure.. The world is a much different place compare to what it was ten years ago… most countries and governments are not thrilled with open borders and visa free travel anymore so we should get over our self entitlements we are not exactly Children or descendants of people from the Himalayans. Nearly all Caribbean nationals needs a visa to travel to the UK these days so St Lucia welcome to the club.
My understanding is that the Castries-Soufriere road is being built with a UK grant. Certain people cannot even get on a plane to the UK. Paying for a St. Lucia passport gets them on the plane and as far as immigration in London. After that they claim asylum. It is clear that even those arriving on boats to England are paying thousands. Now let’s say a company is selling passports at a discount. They rather take a plane than a dinghy across the cold sea.
Your government organizations in St. Lucia are a BIG JOKE with most of the staff seriously incompetent, rude etc. etc. Your job for which you are paid should never be viewed as doing someone a favor. I am a St. Lucian living abroad – let me be very clear — I am not affiliated with any political party in St. Lucia.
However, I tried to obtain a birth certificate as the one which was in circulation at the time of my departure from St. Lucia was a Baptism/Birth Certificate. I went online and followed the protocol established by the agency in St. Lucia in order to obtain a replacement….hello!!!!!
Long story short, I submitted the required pertinent documents to the relevant authority in St. Lucia. I emailed and I called on numerous occasions (no answer on the phone/no return email/no follow-up). After an entire year or more of incompetence and lack of follow through from the designated agency, I literally had to employ the PAID services of an attorney in St. Lucia in order to obtain a birth certificate…what a shame!!
In addition, the St Lucia website states if you have an issue with an agency reach out to that agency – that is a joke and an exercise in futility (if i have an issue with a child – for a resolution/follow-up I would need to address it with the parent/guardian) – there is no accountability — sucking up and brown nosing is the order of the day – egos bigger than job descriptions) and that is very sad.
However, foreigners are treated like they are God’s gift to St. Lucia – and they most likely obtained their CIP passport(s) without having to endure what I had to go through for my birth certificate.
Question – will you guys ever get to a place of professionalism in government and NGOs – you all need to treat everyone with the same dignity and respect period – full stop. The my girl my boy syndrome needs to go out the window for real – good luck and best wishes.
As a citizen of beautiful St Lucia I am calling on my government to immediately remove the king and queen of England as it’s head of state. How can you have a monarch as your head of state and for visas to be put on the citizens of our island? That is totally unfair and unjustified and the PM needs to reciprocate the move.
I came to St Lucia from the UK via West Africa in the mid 90s and the people of this splendid island afforded me kindness and hospitality which I will never forget. I was afforded citizenship after twenty something years of living there and contributing as an economist. St Lucia and the rest of the Caribbean needs to call for reparation for all the atrocities that the British committed on the island and the region.
I have always been wary of the English and this vile Home secretary Shabana Mahmood, although not English is one twisted and reprehensible individual who is working hard to appease the British establishment. She is more right wing than her predecessors like SueElla Benjamin and Priti Patel… Not even them would impose visas on St Lucia. I hope she gets her comeuppance for doing just that. Britain have loads of foreign criminals who have been given citizenship after investing. Just go down the the high streets of Kilburn, Harlesden, Harrow road and Shepherd’s bush you will see Afghans with shops —
The funds they have used to buy these shops are from the proceeds of opium and poppy production. There are many fishy and shady Russians ,Arabs and Indos who bluff their way into British society using bogus methods with spurious funds to do so. Britain is getting more racist by the minute with idiots like Clear Scammer the PM, Nigel Farright and now this counterfeit Asian immigrant Home Secretary who is doing their dirty work for them…
It is time to expose this woman like someone said so she stops pandering to the racist tabloids, TV stations and the establishment. She must be doing something wrong that needs tabloids exposure… St Lucia and its people need to fight back to address this injustice. Do it before its too late folks. Get rid of the head of state and the White Privy Council if St Lucia is still secretly a member. Act Now Honourable Phillip J Pierre.
Prime Minister Pierre needs to stop being timid and should act now. He should have done a tit-for- tat immediately upon hearing this news. If this was in West Africa where I am from originally the government would act without hesitation. Why isn’t St Lucia doing the same? You must not allow Britain to bully you into submission. They have done enough of that already. It is time to act. St Lucia needs strong and vigorous leadership.
In Nigeria we are very grateful to St Lucian Sir Darnley Alexander who gave a lot to the country. He was one of the founding fathers of 1960 Nigeria. I am happy to see president Tinubu visiting St Lucia. Sir Darnley wanted Nigeria to become a republic and I think St Lucia should follow in that vein. You cannot have a king who is far away and who does not support the island. What did Prince Charles have to say about this aggressive determined and pretty brazen move by the UK Home Office? Absolutely nothing! So how can you have such a man as your head of state. He is bloody useless and ineffectual and should be gotten rid of. Do like neighbouring Barbados who removed and unceremoniously dumped the monarch as it’s head of state and replaced him with a president… PM PJP please act now before any further humiliation by the immoderate British. Republic now Mr Pierre!
Malcolm L’Overture I would like to take this opportunity to commend you on the brilliant piece that you have written defending St Lucia. This was well written and put together. I too was born in the UK to parents from St Lucia. I have been to this lovely paradise many times and enjoyed every moment I spent there with family and friends. The British have never treated our people with respect and never will.
I grew up near the Mozart estate which was a no go area for many years. My parents came over in the 60s to find work as things were not that good workwise in St Lucia. Our parents had 6 of us – My mum worked as a nurse and father as a bus driver. They struggled to manage on the salaries that they were earning to bring us up. I admired their resilience and determination. When I heard the wonderful stories about what life in St Lucia was like I would most times mentally transplant and transport myself over there.
Having read about this visa imposition I am vexed about this. I have a lot of family and friends who visit London every year. Now they will have to get entry clearance to do so which will also cost money. Have these British not done enough already to our people? That is grossly unfair and unjustified and I think we in the St Lucian community here in the UK should get a petition together so that we can present it to this lousy Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. This woman is so full of herself and is allowing this bunch of hypocrites that is the labour party to use her to do their dirty work for them. That is totally unfair. I agree with all the points you raised in your piece.
They need to do like you said revoke and rescind this lopsided decision, otherwise St Lucia should do the same by imposing visas on the British. I will now have to get myself a St Lucian passport as both of my parents were Lucian. The UK isn’t home for me anymore since I met my beautiful wife from Ghana. We spend a lot of time in Ghana and I love it. Irrespective of that I will always remain St Lucian which is in my blood – I am Lucian by blood and British by convenience… I do enjoy reading your many lengthy stories Malcolm. They are enlightening inspiring and edifying. Keep em coming sir. Let us keep looking after our beautiful island of St Lucia.