Comparative regional report on citizenship law: Anglophone Caribbean 3.2.1 Ordinary naturalisation12 All Anglophone Caribbean countries allow for individuals who meet certain residency, and other, requirements to naturalise. They all require a minimum of 12 months residency prior to submitting an application for naturalisation, but they vary in the number of consecutive years residence required prior to submitting said application. For instance, at the short end of the range, Jamaica requires 4 years residency, while at the long end of the range, St. Kitts requires 14 years (Figure 1).13 Figure 1 Ordinary naturalisation: residency requirements (years prior to application) Antigua & Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Belize Dominica Grenada Guyana Jamaica St. Lucia St. Kitts & Nevis St. Vincent & the Grenadines Trinidad & Tobago 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 Half of the countries require knowledge of English and half allow for applicants to fulfil the residency requirement through some combination of residency and government service. Most countries ask the applicant to acknowledge their intent to continue to reside in the country post-naturalisation and all require the applicants be of good character and profess an oath of allegiance. No country requires the applicant to prove self-sufficiency and only The Bahamas, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines ask the applicant to renounce their original country of citizenship (and in the latter case, it is at the Minister’s discretion).14 Finally, Belize is the only country that does not have an explicit provision that the Minister in charge of naturalisations may waive any naturalisation requirements. 12 A good faith effort was made to find cases of special naturalisation, but none were found. British Protected Persons fall under the ordinary naturalisation provisions within these countries and those that have CBI programmes allow for citizenship acquisition via registration, and not naturalisation, procedures. 13 This residency requirement does not apply to those who acquire citizenship by investment. 14 In the case of The Bahamas, individuals are rendered stateless during this period. See Belton (2017b), especially chapter 3. It is likely the same occurs in St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, but research is needed to corroborate this assumption. 6 RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-Comp. 2020/3 - © 2020 Authors