This article is not intended to be relied on as legal advice. Please seek formal advice to check the accuracy and continued relevance of the below, and whether it would be suitable to your circumstances.
In the past few years, various immigration options have developed for long-term residents and their families in Bermuda. This is mostly centred on naturalisation as a British Overseas Territories (“BOT”) citizen. In this article, I shall attempt to give a summary of these options for the following groups of people:
1) People who were “resident” on the 31 July 1989, and for the past 10 years;
2) People who invest at least $2.5M in Bermuda (Economic Investment Residential Certificate);
3) Residential certificate holders (an older category that still applies to some);
4) Work permit exemption holders (Job Maker scheme);
5) PRC holders;
6) Spouses of PRC holders and of naturalised BOT citizens;
7) Spouses of Bermudians;
8) Born BOT citizens
9) Children who have grown up in Bermuda and have now reached the age of 18;
I will first give an overview of what is naturalisation as a BOT citizen. You can then skip ahead to the category or categories that you might fall into.