Livre circulação CARICOM / OECO (status de subcidadania)

Eligibility turns on nationality of a partner state. For OECS free movement, the person must be a national of an OECS Protocol Member State; for CARICOM Full Free Movement, a national of a CARICOM Member State (with Dominica among the receiving states operational for Dominica since 1 October 2025). The person presents a valid passport (or accepted OECS travel document) at the port of entry and is admitted with the relevant mobility/indefinite-stay rights. No investment, language test, residence period or renunciation is required, because nothing about Dominican citizenship is being granted. The status preserves the person's original nationality in full. Conversely, a Dominican national enjoys reciprocal free movement throughout the OECS and (post-1 October 2025) the CARICOM Full Free Movement space — a practical value-add of Dominican citizenship that CBI marketing legitimately references, distinct from the visa-free travel claims that the CBI Promotional Guidelines restrict.

Practically, a person relying on DM-BIL-01 needs only proof of qualifying nationality and a valid travel document; the 'requirements' are entry-level, not application-level, because no citizenship is sought. The decision-useful point is the boundary: presenting an OECS/CARICOM passport secures entry and (under Full Free Movement) indefinite stay, but it does not produce a Dominican birth certificate, citizenship certificate or passport. To obtain those, the person must independently file under a Citizenship Act provision and meet its character, language and residence tests. Advisers should counsel clients that years spent in Dominica under free movement count toward the s.6(c) five-year (Commonwealth citizen) or s.8 seven-year (alien) residence requirement only as a matter of fact to be evidenced, and that the Minister's discretion and the oath/affirmation of allegiance (s.7 for registration, s.9 for naturalisation) still apply. There is no fast-track in the treaty.

The legal basis is treaty law, not Dominican nationality law. OECS free movement of persons is governed by Article 12 of the Protocol to the Revised Treaty of Basseterre Establishing the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Economic Union (2010), which provides for freedom of movement and indefinite stay for OECS nationals within the Eastern Caribbean Economic Union area; Dominica is a founding OECS member. CARICOM free movement rests on the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy. On 1 October 2025, Dominica was among four CARICOM states (with Barbados, Belize, and St Vincent and the Grenadines) ready to implement Full Free Movement, under which a qualifying CARICOM national receives an indefinite stay at entry. Crucially, none of these instruments amends the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Dominica or the Citizenship Act Chap 1:10; they sit alongside nationality law and govern entry and residence, not the grant or loss of citizenship.

Because free movement confers no Dominican nationality, the loss provisions of the Citizenship Act (deprivation under s.10, renunciation under s.11) do not apply to the status itself — there is nothing to deprive or renounce. A change in the person's underlying home nationality, or a change to the OECS/CARICOM treaty framework, governs the status instead. If an OECS/CARICOM national later acquires Dominican citizenship and then loses it (for example, a CBI citizen deprived under s.10 via the SRO 4 of 2024 mechanism), that person's free-movement rights as a national of the home state are unaffected, because they never depended on the Dominican nationality in the first place. This separation is important for risk assessment: a person relying on regional mobility does not carry the deprivation exposure that attaches to acquired Dominican citizenship.