Procedure Sources

Procedure sources are the primary documents that actually govern how Vanuatu citizenship is applied for and granted: the Constitution, the Citizenship Act [CAP 112], the regulations made under it, official notices from the Citizenship Commission and the Citizenship Office, and the foreign acts that determine where the resulting passport can be used. Everything else — agent brochures, comparison tables, news articles and this website — is secondary and should be checked against them.

This page is a working reference for applicants, lawyers and compliance staff. It ranks the sources by authority, explains what question each one answers, and points out the traps in using them. It is not a substitute for reading the current text: rules are amended, and an outdated copy can be worse than none. The question of which of these records are public and which remain closed is handled separately on the published registers page.

The Hierarchy of Sources

When two sources disagree, the higher one wins. That sounds obvious, but in practice applicants often rely on the lowest source in the chain — an agent's summary — for questions only the highest can answer.

Level	Source	What it settles
1	Constitution of the Republic of Vanuatu	That citizenship exists as a legal status and that Parliament legislates on how it is acquired
2	Citizenship Act [CAP 112], as amended	Who can become a citizen, the role of the Citizenship Commission, grounds for loss of citizenship
3	Regulations under the Act	The investment-based programmes, contribution amounts, the licensing of designated agents
4	Commission and Citizenship Office notices	Current operating position, such as the March 2025 suspension of new Capital Investment Immigration Plan applications
5	Written instructions issued to you	Your own requests for documents, approval terms and payment details
6	Secondary material	Nothing on its own — it is a guide to finding levels 1 to 5

How these layers together give the programme its legal footing is the subject of the page asking whether the programme is legal.

Which Vanuatu Sources Answer Which Questions?

The Act and regulations

For questions about eligibility, the programmes and the authorities involved, the Citizenship Act and its regulations are the starting point. They are published in the Official Gazette, and consolidated Vanuatu legislation is reproduced by the Pacific Legal Information Institute. Check the date of the consolidation and whether amending regulations have been made since; contribution levels and fees are the parts most likely to have changed.

Citizenship Office and Commission announcements

For questions about what is open right now, official announcements matter more than the regulations, because a programme can be suspended without the regulations disappearing. The Citizenship Office lists three programmes: the Citizenship Contribution Program, the Honorary Citizenship Development Support Program and the Citizenship Real Estate Option Program, the last of which began operating on 23 July 2021 and is limited to a Government Approved Project. The Capital Investment Immigration Plan, by contrast, stopped taking new applications in March 2025 and no reopening has been confirmed.

Passport authority

Questions about the passport as a document — its issue, renewal and replacement — belong to the Department of Immigration and Passport Services, which is a different body from the one that decides citizenship.

What Do Foreign Sources Add?

Vanuatu law decides who becomes a citizen. It does not decide where a Vanuatu passport holder may travel without a visa. For that, the sources are the laws of the destination states, and the two that matter most for applicants are the European Union and the United Kingdom.

• European Union. The sequence runs from Council Decision (EU) 2022/366 (partial suspension of the visa waiver agreement, decided on 3 March 2022) through Council Decision (EU) 2022/2198 (full suspension from 4 February 2023) and Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/2059 (extension to 3 February 2025) to Regulation (EU) 2025/11, which made the visa requirement permanent from 3 February 2025. The Council of the EU announced the decision to end the visa exemption on 12 December 2024 in a press release that summarizes the reasoning in plain language.
• United Kingdom. The Immigration Rules contain the list of nationalities that need a visitor visa. Vanuatu was added with effect from 19 July 2023.
• Other destinations. The figure of about 88 destinations accessible without a prior visa is an aggregate. For any individual trip, the destination's own immigration authority is the only reliable source.

Why these foreign institutions took the steps they did is explored on the international scrutiny page.

How Do You Tell a Primary Source From an Imitation?

The Vanuatu programme attracts a large number of commercial websites, some of which use names, layouts or wording that suggest an official connection. A few habits make it easier to tell them apart:

1. Look at the domain and the publisher. Government bodies of Vanuatu publish on government domains; EU acts are published on EUR-Lex; UK rules on GOV.UK. A commercial site quoting a rule is not the rule.
2. Check for a date and a version. A primary source identifies its own date and, for legislation, any amendment history. An undated summary cannot tell you whether it is current.
3. Prefer the instrument to the paraphrase. "The law says the contribution is…" should lead you to the regulation that sets it. The published DSP amounts are US$130,000 for a single applicant, US$150,000 for a couple, US$165,000 for a family of three and US$180,000 for a family of four, with a due diligence fee of US$5,000.
4. Distrust certainty about the future. Primary sources state what the rule is. Secondary sources that promise how the rule will change — "Schengen access returning soon" — are speculating, and in the EU's case are contradicted by Regulation (EU) 2025/11.

Using Sources When You Are Already in the Process

Once a file has been lodged, the most important source for you personally is level 5: the written requests and instructions that reach you through your designated agent. Keep each one, note its date, and ask your agent to identify the rule or notice behind any requirement that seems unusual.

Timing questions are a good example. The framework does not publish a guaranteed decision period, so a commitment to a specific number of days can only come from your agent's contract, not from a primary source. The difference between rule-based and estimated periods is set out on the official timeframes page.