The Antigua gambit goes bust: The mobility shortcut that African nomads just lost

Antigua and Barbuda, the twin-island Caribbean state with 98,000 people, occupied a strategic position in the global mobility market for years. It was neither a financial centre nor a major migration destination. Yet it played a crucial role in how capital, talent, and ambition from the Global South navigated the world’s most restrictive borders.

The country’s citizenship-by-investment (CBI) programme functioned as infrastructure. It was not designed for settlement, but for movement. Applicants did not buy into Antigua because they intended to relocate there, build companies there, or even visit frequently. They bought it because the passport travelled far.

Antigua’s passport, which opens visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 144 countries, travels farther than Nigeria’s 51. Nigeria’s passport has long been a bottleneck for its wealthiest and most globally oriented citizens. Entrepreneurs and senior professionals with legitimate business in Europe or North America routinely encounter lengthy processing times, high rejection rates, and opaque decision-making at foreign consulates. Access to capital and markets often hinges on the discretion of visa officers.

A Caribbean citizenship offered a way to rebalance that asymmetry. An Antiguan passport dramatically expands visa-free access, moving its holder from the margins of the global mobility system closer to its centre. While it does not guarantee entry into the US, it allows Nigerians seeking mobility opportunities to approach US consulates without the automatic suspicion attached to a Nigerian passport. In mobility terms, it was a hedge.

However, on December 16, that hedge collapsed.

US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation placing Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica, another Caribbean state, under partial US entry restrictions beginning January 1, 2026. Nationals of both countries are now barred from obtaining all immigrant visas, including family-sponsored, employment-based, and diversity visas. The White House cited Caribbean CBI programmes as tools used to “conceal identity and bypass vetting requirements.”

Mobility as a business infrastructure

Wealthy Nigerians have been among the highest buyers of Antigua and Barbuda citizenship since 2020. In H1 2024, Nigerians accounted for 9.07% of all applications, behind only China and the US. Sixty-six Nigerian applicants received Antiguan passports during that window, paying over $6.6 million into the country’s National Development Fund (NDF). Morocco (2.84%), Egypt (2.57%), Tunisia (1.22%), and South Africa (1.22%) were the only other African countries on the list.

Antigua and Barbuda’s citizenship programme raised tens of millions of dollars annually through its NDF, even as overall demand cooled from its 2018 peak. Nigerians increasingly filled part of that demand, particularly as access routes through Europe tightened, and traditional visas became more unpredictable.

It is helpful to pause here and consider how foreign capital actually flows into African markets.

It is no secret that a significant share of investor money flowing into African startups originates outside the continent, particularly from the US. For founders seeking that capital, access often requires showing up. Building relationships, gaining entry to Silicon Valley hubs, and participating in pitch meetings still depend heavily on physical presence, repeated interactions, and trust built over time.

Mobility, in this sense, becomes part of the business stack.

An Antiguan passport was never a guarantee of entry into the US. Holders still applied for business or student visas, appeared for interviews, and still submitted to the discretion of consular officers. Yet its value lay elsewhere: it eased the burden of proof. Applications were less likely to stall on nationality alone, and travel histories read as lower risk within systems designed to triage passports before people.

Trump’s proclamation strains that plausibility from multiple directions. Nigeria,  a major African economic and tech hub out of the ‘Big Four,’ was partially banned, with the White House citing high overstay rates. New applicants approaching US consulates with Nigerian passports will now encounter tougher bureaucracy in proving their intent to return home. Those attempting to apply through Antiguan citizenship will face scepticism that the proclamation explicitly anticipates, causing a double whammy for the average traveller. 

Even applicants who acquired Caribbean passports earlier in the year have already seen their efforts stall, according to a local media publication, as US scrutiny intensified following the administration’s clampdown beginning in June.

When the route narrows

In recent years, Antigua and Barbuda’s citizenship programme has been regaining momentum. After a quieter period earlier in the decade—before its previous 2018 peak—the country’s visa application volumes picked up through 2023 and into 2024. In H1 2024, the tiny island country recorded 739 applications, exceeding the total number received in the whole of the previous year. It signalled renewed confidence in the passport as a mobility tool.

Now, as one route narrows for Nigerian entrepreneurs who’d sought easier access through the passport, others come into focus. Professionals seeking mobility could turn their focus to residency pathways—though they take time and serious commitment—rather than investment visas that are coming under scrutiny from other countries in the world. Residency programmes in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) provide stable bases for global work without relying on access to the US visa system. European visas, such as Portugal’s D7, appeal to founders whose operations or investors are EU-facing.

The broader implication is not about one passport losing value. It is about how digital nomads and globally oriented professionals adapt when policy removes friction in one place and introduces it in another.

What shifts when access tightens

For years, Caribbean citizenship offered Nigerian founders, professionals, and digital nomads a way to participate in global circuits without relocating their lives entirely. It allowed them to move between markets, capital, and networks while remaining anchored at home. That balance is now harder to maintain.

As access tightens, mobility decisions become more consequential. Some professionals will remain in Nigeria and absorb additional friction, treating visa delays and denials as an unavoidable cost of operating globally. Others will redraw their personal maps, choosing jurisdictions that offer predictability even if they demand permanence. 

Antigua and Barbuda’s programme succeeded because it recognised a gap between where ambition originates and where opportunity concentrates. It sold access, not belonging. The US has now signalled that this form of access carries a risk it is unwilling to absorb.

Digital nomads and globally-minded professionals, especially those from Nigeria, are left to respond in the only way markets know how: by adjusting and finding new ways to stay in motion.

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