São Tomé & Príncipe — an island state in the Gulf of Guinea — has run one of the world's most accessible citizenship-by-investment programmes since 2025: an entry threshold from $90,000, no visit to the country and no residence requirement. The programme is open to citizens of Russia and Belarus. Here's the no-fluff version: what it really costs, how the process works — and an honest look at what the passport does and does not give you.
In short: what São Tomé & Príncipe citizenship gives you
- Full citizenship — a passport and national ID, with no exams and no interviews.
- A contribution from $90,000 for a single applicant — a non-refundable donation to the National Transformation Fund, not the purchase of an asset.
- One of the lowest entry thresholds of any active citizenship-by-investment programme.
- No visit to the country: personal presence is not required at any stage — neither to obtain nor to keep the citizenship.
- The whole family in a single application: spouse, unmarried children under 30, parents from 55. Important as of 25 August 2026: naturalisation of adult dependants — children over 18 and parents and grandparents over 55 — is suspended while the relevant provision of Nationality Law 07/2022 is under review in Parliament. Applications including them are still accepted and processed, but citizenship documents and passports for these dependants are not issued until the revised law is approved, published and enters into force. The government states this is temporary and is not a rejection or cancellation; the revised law is expected after the parliamentary elections of 27 September 2026. Source: letter of the Prime Minister of São Tomé and Príncipe, 25 August 2026.
- Dual citizenship is allowed — you don't have to give up your RF/RB passport.
- A favourable tax environment — but this is São Tomé's own tax regime, not an automatic change to your tax residency (we explain the difference below).
What it really costs
A turnkey calculation for a single applicant (current Aftera estimate as of 5 August 2026):
| Line item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Non-refundable contribution to the National Transformation Fund | $90,000 |
| Registration fee on filing (government duty, non-refundable) | $5,000 |
| Certificate of citizenship, passport and local ID | $750 |
| Aftera legal support (due diligence, filing, local agent) | $20,000 |
| Total, turnkey | $115,750 |
How it works — and why the timeline is no longer "2 months"
The programme was originally marketed as one of the fastest in the world — from 1–2 months. That claim still appears in marketing materials, but as of August 2026 it no longer matches practice: timelines grew for two reasons — the São Tomé government tightened due diligence in late June 2026, and the printing and issuance of the passports themselves takes time. The current Aftera estimate budgets 5–6 months from filing to passport — and that is the timeline to plan around.
- Consultation and document preparation — applicant assessment, assembling the package.
- Payment of the registration fee ($5,000) and filing with the São Tomé Citizenship Department.
- Due-diligence vetting — strengthened since mid-2026; one of the two main reasons timelines have lengthened.
- Decision on the application — approval "in principle" or refusal.
- Payment of the main investment after approval.
- Printing and issue of the passport, ID and certificate of citizenship, then sent to the investor — this printing stage is itself part of why the overall timeline runs to 5–6 months.
None of these steps requires a physical visit to São Tomé & Príncipe.
Honestly about visa-free access: where the STP passport loses out
This is the part that matters for the decision, not just for the brochure. Open sources on São Tomé & Príncipe's visa-free access diverge enormously — from 30 to roughly 100 destinations depending on the tracker — and that in itself is an honest signal: the programme and the passport are simply too new (since 2025) for the rankings to have settled.
What all sources confirm identically:
- A visa is required for the Schengen area and the United Kingdom on the STP passport — there is no visa-free access there by any counting method. This sets the programme apart from the Caribbean citizenship programmes, which (where they are open to the relevant nationality) do include visa-free Schengen.
- The real visa-free list is concentrated in Africa (incl. South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Rwanda), part of Latin America (Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica) and a few countries in Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore).
- One niche upside — São Tomé & Príncipe is a member of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), which by some sources eases access to visas and residence in other CPLP states (Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique and others) — but each country sets its own terms, and this needs to be checked separately for a specific goal, not treated as a ready-made "visa-free Europe".
For comparison: Vanuatu also lost Schengen in 2025, but its visa-free list is broader thanks to parts of the CIS and Asia; Turkey is a G20 passport with fundamentally different mobility. We'll cover a detailed comparison of São Tomé, Vanuatu and Turkey by price, speed and mobility separately.
Who São Tomé & Príncipe suits
- Those for whom the key criterion is the minimum entry threshold, not a specific list of visa-free countries: a second passport as basic "in case" insurance.
- Those already considering Vanuatu who want to compare it with an even lower starting figure — bearing in mind that the turnkey cost of both programmes is comparable once fees and support are added.
- Owners of international businesses who need a second travel document and citizenship to open accounts, not tied to an RF/RB passport.
- As a first step toward programmes that require "any second citizenship" to enter — for example, the Greek Golden Visa is not available directly on an RF/RB passport, but opens up once the applicant holds a São Tomé (or other non-sanctioned) passport.
If the priority is specifically European mobility here and now, it is more honest to look straight at Turkey or EU residency — that is a different job for a different tool.
Risks and what the passport honestly does NOT do
- It does not give visa-free access to Schengen or the UK. This is not fine print — it is a systemic limitation of every recent citizenship-by-investment programme, this one included.
- It does not automatically change your tax residency. São Tomé's own favourable tax regime does not cancel your obligations where you actually live 183+ days a year — including notifying the Russian tax service (FTS) and interior ministry (MVD) of a second citizenship, CFC rules and CRS exchange.
- The programme is new and the rules have already changed. Due-diligence timelines grew during the programme's first year of operation (2025–2026); further adjustments to requirements and timelines are possible.
- The divergence in open data on the visa-free list and timelines is not a reason to trust the most optimistic figure. Budget your money and time against a conservative estimate.