Antigua & Barbuda
| Pros |
|---|
| Absence of personal income tax on local and worldwide income for tax residents. |
| Robust Citizenship by Investment program providing increased global mobility and strategic residency options. |
| Minimal capital controls and unrestricted repatriation of profits for international business operations. |
| Cons |
|---|
| High vulnerability to natural disasters and significant reliance on expensive, imported fossil fuels. |
| Occasional administrative delays and lack of transparency within certain government procurement processes. |
| Elevated cost of living and high operational expenses due to heavy dependence on imports. |
Long story short: Zero income tax, zero capital gains, zero inheritance duties: Antigua actively courts your money instead of squeezing it, especially if you buy into its citizenship program.
The catch: paperwork crawls at island pace, banks still carry scars from their offshore blacklist years so wires get flagged, and the market is minuscule, forcing you to sell abroad from day one.
Otherwise: gated communities near St. John's stay safe, imported groceries cost you, roads and power hold up fine outside hurricane season, and the beaches are exactly as stunning as advertised.
Will your income be taxed?
Long story short: NO.
Antigua and Barbuda doesn't tax personal income, and nobody comes sniffing around when you settle in. No withholding, no tax return, no centre-of-vital-interests trap waiting to snap shut.
Earn what you want: the taxman here simply doesn't know your name.
Will your wealth be taxed?
Long story short: NO.
Antigua and Barbuda keeps its hands off what you hold. No capital gains tax, no annual wealth grab, no inheritance regime.
Your portfolio compounds in peace and leaves the way it came in; nobody's standing at the door with their palm out.
Easy to run a company there?
Long story short: YES.
Antigua and Barbuda runs no corporate income tax and no criminal liability for misuse of corporate assets: fiscally and legally featherweight.
The catch: registries are public, so your name as shareholder is one search away for any curious stranger. They won't tax you, they won't prosecute you. They'll just put you in the shop window.
A good fit for a holding?
Long story short: NO.
Antigua and Barbuda has no treaty network at all, which buries the holding question, full stop.
Every dividend in or out eats the statutory withholding at full rate, and no domestic regime can patch a hole that sits on the source side. Don't park a holding here.
| Country | Status | Dividends | Interest | Royalties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| ∅ // no treaties match | ||||
Easy to come and go?
Long story short: LITTLE.
Coming and going from Antigua and Barbuda costs you nothing worth mentioning. Territorial regime (foreign income stays foreign), no exit tax at the door.
You show up with your stuff, you leave with your stuff, plus whatever you earned abroad in between. Borders the way they should all work.
Is your money watched?
Long story short: YES, CLOSELY.
Antigua and Barbuda signed every exchange framework that matters and runs a public corporate registry. Whatever you do here (earn, hold, structure) is reported, searchable, or both.
Your money is watched from every angle; if discretion is part of your plan, this isn't your jurisdiction.
Is it blacklisted?
Long story short: SOMEWHAT.
Antigua and Barbuda is flagged by a few national tax administrations (drawn from FR/ES/PT/BR) and sits outside the FATF club.
The friction is selective: anti-abuse rules fire on specific corridors, and counterparties ask more questions than usual. Neither the FATF nor the EU has it on their lists, which keeps the damage contained: a nuisance, not a scarlet letter.
Do you feel free there?
Long story short:
Not enough data to tell how free you'd actually feel in Antigua and Barbuda.
Connected to the world?
Long story short: POORLY CONNECTED.
The two rails that matter are both dead in Antigua and Barbuda. Stripe won't onboard you, so card payments mean a foreign structure or a local processor with its own rules. Amazon doesn't deliver either.
Some secondary services run (3/11), but for an online business this is swimming against the current.
Other jurisdictions worth comparing
Picked by similarity of strategic profile to Antigua & Barbuda. No editorial ranking — neighbours in the same scoring space.