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Two rule changes hit the São Tomé citizenship-by-investment program at the start of May 2026, and most agents have not finished digesting them. I have been doing this work for 11 years from my home in LA. I just walked through both rules with the active files I have on my desk, and I want to share what I told them: who got locked out, who actually picked up a price window, and what happens after the $90,000 promotional rate expires at the end of June.
As of early May 2026, the São Tomé program made two adjustments:
Rule one: Applicants who already hold three or more citizenships are paused. This is new. Before May, there was no cap.
Rule two: Biometric verification is now available remotely through video with a licensed local notary. You no longer need to fly to São Tomé. As of May 2026, this puts São Tomé into the small group of CBI programs that can be done with zero physical landing.
The $90,000 donation threshold is still inside its promotional window. The official cutoff is the end of June 2026. After that the floor returns to $95,000.
The "three or more citizenships" rule does not hit middle-class families. It hits the buyers who already finished a full global identity stack. Last week a family I will call the W family came in: the principal applicant is a second-generation manufacturing owner from Shanghai, 35 years old, who already holds a Chinese passport plus a Canadian one acquired through PR plus a Saint Kitts passport bought five years ago. He wanted to add an African passport for an Asia-to-Africa travel corridor.
He did not know about the new rule. He had already signed a contract with another agent and was ready to file in May.
I told him to stop. If he files this month, the case gets returned. The due-diligence fee, several thousand dollars, does not come back. My judgment was to wait four to six weeks and see whether the official guidance carves out a "family wealth disclosure" exception for the principal-applicant count.
The flip side is that the real beneficiary of the May window is the traditional trader or factory owner who only holds a home-country passport. That group is not blocked by the new cap. With the remote notary in place, no one needs to spend $5,000 to $10,000 in flights and hotels to get a passport processed. The decision cost just dropped.
You cannot manage a macro environment like this with luck. What you need is one certain asset: a second passport. But that certainty has to be built on the rules that are actually in force right now, not a slide deck from last year.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Investment | From $90,000 (promotional, ends June 30, 2026; reverts to $95,000) |
| Processing | 6 to 8 months in normal cases. The 67-day approval the press wrote about was the first Chinese-applicant batch I personally processed in January 2026, not a routine timeline. |
| Visa-free reach | About 70 countries. Schengen, UK, US E-2, and China visa-free are all not included. |
| Family | Three-generation coverage, including parents 55+ and unmarried adult children under 30. |
| May 2026 rule changes | Three-or-more-citizenship applicants paused; remote biometrics opened. |
The W family is led by a 35-year-old second-generation owner of a mid-sized smart-manufacturing business in Shanghai. He is married with one 8-year-old child and his parents in their early 60s live with him. The family already holds his Chinese passport, his wife's Canadian citizenship via PR, and a Saint Kitts passport from five years ago. Family cash flow is comfortably in the eight-figure RMB range per year.
His ask was a third foreign passport, an African one, for Asia-Africa travel routing. Budget capped at $100,000.
Ken's call: Before May this case was straightforward. The principal applicant counts only the Chinese passport, and the family can split filings between husband and wife. After May, the new "three-or-more" rule sweeps the entire household into the pause queue until the official guidance clarifies whether the count is per principal or per family. I told him to wait four to six weeks. If the guidance treats the family as one bucket, the workaround is to file under his wife alone. She holds only Canadian citizenship today, so she stays clean.
The principle I have been using for 11 years is simple: not the most expensive, not the cheapest, only the most appropriate. $90,000 sounds cheap. If the family structure trips the new rule, cheap becomes the most expensive option in the room.
You probably still have specific questions after this. Does your family count as "three or more"? Is the wife's clean status enough? Can you make the June pricing cutoff? Public articles cannot answer those.
I built a 26-page PDF called the 2026 CBI Decision Map covering the eight active passports across budget, goal, timeline, and family structure. Each passport has a five-axis score, a real total-cost breakdown, and a list of common pitfalls. Send "Decision Map" on WhatsApp to +15595666666 and I will send it to you. No email capture, no fee.
If you already have a specific situation to walk through, message the same number with "Decision Map" in the note. 15 minutes on the phone with me and you will know whether you should file now, file later, or solve a different problem first. No charge. If it is not a fit, I will say so.
Full case library: WWW.USA60.COM
A: As of early May 2026, the official notice only specifies the principal applicant. There is no published family-bucket clarification yet. I plan around the principal-only count, but I always file the rest of the family's passports honestly. Anything that looks like concealment gets a hard rejection.
A: As of May 2026, yes. São Tomé is one of the few CBI programs in the active pool that can be completed without setting foot in the country. The local notary handling the biometric video must be on the program-approved list, however.
A: My read is no. The official floor goes back to $95,000 at end of June 2026. The program is not short on demand right now, and there is no commercial reason for them to drop further. I would not bet a planning calendar on a second cut.
A: As of May 2026, the nominal count is around 70. About 30 to 40 percent of those are smaller destinations most Chinese mainland clients do not visit. The practically usable list covers parts of Africa, parts of Latin America, and some of Southeast Asia. Schengen, UK, US, and China visa-free are all not in it.
Pricing: $90,000 promo floor through end of June, then $95,000.
Processing: 6 to 8 months, zero landing, remote biometrics opened.
Coverage: ~70 countries; no Schengen, UK, US, or China.
Family: three generations.
May 2026 rule: principals with 3+ citizenships paused.
Best fit: 1-2 passport base, $90K-$130K budget, no Western travel need.
Author: Ken Huang, Los Angeles, 11 years in CBI, government-licensed for Saint Kitts, Saint Lucia, Grenada, and Dominica. First Chinese-applicant São Tomé approval, January 2026.
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