Source document

Citizenship for sale: fugitives, politicians and disgraced businesspeople buying Vanuatu passports

The Guardian · Euan Ward; Kate Lyons · News · 15 Jul 2021 · Vanuatu

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Has everything in it been taken?

CompleteReviewed 10 Oct 2026

Reviewed. Everything in it that belongs in the tables has been taken.

What the document holds

Guardian investigation (15 Jul 2021) based on FOI records of every DSP/VCP passport recipient in 2020 and Jan 2021: ~2,200 passports in 2020, ~1,200 to Chinese nationals, other nationalities named without counts, 20 US and 6 Australian applicants, price US$130,000, about a month to process, 130 visa-free countries, revenue US$116m+ (2020), 42% of government revenue (IMI analysis); named controversial buyers; Vanuatu GDP per capita and debt ratios (out of scope).

What it supports

4 rows on this site come from this document. Each one opens with the page and the exact words.

6 more rows from this document are in the source data but not on this site: numbers we would have had to work out ourselves, figures a later correction replaced, or programmes outside these datasets.

About the document

What it covers Investigation based on government documents obtained under freedom of information: passports issued in 2020 by nationality, revenue in 2020.

Notes Authors Euan Ward and Kate Lyons. Corrected 13 April 2023 (on an individual named in the article). Archive copy not available.

Source id vut-guardian-2021-07 · accessed 10 Oct 2026