Report on Citizenship Law: Cape Verde
Published: 15/Jan/2026
Source: GLOBALCIT
By Patrícia JERÓNIMO and José PINA-DELGADO
Introduction
Cape Verde is a small island-state with a long history of migration and an oversized diaspora. Its citizenship regime stands out for extending ius sanguinis up to the fourth generation of children born abroad as part of the country’s “global nation” policy, affirmed in the preamble to the 2023 Nationality Act. Cape Verde has long been one of the few African countries which attributes citizenship of origin by birth (nacionalidade de origem por nascimento) if one grandparent is a citizen and has now extended this rule to children born abroad who have a great or a great-great-grandparent who is/was a Cape Verdean citizen of origin. The attribution to grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren born abroad takes effect by operation of law and only requires a declaration (declaração) of the wish to be Cape Verdean, and proof of the family ties, with no time limit.
There are more Cape Verdeans living abroad (usually with dual or triple citizenship) than Cape Verdeans resident in Cape Verde, and their strong ties to the homeland – translated, most notably, through their remittances – are rewarded/nurtured with the entitlement to vote in Cape Verdean presidential and parliamentary elections, with six seats allocated for the diaspora in the National Assembly (two for the Americas, two for Africa, and two for Europe and the rest of the world). Although the diaspora turnout is usually low, the diaspora vote has proven pivotal, as was reportedly the case in the 2001 and 2006 elections. Concern for the protection of Cape Verdean emigrants has been a constant over the years and was on full display during the 2009 debates about the possibility of extraditing Cape Verdean citizens. Cape Verde’s emigration policies have traditionally incentivised emigrants’ integration in their host countries, including through the acquisition of these countries’ citizenships. Cape Verde was an early proponent of the acceptance of dual citizenship in Africa, with explicit safeguards for emigrants naturalised abroad since 1990.
Cape Verde’s exceptionality in the African context is grounded in several other features besides the relative size of its diaspora, including its ethnic cohesiveness (despite disparities among the islands), its “democratic maturity” and political stability, the social embeddedness of the official legal system, a 90%+ birth registration rate, and its proximity to Europe, particularly via strong postcolonial ties with Portugal.
Cape Verde is simultaneously a recipient and a source of legal transplants in the Lusophone (i.e. Portuguese-speaking) world. Its citizenship regime reflects the influence of Portuguese nationality law while also being influential over the nationality laws of countries such as Guinea-Bissau and Timor-Leste. It nevertheless has some specificities among the citizenship regimes of the Lusophone world, namely that it is the only Lusophone country that does not require language proficiency for ordinary naturalisation, having only recently introduced a language requirement restricted to citizenship acquisition by investment under Article 14 of the 2023 Nationality Act.
Cape Verde was actually among the first states to introduce citizenship by investment (initially known as “economic citizenship”), although the status established in 1992 fell short of full citizenship, since it did not include access to political rights, which raised doubts about its constitutionality. Also noteworthy is the fact that, until 2023, the residence requirement for naturalisation was merely habitual (not legal) residence, which made it one of the most generous naturalisation regimes in the whole of Africa and drew domestic criticism.
Until 2024, Cape Verde was one of the few African countries which attributed citizenship of origin by birth to children born in the territory who would otherwise be stateless. However, the provision was deleted in the 2024 amendment to the 2023 Nationality Act for no explicitly stated reason.
Cape Verde has consistently nurtured close ties with other Lusophone countries, and was at the forefront of efforts to promote a “Lusophone citizenship” within the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa, CPLP), going so far as to introduce a “Lusophone citizen status” into its domestic legislation in 1997, despite not having yet adopted the decree required to implement it nor integrated its relevant provisions into the Nationality Act. Following in Cape Verde’s footsteps, Guinea-Bissau would similarly adopt a “Lusophone citizen status” in 2008 and leave it in the books without further action.
Download: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/94568