Moving to the British territories

The British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, and Montserrat share English common law, very low crime, and in two of the three, no income tax at all. But they range from a billionaires' sailing hub to the Caribbean's most affordable safe island. Here's how they compare.

Three small British Overseas Territories share a legal DNA. English common law, English as the working language, British-linked institutions, and crime rates most countries would envy. They then diverge completely on price and personality. The British Virgin Islands is a superyacht-and-offshore-finance hub with no income tax. Anguilla is a flat coral island of famous beaches, luxury resorts, and a bespoke tax-residency program for the wealthy. Montserrat is a near-empty, near-zero-crime volcano island that is among the most affordable places to live safely in the whole Caribbean. Same flag, three very different moves — this guide covers all three.

Do the British Caribbean territories have income tax?

Mostly no — but not universally, so this is worth getting right. The British Virgin Islands and Anguilla levy no personal income tax at all; they fund themselves through payroll taxes, import duties, fees, and consumption taxes instead. Montserrat is the exception: it does levy a modest personal income tax, so it is not a zero-tax island in the way the other two are. On currency, the BVI uses the US dollar, while Anguilla and Montserrat use the East Caribbean dollar (pegged at roughly EC$2.70 to US$1).

The three territories at a glance

British Virgin Islands — sailing and finance, at a price

The BVI is the region's yachting mecca (Virgin Gorda's Baths are the postcard) and a major offshore-finance center, which shapes who moves here: high earners, boat crews, and finance professionals. There's no income tax, though a payroll tax applies to employment. Residency is deliberately hard: work permits are employer-driven, and the path to permanent residence and eventual “Belonger” status typically requires around twenty years of residence, with a separate route for major investors. Cost of living is high and hurricane exposure is real (Irma devastated it in 2017), but violent crime is low.

Anguilla — beaches, luxury, and a tax-residency deal

Anguilla is smaller, flatter, and built around some of the Caribbean's best beaches and a high-end resort economy. It levies no income, capital-gains, or inheritance tax, funding itself through duties and a goods-and-services tax. For the wealthy it offers two headline routes: permanent residence via a substantial donation to the island's development fund or a large real-estate purchase; and a “High Value Resident” tax-residency program under which paying a flat annual worldwide-tax amount (on the order of US$75,000) plus owning property above roughly US$400,000 and spending at least 45 days a year on-island makes you an Anguillan tax resident. It's the most expensive of the three and extremely safe.

Montserrat — affordable, empty, and remarkably safe

Montserrat is the outlier, and for many people the most interesting of the three.

The Soufrière Hills volcano erupted in 1995. It buried the capital, Plymouth, and forced an evacuation that cut the population from around 11,000 to a few thousand. A southern exclusion zone remains closed, and life rebuilt itself in the green north around Little Bay.

What is left is a near-empty island with almost no crime and living costs among the lowest of any safe Caribbean destination. It offers a one-year Remote Worker Stamp, plus property-based and investment residence routes, though permanent residence now takes longer to qualify for than it once did.

The word that catches British buyers out

If you hold a UK passport, you may assume these islands are effectively home turf. They are British. You are British. How hard can it be?

Harder than you think. The concept that governs everything here is belonger status, and it is written into the constitution of every Caribbean territory.

Belonger status is what gives you the indefinite right to reside, to work without a permit, to own property without restriction, to vote, and to stand for office. And here is the part that surprises people: it operates entirely independently of British citizenship. A full British passport does not confer it. Neither does British Overseas Territories citizenship. Without belonger status you cannot vote or hold elected office even if you have lived there for decades as a British citizen.

This is deliberate. It exists precisely to stop automatic migration from the UK into very small islands, and it works.

How long the road is depends on which island you pick:

The practical takeaway: plan your first decade here as a resident on permits, not as a citizen in waiting. Buy accordingly, and read the property restrictions for non-belongers on whichever island you choose before you make an offer.

What does it cost to live in each?

The spread between these three islands is enormous, and it is the main thing that should drive your choice.

Anguilla sits at the top. It is a luxury market where two-bedroom rentals commonly run into the thousands of US dollars a month, and a family budget can climb past US$7,000. The BVI is not far behind, pushed up by imports and a finance-hub economy that sets local wages and rents.

Montserrat is at the other end entirely. A family can live comfortably there on a fraction of what the other two demand. Combine that with the one-year Remote Worker Stamp and you have an under-the-radar option for location-independent earners who value safety and quiet more than restaurants and nightlife.

Is it safe to live on Montserrat with an active volcano?

Yes, with a caveat about geography rather than crime.

On crime, all three territories rank among the safest places in the Caribbean, and Montserrat in particular has close to none. The volcano risk sits inside the southern exclusion zone, which is closed and continuously monitored. The inhabited north, where the new capital area and the community have been rebuilt, is considered safe and daily life runs normally.

What you are trading is proximity to a monitored volcano for one of the lowest-crime environments in the region. For most people who move there, that trade turns out to be an easy one.

So which British territory is right for you?

It comes down to budget, and to what you are optimising for.

High earners who want no income tax should look at the BVI for sailing, or Anguilla for beaches and a formal tax-residency structure. Both come with some of the region's highest living costs, and the BVI adds a twenty-year road to belonger status.

If affordability, safety and quiet matter more, look hard at Montserrat. It is the rare Caribbean island where safe and cheap overlap, and the Remote Worker Stamp makes a trial year straightforward.

All three give you English law and English-speaking institutions. The price tags could hardly be more different, and none of them hand a British passport-holder an easy path to staying. If you want to widen the field, our guide to all 29 islands compares them properly.

Frequently asked questions