Work From Bermuda One-Year Residency Certificate

Bermuda's Work From Bermuda One-Year Residency Certificate, launched on 1 August 2020 by the Ministry of Labour with the Bermuda Business Development Agency and Bermuda Tourism Authority, let people employed by (or owning) a company outside Bermuda live on the island for one year while working remotely. Applicants paid a $263 fee, proved sufficient income and valid health insurance, and could not enter the local labour market; the government targeted a five-working-day turnaround.

Uptake was tracked publicly throughout: 190 applications and 73 approvals within three weeks of launch, 452 applications and 354 approvals (about 78%) by mid-October 2020, and, per the Ministry of Labour's 2021 year-end review, more than 900 residents admitted and over $23 million generated in the local economy, with 206 certificate holders still resident as of November 2021. Appleby, an international law firm with a Bermuda office, put cumulative participation at roughly 1,800 people over the scheme's life, with about 250 seeking to extend.

The certificate is a clear, time-bound example of a remote-work residency policy with published, time-series uptake data — rare among comparable schemes. It also illustrates the limits of such programmes: the government closed it on 28 February 2025, stating explicitly that ending it would free up rental housing for Bermudian residents, after years of concern that certificate holders were competing with locals for a small, constrained housing stock.

Read the full analysis: https://www.gov.bm/articles/one-1-year-residency-certificate-policy