Moving to Seychelles: work, residence, marriage and business

First, the difference between visiting and living

Almost everyone arrives the same way. Seychelles is visa-free for essentially every nationality, so you are not applying for a visa in advance; instead you get an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) before you fly, and on arrival you are granted a Visitor's Permit, free, for a stay of up to three months. It can be extended in three-month steps, for a fee, to a maximum of twelve months in total. The full entry detail and the country list is on our visa and entry page.

But a Visitor's Permit is exactly that, for visiting. It does not let you work, and it is not a way to live in Seychelles indefinitely. The moment your plan is to stay, or to work, marry, study or invest, you step off the visitor track and onto one of the permits below. Knowing which one is the whole art of it.

Working: the Gainful Occupation Permit

The one rule to understand first: no non-Seychellois may work in Seychelles, paid or unpaid, full time or part time, without a Gainful Occupation Permit (GOP). It is the work permit, and it is issued by Immigration and Civil Status.

The process is led by the employer, not the worker. In outline:

1. A licensed Seychelles employer offers you the job and seeks an employment approval from the Ministry responsible for employment, having shown through a labour-market test that no qualified Seychellois is available for the role.
2. With that approval, the employer applies to Immigration for your GOP, submitting well before you are due to start, and you must not enter to take up work before it is granted.
3. Documents typically include your passport and photos, the employment approval and contract, a Seychelles Qualifications Authority evaluation of your qualifications, and a medical fitness certificate. A bank guarantee or security bond may be required for longer stays.

A GOP is usually tied to the contract and granted for a defined period, renewable, and it does not by itself lead to permanent residency.

Bringing a foreign spouse home: the Dependant's Permit

This is the question the diaspora asks most, and the reassuring answer is that your spouse does not need a job to live with you in Seychelles. If you are a Seychellois citizen, you can bring your non-citizen husband or wife, and your minor children, to reside with you on a Dependant's Permit. The same permit covers the family of a foreigner who holds a valid GOP or residence permit.

Two things matter most about it:

• The citizen applies, not the spouse. As the Seychellois partner, you make the application on your dependant's behalf. It is granted to a spouse or minor child of a citizen who is not already a prohibited immigrant or the holder of a residence or work permit.
• It grants residence, not work. A Dependant's Permit lets your spouse live in Seychelles, but it does not allow them to take a job, paid or unpaid. If they want to work, they apply separately for their own Gainful Occupation Permit. Living here and working here are two different permits.

The application, made at the Immigration office in Independence House, is built around proving the relationship and the means to support it: your proof of Seychelles citizenship, your spouse's passport, your marriage certificate and any children's birth certificates (foreign documents translated into English or French), evidence that you can support them, and a security bond whose amount Immigration will set. The permit is renewed, and there is an annual fee. As everywhere on this page, we send you to Immigration for the current fee and bond rather than print a figure that may have moved.

The residence permit, and other routes to stay

Beyond the family route, a foreigner who works here holds a residence permit alongside the GOP, and there are retirement and investor routes to residence as well. Residence permits carry conditions, including a minimum number of days you must actually spend in the country each year and an expectation that you contribute to its economic, social or cultural life. The terms are set by Immigration and change, so confirm your own case with them.

From spouse to permanent resident, and citizen

The dependant's route is not a dead end. In time a foreign spouse of a Seychellois can move toward a Permanent Residence Permit, for a marriage that is genuine and subsisting and after a period of legal residence, and further on toward citizenship by naturalisation through marriage.

Here is the requirement, and the story behind the confusion. The Citizenship Act (Cap 30), at section 6(3)(a), sets the thresholds for citizenship by marriage. Until the end of 2023 they were ten years of marriage and at least five years of legal residence. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2023 (Act 25 of 2023), assented on 19 December 2023 and in force from 22 December 2023, changed them: its section 7 repealed “10 years” and put “15 years,” and repealed “a period of at least 5 years” and put “an aggregate period of 2 years.” So the current rule is fifteen years of marriage and an aggregate of two years of legal residence. That same Act also redefined a “legal resident” as someone residing under an Immigration Decree permit excluding a visitor’s permit, so time spent as a visitor does not count toward the two years.

This is why Immigration’s own pages seem to contradict each other, one showing fifteen-and-two, another ten-and-five. They are not both current: the ten-and-five page is describing the pre-2023 law. The most recent law governs, and we read the amendment in the Official Gazette to be sure of it. Beyond the years, naturalisation also requires a pass in a citizenship qualifying examination taken in one of the three national languages, and good character; the exact pass mark and the full checklist are set by Immigration and Civil Status, so confirm your own case with them (+248 4293636) and see the citizenship page. Citizenship is legally case-specific, so this is a map, not a ruling.

Marrying in Seychelles

Seychelles is a common place for couples, resident and visiting, to marry, and foreigners can marry here under the civil-status rules, with notice periods and documents to prepare in advance. Because this is a civil-status matter, we keep the detail with the rest of the paperwork on the Civil Status page rather than repeat it here, and the authority is the Civil Status office. We deliberately carry no wedding services and no commercial links; this is information, not a funnel.

Investing and starting a business

A foreigner who wants to invest or run a business begins with the Seychelles Investment Board, by submitting a Project Memorandum that sets out the proposal for its consideration. The Board is the front door for foreign investment and can explain which sectors are open to non-nationals and which are reserved.

Go in with a clear-eyed picture of the economy. Seychelles is a small, high-income island state whose income rests mainly on tourism, on fisheries and the blue economy, and on offshore financial services. For the real numbers, the national income, inflation and the cost of living, the authorities are the National Bureau of Statistics and the Central Bank of Seychelles. Living costs are high by regional standards because most goods are imported; price your plan against the Bureau's own figures, not a holiday impression.