The Business Facilitation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2019 (the “Act") was enacted in July 2019 with the main objective of improving the ease of doing business in Mauritius.

Under the Act, several changes were made to the Economic Development Board Act 2017, more specifically to the eligibility criteria of foreigners wishing to apply for occupation permits (allowing foreign applicants to work and live in Mauritius) and residence permits (allowing foreign individuals to live in Mauritius). The main changes are as follows:

• Occupation Permit (Investor – Innovative start-ups): Applicants can now forgo the initial capital investment of USD 40,000 if they are registered with an incubator accredited with the Mauritius Research Council. Presently, there are 4 such accredited incubators operating on the island. More information is available upon request.
• A new category of Occupation Permit (OP) has been introduced, the Young Professional OP, which can be sought by foreign students having completed their studies in a local tertiary education institution recognised by the Tertiary Education Commission in fields such as Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology, Fintech, Robotics, Financial Services and Information Technology. It is understood that the Economic Development Board will issue further guidelines for this newly introduced category soon. The Immigration (Permits) (Prescribed Fees, Guarantees and Application Form) Regulations will also be amended with a view to prescribing the application fee for an Occupation Permit in respect of a “Young Professional".
• Revision of the monthly funds transfer requirement under the Retired non-citizen residence permit – this has now been reduced to a monthly transfer of USD 1,500 or an aggregate transfer of USD 54,000 during the 3 years’ validity of the residence permit

You may wish to refer to our updated newsletter titled “Moving to Mauritius" for any other information regarding the different types of OP and residence permits that are available to foreigners, by clicking here