Nevis trust requirements

Identity and address

A certified copy of a valid passport and a recent proof of residential address dated within three months. Certification by a solicitor, notary public, or other accepted professional. Confirm the accepted certifier categories with the specific trustee before certifying, because requirements vary. For trusts with multiple settlors or corporate settlors, identity requirements extend to every individual and entity involved. The AML obligations that drive these requirements are the same across Nevis and the Cook Islands, but the specific documentation standards can differ by trustee.

Source of wealth

A written narrative explaining where the money came from — employment or business history, significant wealth events including business sales, inheritances, and property transactions, and the current asset mix — supported by contemporaneous documents. The narrative matters as much as the documents. A trustee reading unexplained documents constructs a conservative story. A clear, well-evidenced narrative reduces questions and shortens the review.

The depth of source of wealth review is where the Nevis trustee market shows the most variation. A well-resourced Nevis trustee with proper compliance infrastructure conducts a review comparable to the Cook Islands. A lighter-touch operation at the lower end of the market may ask fewer questions — which is less inconvenient at onboarding but reflects an AML process that provides less protection to the trust's long-term standing.

The solvency affidavit

A sworn statement that you are solvent, know of no claims against you, and that the proposed transfer will not render you insolvent or leave you without sufficient assets outside the trust to meet foreseeable obligations. Under the Nevis ordinance, as under the Cook Islands statute, the solvency question is assessed at the date of transfer. A well-documented solvency position at formation is contemporaneous evidence that goes directly to the fraudulent transfer analysis if the settlement is ever challenged.

Be accurate. The affidavit is sworn. Understating liabilities or overstating assets creates a problem substantially worse than any the trust was designed to address.

Asset documentation

The same categories as for a Cook Islands trust: bank statements and source of funds for cash, brokerage statements for securities, shareholders agreement and accounts for private companies, title documents for property, wallet provenance and exchange history for cryptocurrency. The trustee conducts its own compliance assessment and will decline assets it is not comfortable holding regardless of how straightforward they look to the settlor.

The quality variation in the Nevis trustee market

The Nevis trustee market has hundreds of licensed operators. That scale creates significant variation in the depth of the onboarding review. A thorough review that asks hard questions about source of wealth and conducts genuine AML analysis is the right trustee to use, even if it takes longer. A review that accepts documentation without meaningful scrutiny is faster and cheaper in the short term and less valuable when the trust is ever challenged, because the quality of the trustee's compliance process at formation is visible in the file a court would examine.

This is the central trustee selection argument for using Southpac's Nevis operation or another trustee with established compliance infrastructure rather than a lighter-touch provider. See choosing a Nevis trustee and Southpac Trust Nevis.

See formation for the full sequence and cost for what the process costs.