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Can you sit on a board there?
Pick a market. You get the residency test, the nationality test, the work-authorisation position, the appointment steps in order, and the frictions that actually delay appointments — each cited to the instrument that creates it.
Choose a market
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Approval or registration requiredKY
No residency or nationality requirement — but you must be registered with CIMA to sit on a covered entity's board, and licensed if you hold twenty or more such seats.
- Residency test
- None.
- Nationality test
- None.
- Work authorisation
- A non-resident director attending board meetings requires no work permit. Living and working in Cayman requires immigration permission.
- Board language
- Board process is in English.
- Tenure limit once appointed
- No statutory cap. Institutional investors and their operational due-diligence teams apply their own expectations, and rotation is driven by investor pressure rather than by rule.
- Time commitment
- Fund boards typically meet quarterly, with substantial additional work at valuation, audit and redemption pressure points.
- What a seat pays
- USD 5,000 – 30,000 a year per fund directorship, with complex or troubled vehicles materially above that. A practice is built from a portfolio rather than from a single seat.
- Tax on your fees
- The Cayman Islands levies no income tax on directors' fees. The director's own residence jurisdiction will tax them, and the absence of a treaty network means relief depends entirely on domestic rules.
The appointment steps, in order
- 1Apply to CIMA for registration as a director of covered entities, with the required declarations and fees
- 2Where the portfolio will reach twenty or more covered-entity directorships, apply instead for a Professional Director Licence, which carries insurance and conduct requirements
- 3Consent to act and appointment by the shareholders or the existing board under the entity's articles
- 4Maintain the register of directorships with CIMA — the count is monitored, not self-declared once
What actually gets in the way
- The twenty-directorship threshold is a genuine cliff: crossing it without a licence is a regulatory breach, not an administrative oversight
- Institutional investors run operational due diligence on directors personally, including capacity and conflicts, and their standards are often stricter than CIMA's
- Fee per seat is modest and a viable practice is built from many mandates, which is precisely what the licensing threshold is designed to supervise
- Fund board work is episodic and then intense — valuation disputes, gates and side-pocket decisions arrive without notice
The instruments behind these answers
- Directors Registration and Licensing Act — Requires a director of a covered entity — including regulated mutual funds and certain registered persons — to be registered with CIMA. A natural person holding twenty or more such directorships must hold a Professional Director Licence, which carries insurance and conduct obligations. (Cayman Islands Monetary Authority)
- CIMA Rule and Statement of Guidance on Corporate Governance — Sets out what CIMA expects of the governing body of a regulated entity: oversight of the operating and conduct of the entity, conflicts management, meeting frequency, records, and the collective suitability of the board. (Cayman Islands Monetary Authority)
- Companies Act (Revised) — Governs Cayman companies, including exempted companies. It imposes no residency or nationality requirement on directors and no minimum board size for most vehicles. (General Registry, Cayman Islands)
- Mutual Funds Act and Private Funds Act — Establish the registration regimes for open-ended and closed-ended funds, including audit, valuation, safekeeping and reporting obligations that the board is responsible for overseeing. (Cayman Islands Monetary Authority)
Reviewed against primary sources in September 2026. This is governance decision-support, not legal or tax advice. Rules change and transitional provisions frequently apply — verify against the primary instrument before you rely on it.
Eligibility is only the first question
Being allowed to sit on a board there is not the same as being read for one.
The mobility index answers the second question: whether your record is legible to a board in that market, whether you hold what it is currently short of, and whether you can do the job in the language its board works in.