KINGSTON, Jamaica. Say “private island” and most people picture a billionaire, a seaplane and a gate across the water. The documented record tells a different story. Most of the world’s islands are not bought at all; they are governed. One of the largest private island deals of the past two decades was not a purchase of land but of companies, structured so that the land itself never changed hands. And Jamaica, a country that rarely thinks of itself as an archipelago, holds 74 cays, rocks and islands, the best known of them held by the state, and two groups of them, the Morant and Pedro Cays, legally part of the parish of Kingston though they lie far out at sea.
The money at the top of the market is real. In 2012 Larry Ellison, the cofounder of Oracle, took control of about 98 per cent of Lanai in Hawaii, some 88,000 acres, at a price that was never disclosed; Maui County had assessed the parcels at US$325 million and press estimates ran higher. In 2023 the financier Stephen Deckoff paid US$60 million for Little St James and Great St James in the US Virgin Islands, the islands once owned by Jeffrey Epstein, which had been offered at US$125 million a year earlier.
Yet the most valuable island territory in Jamaica’s story is not for sale and never will be. The Pedro Bank, the shallow platform around the Pedro Cays, covers about 8,040 square kilometres, an area equal to roughly 73 per cent of mainland Jamaica. Its few specks of dry land support a seasonal population that researchers have estimated at anywhere from 150 to 1,200 people, living for months with no running water.
A market smaller than its legend
For all the attention it attracts, the private island trade is a thin market. An analysis by the luxury magazine Elite Traveler in 2022 counted about 160 private islands or island groups listed for sale worldwide. Just under a quarter were in eastern and central Canada, where a lake island could be had for a few thousand Canadian dollars, and about a quarter were in the Caribbean, where the average asking price was US$12.7 million and listings ran from US$90,000 to US$55 million.
Farhad Vladi, the German broker who founded Vladi Private Islands, has said he has sold more than 1,500 islands and has compiled dossiers on at least 12,000 that could one day be sold. His firm’s own analysis found that between 1995 and 2019 some 140 islands were bought not by individuals but by governments and conservation trusts, 80 per cent of them in North America. Vladi has long told clients that an island is a lifestyle purchase rather than an investment, a warning the price history of the trophy end of the market bears out.
The billionaire ledger
The famous names have bought at wildly different moments and prices, which is why a single league table of “the most expensive islands” is harder to build than it looks. Prices below are those documented at the time of sale, in the currency of the day, and are not adjusted for inflation. Where the price was never disclosed, as with Lanai, the island is listed but not ranked by price.
| # | Island | Where | Buyer | Year | Price | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Little St James and Great St James | US Virgin Islands | Stephen Deckoff | 2023 | US$60m | about 233 acres |
| 2 | Musha Cay and 10 nearby cays | Bahamas | David Copperfield | 2006 | US$50m | about 700 acres |
| 3 | Cayo Norte | Puerto Rico | Larry Page (via a company) | 2018 | US$32m | not published |
| 4 | Palmyra Atoll | US Pacific | The Nature Conservancy | 2000 | US$30m | not published |
| 5 | Hans Lollik Islands (two) | US Virgin Islands | Larry Page (via a company) | 2014 | US$23m | not published |
| 6 | Mago Island | Fiji | Mel Gibson | 2005 | US$15m | about 22 sq km |
| 7 | Little Hall’s Pond Cay | Bahamas | Johnny Depp | 2004 | US$3.6m | about 45 acres |
| 8 | Necker Island | British Virgin Islands | Richard Branson | about 1979 | US$180,000 | 74 acres |
| 9 | Mustique | St Vincent and the Grenadines | Colin Tennant | 1958 | £45,000 | about 5.7 sq km |
| n/a | Lanai (98 per cent) | Hawaii | Larry Ellison | 2012 | undisclosed; assessed at US$325m | about 88,000 acres |
Two patterns stand out. The first is time. Branson famously had his first offer of US$100,000 for Necker rejected before the owner accepted US$180,000; the island’s published whole island rental rate was reported in 2020 at about US$102,500 a day, so less than two days of today’s rent would cover his purchase price, before inflation. Colin Tennant bought Mustique from the Hazell family for £45,000 in 1958 and gave Princess Margaret a 10 acre plot as a wedding present in 1960.
The second is that the most valuable deals are often not land deals at all. Ellison did not buy Lanai’s acres directly. According to Hawaii’s Civil Beat, which reviewed the filings, his trust bought the membership interests of the Castle & Cooke companies that owned the land, so the parcels never formally changed owners. The structure appeared to avoid Hawaii’s conveyance tax, which on a conventional sale of that size would have raised roughly US$6 million. State Representative Isaac Choy, who had tried to close the gap with a bill that died in the Senate, called it “a fairness thing.”
Myth Check: islands only go up
A widely repeated idea holds that a private island is the ultimate store of wealth, a finite asset that can only appreciate. The listings say otherwise. The two former Epstein islands were first offered in March 2022 at US$125 million, cut to US$110 million and finally sold for US$60 million, a discount of 52 per cent on the opening price, though the islands’ history makes them an unusual case.
The cleaner example is Pumpkin Key, a 26 acre island off Key Largo with a 20 slip marina and tennis courts that double as a helipad. It was listed at US$110 million in 2015, at US$95 million in 2023 and at US$75 million in February 2024, a fall of 32 per cent in the asking price over nine years, with no sale reported at those levels. In the Bahamas, Little Pipe Cay went to market in 2023 at US$100 million; the listing announced a price, not a buyer. Asking prices on islands are signals, not valuations.
There is also a stale record in circulation. Guinness World Records still lists the most expensive island as Palmyra Atoll, bought by The Nature Conservancy for US$30 million in 2000. That was overtaken by several later deals in this table, and Lanai’s assessed value alone was more than ten times as large.
Why there is no honest top 100
Anyone who has seen a list of “the 100 most expensive private islands” should treat it with care. Many island deals are private sales between companies, and the price is disclosed only when a court, a tax record or a seller chooses to reveal it. Many listings are “price on request”. Larry Page’s Caribbean purchases were made through limited liability companies rather than in his own name. Mel Gibson’s Mago Island purchase was made from Japan’s Tokyu Corporation and contested by descendants of Fijians displaced from the island in the 1860s, a reminder that a title can carry history a price tag does not show.
Size compounds the problem. Lanai is 141 square miles; Little Hall’s Pond Cay is about 45 acres. A ranking by price, by acreage or by price per acre produces three different tables. This newspaper has therefore published only deals with a documented price and a named buyer, and has listed Lanai separately.
Buying an island rarely means owning it outright
Across the Caribbean and beyond, governments set the terms on which outsiders may hold island land, and those terms are often tighter than buyers expect. When Branson bought Necker, the British Virgin Islands government required him to develop a resort within four years or the island would revert to the state. Today a buyer who is not a “Belonger” must obtain a Non Belongers Land Holding Licence, which usually takes two to four months and bars alterations without Cabinet consent, and pays stamp duty of 12 per cent, according to the law firm Harneys.
In the Bahamas, home to many of the region’s private cays, foreign buyers register or obtain a permit under the International Persons Landholding Act, and a purchase made without a required permit is void unless later validated. The Maldives does not sell its islands at all: resort islands are leased, and a 2024 amendment to its Tourism Act let developers extend leases to 99 years for a one time payment of US$5 million during a six month window, rising to US$10 million afterwards. By January 2025 the Tourism Ministry reported US$20 million raised from the first four extensions.
| Jurisdiction | Rule for buyers | Notable feature |
|---|---|---|
| Jamaica | No general restriction on foreign ownership of land | The main cays are state land; Port Royal Cays vested in the Commissioner of Lands |
| Bahamas | Registration or permit under the International Persons Landholding Act | A purchase without a required permit is void unless later validated |
| British Virgin Islands | Non Belongers Land Holding Licence; 12% stamp duty | Licence conditions; historic duty to develop (Necker) |
| Maldives | Resort islands leased, not sold | 99 year extensions sold for US$5m to US$10m |
| Antigua and Barbuda | Barbuda land held in common by Barbudans under the 2007 Act | 2016 change raised the project value that triggers a vote from 5.4 million to 40 million dollars |
| St Vincent and the Grenadines | Mustique run by a company owned by its homeowners | Private governance of a whole island |
Barbuda and the fight over common land
The sharpest regional argument over island ownership is in Barbuda. Its 2007 Land Act declared that the land belongs to all Barbudans in common and required a majority vote of Barbudans before any major development lease. A 2016 amendment raised the threshold for that vote from projects worth more than 5.4 million dollars to those worth more than 40 million dollars. After Hurricane Irma damaged about 90 per cent of the island in 2017, Prime Minister Gaston Browne proposed letting residents buy their plots for $1, arguing that a deed would let families borrow from banks and rebuild.
Opponents, among them the Barbuda Council member Trevor Walker, argued that individual titles would dissolve the communal protection and open the island to luxury development. In February 2024 the Privy Council ruled that two residents, the marine biologist John Mussington and the retired teacher Jacklyn Frank, had standing to challenge the permit for a new airport on the island. Both sides make a real argument: titles unlock credit, while common ownership keeps an island from being sold one plot at a time.
Jamaica, the archipelago it forgets
Jamaica’s Green Paper on a National Cays Management Policy, tabled in Parliament in late April 2026, counts 74 “CRIAEs”: cays, rocks, islands and associated ecosystems. It proposes sorting them into four classes, preservation, conservation, recreation and authorised commercial use, with a new Cays Management Unit inside the National Environment and Planning Agency. The work grew out of a Cays Management Committee led by Peter Espeut, set up in 2008. The Ministry of Water, Environment and Climate Change has closed public consultation, with written comments due by 2 November, and aims to table a White Paper by March 2027.
Minister Matthew Samuda has described the policy as a critical component of Jamaica’s development as an archipelagic state. Gillian Guthrie, the ministry’s chief technical director, has said it is not intended to restrict access or displace existing vendors, and that the intention is for no activity on cays classed for preservation.
The cays of Jamaica: who holds them
The Pedro Cays. Under the Morant and Pedro Cays Act of 1907, the cays are deemed part of the parish of Kingston for every purpose except taxation, and fishing, egg collecting or trespass there without a licence is an offence. A 2013 study by Rachel Allen and Dale Webber found about 150 people on Middle Cay in January, an average of 350 in hurricane season and an estimated 1,200 on the cay in the conch and lobster seasons. The bank supplied the majority of Jamaica’s fisheries export earnings, about US$34 million according to the Fisheries Division, and the Caribbean’s largest export of queen conch. Middle Cay had no running water and two pit toilets, both out of service. Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared in the 2023/24 Budget Debate in March 2023 that the Pedro Cays and surrounding waters were a protected area, saying fishers’ livelihoods would not be disrupted; the Jamaica Environment Trust has questioned how such declarations are carried out.
The Morant Cays. Four islets with a combined land area of about 16 hectares, 51 kilometres south southeast of Morant Point. Britain annexed them in 1862 and attached them to Jamaica in 1882. BirdLife International lists a 15,000 hectare Important Bird Area around them.
The Port Royal Cays. Eight small islets off the Palisadoes, including Lime Cay, about two hectares and Kingston’s favourite weekend beach. A carrying capacity study for the Tourism Product Development Company records that ownership of the cays is vested in the Commissioner of Lands and that they may not lawfully be occupied without consent. They sit inside the Palisadoes Port Royal Protected Area, declared in 1998, yet the same study, published around 2016, found no entity charged specifically with managing the protected area.
Navy Island. The 64 acre island in Port Antonio harbour passed from Governor Lynch to the Royal Navy, then to the actor Errol Flynn, who never built on it, and through a series of developers whose hotel plans foundered. The Government of Jamaica later bought out the remaining titles and closed it. In June 2025 Mr Holness said Navy Island would be preserved as a nature and ecotourism reserve.
The Goat Islands. In Portland Bight, Great and Little Goat Island were proposed from 2013 as the site of a Chinese built transshipment port and logistics hub. Supporters pointed to jobs and Jamaica’s ambition to become a logistics centre; environmental groups argued the project would damage the Portland Bight Protected Area. In September 2016 Mr Holness said the port would not proceed there. “There are other locations in Jamaica that would do less environmental damage and probably be just as good strategically,” he said.
The private exceptions. A handful of small islands have passed through private hands. Pellew Island off San San, Portland, was given by Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen to his wife, the model Nina Dyer, as a wedding gift, according to The Gleaner. Sandals markets a small offshore cay at its Montego Bay resort. Far to the southwest, Jamaica did not press its claim to Bajo Nuevo, and in a 1993 treaty agreed a Joint Regime Area with Colombia that left the cays’ own waters outside it; in a 2012 case brought by Nicaragua, the International Court of Justice found that Colombia has sovereignty over the cay.
What This Means for Jamaica
For a buyer, the practical lesson is that Jamaica’s islands are mostly not a market. Jamaica places no general restriction on foreigners buying land, unlike the Bahamas or the British Virgin Islands, but the best known cays are state land, protected areas or both, and the foreshore around them is Crown land. Anyone offered “a Jamaican island” should begin with a title search at the National Land Agency and a check of protected area boundaries with NEPA.
For the state, the question is stewardship rather than sale. The Pedro Cays house hundreds of people in season and generate export earnings worth tens of millions of US dollars, yet for decades they have lacked water, sanitation and a clear landlord on the ground. Navy Island and the Port Royal Cays show the opposite problem: land the state owns outright but has struggled to manage. The cays policy, if it becomes law with money and staff behind it, would be the first attempt to treat all 74 as a single estate.
For the region, the Barbuda dispute and the Bahamian permit system show two routes. One treats islands as tradeable assets that the state licenses; the other treats them as a common inheritance that the state holds in trust. Jamaica, almost by default, has taken the second road for its cays and the first for its mainland.
An island is a decision
The billionaire islands are a story about price. Jamaica’s islands are a story about purpose: a fishing bank three quarters the size of the country, a beach cay in Kingston Harbour, a harbour island once owned by a film star and now earmarked for nature. None of them will appear in a broker’s catalogue. All of them need someone to decide what they are for.
Anyone can buy an island if the price is right. Only a country can decide what its islands are worth keeping for.
Method: Purchase prices are as reported at the time of sale, in nominal US dollars or pounds, and are not adjusted for inflation; Lanai’s price was never disclosed and is shown only with Maui County’s assessed value. Jamaica’s count of 74 cays, rocks and islands is from the 2026 Green Paper on a National Cays Management Policy as reported. Pedro Bank’s share of Jamaica’s land area was calculated as 8,040 divided by 10,990 square kilometres. Population figures for the Pedro Cays are researchers’ estimates and vary by season. Sources include the Morant and Pedro Cays Act (1907), the Tourism Product Development Company’s Port Royal and Lime Cay carrying capacity study, Allen and Webber (2013), BirdLife International, Legal 500, Harneys, the Maldives Tourism Ministry as reported by Adhadhu, Hawaii Civil Beat, NPR, Bisnow, Fortune, The Gleaner, the Jamaica Observer and the Jamaica Information Service. Reported sales of other Jamaican cays that could not be confirmed were left out.
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