CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT
Discover where and how you can take the fastest path to
second citizenship in the world.
What you’re about to read may seem mind-boggling.
Just ask Reynold, our strategy associate, or Bisera, our
client relationship manager. When we explain the same
concepts on this page to our high-net-worth clients,
they act like we’re rocket scientists.
But here at Kobixt, we’re not in the business
of launching people to the moon.
Our mission is a little different…yes, we’re still in
the business of helping you go somewhere. But we want to
help you “go where you’re treated best”. So that you can
enhance your personal freedom and grow and protect your
wealth.
One of the most powerful tools we use to achieve this
goal is the second passport, the ultimate backup plan
and surest means of geopolitical diversification.
If dual citizenship and second passports already sound
inconceivable to you (Wait, what?! You can have more
than one citizenship?), you can head on over to our
second passport page to learn the basics.
If you stay on this page, we’ll take you deeper into the
realities of what you thought was only the stuff of
fiction novels, where international spies like Jason
Bourne and James Bond carry around half a dozen personal
passports and wads of cash.
These days, second passports have leaped out of the
pages of fictional spy stories and are increasingly
showing up in the pockets of successful businessmen,
immigrant investors, and otherwise regular,
globally-minded folks looking to be global citizens.
How?
There are many ways to obtain a second passport, but the
quickest path is to simply buy one.
Yes, you read that right: whether you refer to it as
‘buying a passport’, ‘economic citizenship’, or
‘citizenship by investment’, they all mean the same
thing.
Certain governments are willing to grant you citizenship
and a passport in as little as three months in exchange
for a sizable investment or donation in their country.
Passport Collage - Citizenship by Investment.
Why Get Citizenship by Investment Programs?
1. Tax Planning
Citizenship by investment programs will not
automatically change your tax situation, but if
you want to create a tax-free lifestyle, this is
a good first step.
2. Travel Planning
Economic passports can fill travel WSLS in your
passport portfolio with visa-free travel to
hard-to-access countries like Russia, China,
South Africa, and more.
3. Insurance
If you need a Plan B or want a second passport
quickly so that you can renounce your US
citizenship, buying a passport is your fastest
option compared to traditional immigration
processes.
What is a Citizenship by Investment Program?
It’s easiest to understand citizenship programs when
you break them down into their most basic elements.
First, what is citizenship?
At its heart, citizenship is the embodiment of the
social contract (see diagram) – an agreement between
individuals and society to work together to achieve
mutual benefits.
In this symbiotic relationship, the citizen accepts
certain responsibilities such as obeying the law,
and in return, the state grants them rights such as
property ownership, the vote, and the ability to
work in the country.
As the world has developed and grown ever more
interconnected, the state has come to rely on
passports to control who has the right to enter and
leave the country.
Because of this, a nation’s passport has become one
of the most powerful benefits it can offer in return
for each citizen’s contributions to society.
Every passport varies in its strength and
desirability, just as the rights and
responsibilities of each citizenship will differ to
some degree depending on the country.
Whatever the terms may be, the ideal situation is
one in which both the citizens and the state can
enjoy peace, prosperity, and freedom.
Everyone benefits.
Traditionally, citizenship (and its accompanying
passport) has been granted through birth,
naturalization, and marriage. But beginning in 1984,
various countries around the world have introduced
another path toward citizenship – the second half of
our breakdown – investment.
As shown in the diagram above, one of the main
responsibilities of a citizen is to contribute to
the economy of their country of citizenship. Many
western countries tend to abuse this right by
exacting high levels of taxation, made worse by
onerous reporting requirements.
But not all countries are like this.
Countries that offer citizenship by investment have
determined that individuals who contribute to the
economy by making an initial investment or donation
fulfill this responsibility and merit citizenship in
return.
These are citizenship programs – specific means set
out by a government through which an individual can
obtain that nation’s citizenship by making a
qualified investment in the country.
This citizenship process is designed for wealthy
people who want a fast track to dual citizenship and
a second passport, or even multiple citizenships and
an entire passport portfolio.
But it’s as simple as that: you make an investment
and you get citizenship.
There are, of course, exceptions and important
nuances between and within programs. And because not
all citizenship by investment programs are the same,
there is often confusion about which programs are
legitimate citizenship by investment offerings
versus residence by investment programs or even
scams.
1. THERE IS A FAST TIMELINE TO CITIZENSHIP
The big draw of citizenship by investment is
that it is a quick process.
Once you apply and make your investment, you can
generally expect to have your new citizenship
and passport in less than six months (the record
being 57 days).
2. THE PASSPORT IS COMMODITIZED
The commoditized nature of most citizenship by
investment programs means that almost anyone –
regardless of their nationality, religion, or
language skills – can become an economic citizen
for the same price.
But some citizens from particular countries
apply more for citizenship by investment
programs than other countries. More than 75% of
Canada’s former Quebec Immigrant Investor
Program applicants were Chinese.
All citizenship by investment programs will
accept you just the same as long as you pass the
due diligence.
Time may vary to do the due diligence.
Other than that, they don’t really care where
you’re from. You make the payment, you get the
passport.
3. THE APPLICATION PROCESS IS STRUCTURED
All citizenship by investment programs should
have a clear structure. That means fixed
investment amounts and a clear path to
citizenship.
These citizenship programs operate almost like a
business; any country that offers a murky path
to a second passport most likely falls under
another category.
Expect a process that is streamlined and
structured.
4. THE PROGRAM IS 100% LEGAL
This seems obvious, but there are plenty of
economic passport scams out there. If someone
tells you that they have a buddy inside the
government who can get you a passport in
exchange for your payment, run!.
Real citizenship by investment programs will be
enshrined in the country’s constitution or
clearly and obviously stated somewhere in its
law.
THE BENEFITS OF ECONOMIC CITIZENSHIP
INSTANT PASSPORT
You can obtain a second passport via investment
in as little as 3-4 months.
ENABLES RENUNCIATION
US citizens can use their CBI passports to
renounce their citizenship and save on tax.
TRAVEL PRIVILEGES
Visa-free access to the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong,
Singapore, the EU, Central America, South
America, and Southeast Asia.
NO NONSENSE
A streamlined process for individuals in good
health with a clean background.
LOW RISK
No need to travel to or live in the country.
Your citizenship is guaranteed.
HARD-TO-ACCESS COUNTRIES?
Different CBI passports grant access to Russia,
China, South Africa, and even the US.
What Countries Offer Citizenship by Investment?
Citizenship by investment programs comes and
goes on a regular basis.
The two exceptions are the original citizenship
by investment programs in St. Kitts and Nevis,
which has lasted more than 35 years, and
Dominica’s program, which has been around for
more than 25 years.
All the rest of the investment programs are less
than a decade old.
And many have come and gone within this last
decade as well, including the Comoros Islands
program that I took advantage of during its
short lifespan.
If one of the programs below sounds like a fantastic
deal, click on the “Learn More” button to get more
details, and then reach out to us so we can help you
create a holistic offshore strategy that incorporates
your second passport goals into your banking,
investment, business, tax, and lifestyle goals as well.
VANUATU
Time to Citizenship:
2 Months
Minimum Investment:
$130,000
Investment Options:
Donation
Visa-Free Access
to 125+ Countries
Best Passport
for Speed and Due Diligence
TURKEY
Time to Citizenship:
3-4 Months
Minimum Investment:
$400,000
Investment Options:
Real Estate, Bank Deposit, or Business
(hiring locals)
Visa-Free Access
to 110+ Countries
Best Passport
Real Estate Investors and E-2 Access to
the United States
SAINT LUCIA
Time to Citizenship:
3-6 Months
Minimum Investment:
$100,000
Investment Options:
Donation, Real Estate, Bonds, or
Enterprise Project
Visa-Free Access
to 145+ Countries
Best Passport
Single Applicants (tied)
GRENADA
Time to Citizenship:
3-4 Months
Minimum Investment:
$150,000
Investment Options:
Donation or Real Estate
Visa-Free Access
to 140+ Countries
Best Passport
Visa-Free Access to China and E-2
Access to the United States
ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA
Time to Citizenship:
3-6 Months
Minimum Investment:
$130,000
Investment Options:
Donation, Real Estate, or Business
Visa-Free Access
to 145 Countries
Best Passport
a Family
ST. KITTS AND NEVIS
Time to Citizenship:
3-4 Months
Minimum Investment:
$250,000
Investment Options:
Donation or Real Estate
Visa-Free Access
to 150+ Countries
Best Passport
Access to the Americas
MALTA
Time to Citizenship:
18 Months to 3 Years
Minimum Investment:
€600,000
Investment Options:
Hybrid Model Requiring Donations and
Real Estate
Visa-Free Access
to 180+ Countries
Best Passport
Visa-Free Access to the United States
and the EU
DOMINICA
Time to Citizenship:
4-6 Months
Minimum Investment:
$100,000
Investment Options:
Donation or Real Estate
Visa-Free Access
to 145 Countries
Best Passport
Single Applicants (tied)
CANADA
Time to Citizenship:
18 Months to 3 Years
Minimum Investment:
$245,000 to the Royal Government OR
$306,000 (KHR 1.25 billion) in approved
projects
Investment Options:
Donation, Special Development Project,
Business Investment
Visa-Free Access
to 180+ Countries
Best Passport
Visa-Free Access to the United States
and the EU
HOW TO QUALIFY FOR
CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT PROGRAMS
As we discussed earlier, governments offer citizenship
in return for your investment because they consider your
economic contribution to be an act that qualifies you
for that citizenship.
Both parties should benefit from the exchange.
You need a second passport to give yourself a Plan B,
increase your freedom of movement, and create better tax
planning opportunities, among other benefits.
Governments need foreign direct investment to stimulate
their economy – whether that be for their real estate
market, local businesses and employment, or government
bonds and development funds that will allow them to
direct the money to more country-specific projects,
depending on the country and its specific needs at the
time.
Here are the most common types of investments that will
qualify you for citizenship in another country:
1. DONATION
The most convenient way to qualify for
citizenship is to simply make a donation.
Donation amounts start at $100,000 in
several Caribbean countries and go all the
way up to €600,000 for Malta.
You make the donation and they give you a
passport.
You do not get that money back.
Even though it is essentially a sunk cost,
the donation is usually the cheapest and
most straightforward route to take because
you don’t have to deal with selling an asset
later.
And while you may think it’s a waste of
money, if you can go out and save a million
dollars in taxes by having that passport,
then who cares that you wasted $100,000?
If you can travel to Russia with your new
passport and expand your business there,
consider that $100,000 as an investment in
your business.
Or if you’re an Arab who can suddenly travel
to Europe withing needing visas all the time
and you can do an extra half-million dollars
in business, who cares about the $100,000
you gave away to get it?
That’s the donation route.
2. REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT
That means it’s overpriced and a rip-off.
With most Caribbean programs, the real
estate isn’t even yours. It’s a timeshare.
And even if it is yours, you’ll end up
paying a partial donation anyway thanks to
government fees.
For example, you can invest $220,000 in real
estate in Dominica instead of donating
$100,000, but you still need to pay a
government fee for the real estate. In
Dominica, the fee is $25,000 and the amount
only goes up from there in other countries.
So, you’re not saving the full amount of the
donation to the country’s Economic
Diversification Fund.
And here’s the other issue: if you do decide
to buy real estate, what are you going to do
with it? It’s on an island. Where’s the
market to resell it? Your only opportunity
to resell is probably to a new buyer who’s
also doing the citizenship by investment
program.
The one exception, as mentioned, is Turkey.
You can buy almost any property in Turkey,
and as long as you meet the investment
amount, you can qualify for Turkish
citizenship.
We have a full-time real estate person on
our team who speaks Turkish and she finds
the best deals on properties in the country
that will qualify you for citizenship.
If you are interested, be sure to check out
our article on how to buy real estate in
Turkey, as well as our Turkish citizenship
by investment guide.
Other than Turkey, we don’t recommend real
estate investment as it must be pre-approved
by the government and, consequently, is
overpriced.
3. HYBRID MODEL
Some countries like to complicate things and
will require applicants to make several
types of investments to qualify for
citizenship. Most hybrid programs can be
found in Europe.
Malta, for example, requires applicants to
make a sizable donation, buy government
bonds, purchase or rent a home, and live in
the country for at least a year to establish
a genuine link to the country.
This, of course, is because Malta is in the
EU, which means that its passport is much
more valuable but also subject to
third-party oversight from the EU itself.
In St. Lucia, nobody cares that you have a
genuine connection to the country. They’ll
take your donation and you can be done with
the process. Their passport is not as
powerful, though, so there is a trade-off.
There’s always a trade-off.
Montenegro (the newcomer) is another hybrid
model with both a donation and real estate
requirement.
There are benefits to both programs, but you
will be required to give more to get them.
4. BANKS, BONDS, AND BUSINESSES
In recent years, governments have been
coming up with more creative investment
options for investors interested in
citizenship.
In Turkey, for example, instead of investing
$250,000 in real estate, you can put
$500,000 in the bank for three years and
still qualify for citizenship. Or, if you
want to reduce how much money you need to
put down, you can start a business and hire
50 people in Turkey and get citizenship that
way too.
In both Antigua and St. Lucia, rather than
start a business, you can invest in a local
company and qualify. In Antigua, you’ll need
to invest at least $400,000 plus fees if
it’s a joint purchase (vs. the flat $100,000
donation) and in St. Lucia, you’ll need to
invest a whopping $3.5 million into a local
enterprise project.
Finally, in both St. Lucia and Malta, you
can buy non-interest-bearing government
bonds and hold them for a given period of
time to qualify for citizenship. In Malta,
bond investment is one requirement of many.
In St. Lucia, it’s one of four different
options.
WHO SHOULD GET CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT?
The truth is that citizenship by investment is not the
second passport solution for everyone. However, it is
often the best option for people in three specific
circumstances:
1. US Tax Planning
US citizens are among the only people on earth who
must pay taxes on their worldwide income no matter
where they live. Even if you are living abroad and
have not set a foot in the US for years, thanks to
citizenship-based taxation, you still must file and
pay taxes to the US government.
Forever.
While there are many different strategies you can
use to reduce your US tax burden, the only way for
US citizens to completely liberate themselves of all
reporting and tax obligations is to renounce their
US citizenship.
Pragmatically, renunciation requires a second
passport. And if your income is high enough, how
quickly you can obtain that second passport can make
a dramatic difference in how much you will save in
taxes – even on the level of hundreds of thousands
of dollars.
2. Travel Planning
Every passport has travel WSLS. Even Germany – which
has visa-free access to 189 countries – does not
give its citizens the ability to show up in Russia
without a visa, for instance.
Some passports have bigger travel WSLS than others,
but a second passport can often fill these WSLS, no
matter how big or small.
If you have a relatively decent passport, you may
only need a second passport to complement your
first. If you don’t want to wait to get that second
passport, citizenship by investment is the fastest
way to fill those WSLS.
It is also a good solution for those who want to
renounce their US citizenship but are worried about
losing their travel privileges.
Most citizenship by investment passports offer
visa-free access to the Schengen Area in Europe as
well as to important business destinations like Hong
Kong. Some also offer visa-free access to countries
like China, Russia, South Africa, and Brazil that
even the US passport cannot offer.
However, the people who benefit the most from
investing in economic citizenships are those with
passports from emerging world countries with bad
visa-free travel.
Chinese, Middle Eastern, and Russian citizens make
up a large part of the citizenship investor pool
simply because they are losing more opportunities
due to their bad passports and can afford the cost
of citizenship by investment in exchange for the
greatly increased travel benefits.
They can invest once and quickly obtain a passport
that will save them from wasting weeks and months on
expensive visas.
3. Citizenship Insurance
There are also people who simply want a second
passport for peace of mind, protection, and as a
backup policy in the event of potential political,
economic, or natural disaster in their home country.
For these people, a second passport is essentially
an insurance policy in the form of citizenship.
And if you’re a really wealthy person living in
France with €10 million, what’s $100,000 to get a
backup plan in case France goes nuts?
Citizenship by investment almost never comes with
residence requirements, making it the most
convenient solution for someone with a lot of money
who doesn’t want to go live in another country or
deal with (often exhausting) citizenship by descent
paperwork just to get a passport.
People in France, Canada, Australia, Greece, and
other western countries may not need a second
passport to avoid the high taxes in their home
country. But if they’re doing really well for
themselves, they may ultimately decide that, in a
time vs. money cost comparison, paying $100,000 to
Saint Lucia or Dominica to get a passport in a
matter of months is the better option.
Citizens from emerging countries may also use
citizenship by investment as an insurance policy
against the corruption and instability in their home
country.
WHAT IS THE CHEAPEST CITIZENSHIP BY INVESTMENT?
THE MOST COST-EFFICIENT PASSPORT
For many people, the cheapest passport
is often the best option in terms of
cost-benefit analysis.
For A Single Person:
Both Dominica and St. Lucia are the
cheapest options at $100,000 each.
For a Couple or Family:
Antigua and Barbuda is the cheapest
passport at $130,000 for a family of 4.
ACCESS TO ASIA AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC
Vanuatu may be a good option for people
who do a lot of business in Asia and the
South Pacific.
It’s the only economic passport that
grants visa-free transit through
Australia and New Zealand.
Vanuatu’s program is also faster and
applies less due diligence on applicants
with past lawsuits.
THE BEST COUNTRY FOR TAX-FREE LIVING
If you’re going to live in the country,
taxes become an issue as not all these
countries are tax-free.
However, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts
and Nevis, and Vanuatu are all tax-free.
But be careful. For example, it is very
difficult for citizens of Antigua to get
a bank account there.
TRAVEL AND VISA-FREE ACCESS
Most citizenship by investment passports
provides visa-free access to the UK,
Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Europe’s
Schengen Area, Southeast, Asia, and
South America.
Some, like St. Lucia, offer access to
all of Central America. Others have
hard-to-access countries like Iran,
South Africa, and Macedonia.
THE BEST COUNTRY FOR LIVING
If you decide you want to live in your
new country of citizenship, consider
Montenegro. It offers luxury, peace, and
European charm.
Malta or Turkey could be livable as
well. One of our clients fell in love
with Turkey. Then again, you might like
the remoteness of Vanuatu.
US INVESTORS AND VISA-FREE TRAVEL
E-2 Investor Visa:
Citizenship by investment in Grenada or
Turkey will allow you to enter the US on
a non-immigrant E-2 investor visa.
Visa-Free Access to the US:
If you want visa-free access to the US,
Malta is currently your only option.
BEST FOR REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT
Turkey is the best for those who want to
invest in real estate at a good value.
You can read more about Turkey’s
citizenship program in our Ultimate
Guide.
And you can dive into our Turkey real
estate guide to know where to invest for
the best deals.
Once you have determined that
citizenship by investment is the right
move for you, how do you choose which of
all the programs is the best fit for
your unique circumstances?
We’ve broken it down for you so you can
review the benefits of each program and
decide which one works best for you.
VISA-FREE TRAVEL TO CHINA & RUSSIA
With the exception of St. Lucia, all
Caribbean Citizenship by investment
programs’ passports now grant visa-free
access to Russia.
This can be beneficial to people from
the West who do business in Russia and
struggle with visas.
For access to China, Grenada is the only
program that offers visa-free travel to
the Middle Kingdom.
Compare travel for all economic
citizenships.
LIVING AND WORKING IN THE EU
Malta also offers the ability to live
and work in the European Union. This
also grants access to education and
health care benefits.
Don’t want the high price tag? We favor
exploring all the CBI programs or even
residencies available. Read more on
Bulgarian citizenship by investment,
Russian citizenship by investment,
Slovenian citizenship by investment, and
Cyprus citizenship by investment while
they revamp it.
