Every Citizenship by Investment Program in 2023

citizenship by investment is a highly efficient way to getting a second passport without making changes to your lifestyle and today i'm going to walk you through all 13 programs available right now [Music] what citizenship by investment is to me is it's commoditized and it brings a relative level of certainty commoditized in that no matter who you are or where you're from as long as you meet the basic character guidelines you can get it and so they're not necessarily prioritizing americans over asians there's really no kind of restrictions or biases in that area and certainty in the sense that if again you meet the character restrictions if you don't have a criminal record if you're clean you have pretty good certainty of getting that passport in a commoditized quick period of time could be as little as six months doing all the paperwork actually getting the passport in your hand in the case of the five caribbean programs and so certainty trumps what you might find let's say a naturalization program where you go and live in a country for a certain period of time they may or may not give you citizenship they may delay the process they may change the requirements they may lengthen the amount of time you've got to be there citizenship by descent through your ancestry i mean there may not be a guarantee there in some cases that you'll find the records or that you'll be approved and so citizenship by descent is a way to get a second passport you're going to make an investment whether that's a donation in most caribbean programs or whether you're going to actually buy property in some place like turkey or in montenegro and so you get a passport oftentimes in a matter of months i'm going to go through all the different programs if it's your first time here my name is andrew henderson the founder of nomad capitalist we're a boutique consulting firm that helps seven and eight figure entrepreneurs and investors legally reduce their taxes diversify and protect their assets overseas and increase their freedom and optionality with things like second passport second residences second homes overseas all because the world is crazy right now and you want to have as many options as possible we also host the biggest and best offshore conference called nomad capitalist live and with that let's get started on the 13 programs that are out there 12 what i would call direct and one what i would call non-direct starting with the most commonly discussed programs which are in the caribbean there are five caribbean countries that offer citizenship by investment sink it's the newest being the oldest one what they describe themselves as the platinum standard you're looking at 150 000 donation or higher it's basically the only country that i would consider barely consider looking at real estate because their definition of real estate you can use to invest in order to qualify for citizenship is more broad and it's a bit more favorable to you as the investor that said unless you really want to live there the liquidity on saint kitts and news is probably not what you're expecting based on where you come from and so the donation still probably makes more sense but in the caribbean you're going to make a donation in most cases i really can't remember the last time that we had a client who actually decided to buy some kind of property or start a business in one of these countries or doing the things that you're allowed to do precisely because when you hear buy real estate or start a business it's not nearly as open as what you would imagine okay it's much more con restricted and therefore not as appealing to most people even the bond option really generally gets beaten for most people by the donation option so saying kids and eva's 150 000 or more if you have lots and lots and lots of dependents which could be children which could be dependent parents this option will allow you to add people on after the first couple at a much cheaper price you also have antigua and barbuda this these two are the two best passports for travel purposes there's not a huge bunch of difference between them but antigua and barbuda starts at 130 000. for a family of four it's the most affordable for a family it's also the least efficient program uh and so it is the only country that allows visa free travel to south africa out of the five and so if you go to south africa if you have business in south africa if you are south african and may one day not be or you get a spouse from south africa whatever this one may be considered worth considering uh other countries the most affordable for a single dominica and st lucia that's the one that i did i did st lucia many years ago uh hundred thousand dollars and up and you can add on additional people from there those passports aren't going to be quite as good although you have um the last one grenada which starts at 150 000 and is perhaps looked at by some governments as uh the cleanest program uh grenada uh offers visa free travel to both russia and china that's of need to you maybe not so much right now dominica recently got that status so both of those passports offer that and so if you are from the united states for example these are passports where you don't have any of the optics of a high-level passport like in the united states where everyone knows the country and that can be good and it can also be bad in some cases like when there's a war going on or whatever happens so these are countries that are under the radar a couple of them are tax-free others have very few taxes and if you don't live there none of them are going to tax you right just because the united states is the only country in the world that taxes its citizens no matter where they live and so these countries don't do it the same way that canada australia whatever it wouldn't do it so most people aren't going and living in these countries but if you do you have access to six countries in the organization of eastern caribbean states that you can kind of move around in and so you can get those passports in a matter of months some are more efficient some are slower um some are more crypto friendly if you're a bitcoin investor some are not um some are more open to certain kinds of backgrounds you know we've had people who you know urinated on a police car in 1972. there are some that are more open to that obviously you've got a serious criminal record it's going to be hard to get through any of them right so um that is the caribbean and those are some of the most straightforward you don't have to go there in the case of any of them except for antigua marbuuta five days in the first five years if you really don't want to change your lifestyle we help people all the time handle all the paperwork we're tracking down documents it is a process of proving who you are proving your background improving your wealth but you can do that especially from a western country without leaving your country so those are five programs in the caribbean you've got other citizenship by investment programs starting in europe and so montenegro's program will wrap up after a one-year extension at the end of 2022 it is a hybrid you're both making a donation of 200 000 euros and you're buying property which is as we say approved real estate what does that mean it means you cannot buy my apartment in montenegro and use that to qualify for citizenship you must buy something on the list of approved properties which means it's expensive and so there are some deals that i like better than others some of the people there i happen to know but if you go to some of these yacht clubs for example you might pay 450 000 euros you might get um a 50 60 65 70 square meter property so you know anywhere from 600 to 800 850 square feet something like that is what you're going to get you think for 450 000 euros you're going to get some amazing place um it'll be nice it'll be in a great location perhaps but you're just not going to get a lot of value uh in terms of huge space right you think oh for 450 000 in montenegro you know you're gonna you're gonna be buying in some of the top locations because that's what's on the approved list you're not gonna be buying a uh vacant piece of land somewhere and building your dream house that's just not gonna work but montenegro uh can can command that price because they are you know have long been discussed as a future eu country and they may get there and so that is going to be pricey and that one you will need to hurry to get in uh nearby north macedonia uh has a similar program i don't think they've actually issued a single passport and that's been the news so they've got a a uh kind of an odd program based on a donation but it's awarded as an investment and they've had a few people apply and no one's really gotten it and there's really not a lot of information about that and quite frankly you could probably do better turkey has what's far and away the most successful program right now obviously not in the european union and not really a contender to be in the european union anymore as perhaps the two other countries have been discussed turkey allows you to buy four hundred thousand dollars in real estate that's up from 250 thousand dollars not so long ago due to the popularity of the program you can buy pretty much whatever you want as long as it qualifies and it meets the financial criteria as long as you can get it appraised you can buy whatever you want and i think 95 of people don't buy anything that's worth having they're buying stuff that's already overpriced and will continue to go down in value if the leader depreciates if you buy in the right neighborhoods and you buy resale properties my opinion is you can hold a good amount of your value if not all of your value in u.s dollar terms and the property that i bought a year and a half ago when i look at appraisals uh i think i've done a decent job maybe minus some renovations that were cert that were done for my own personal needs i the money i put in the property is largely still there in dollar terms i.e the lyric goes down the lira value goes up and so in dollar terms it stays steady so you can buy a property hold it for three years and sell it you can also put money in the bank and turkish layer and they have some some guarantees the government's proposed on that hold that money for three years you can also create jobs you can get that passport instantly and it's kind of a different kind of passport turkey you're not going to go to europe with those passports as all of the other passports i've mentioned so far you can go to europe the same way american or australian or uk citizen could but you're going to be able to go to a lot of other countries and so if you do business in let's say the middle east or in southeast asia or in south america that passport is going to be just as strong if not stronger than some of the caribbean passports and unlike a donation you can actually buy property and then sell it later if you want you've also got in the south pacific the nation of vanuatu they've had a couple of different programs for years and quite frankly as much as the price isn't really that much more than some of the cheaper caribbean programs it's just mismanaged they have had their access to europe suspended their visa-free access to europe is suspended you can get a visa but the fact that they have really had no checks they've prided themselves on get a passport in a month and so when you're a small country and you do and you have access to europe and you just promise hey you know send us a few documents and we'll issue your passport i was in vanuatu a number of years ago and i said guys this program is just it's mismanaged i think you should improve it and now everyone's starting to say the same thing including the european union and so unless you want to live in vanuatu tax-free country they have practically no taxes of any kind uh you get visa-free transit through australia new zealand let's hope that sticks uh you know maybe there's some value for a select number of people but by and large i don't think you'd want to be a citizen of vanuatu or at least you wouldn't want to to spend the money when there's better comparative options you've got other options that are very niche so jordan has a program you're looking at a generally a seven-figure investment and you think who would want to invest in seven figures some to be jordanian there are people who are doing it egypt you're going to be looking at generally speaking if you want to do real estate certain types of real estate not necessarily bad deals but 400 000 and up there are other options about four or five options in egypt and then cambodia has a program where it is now in question whether the donation option is still around it was always rather opaque there is an option if you invest about 312 000 dollars in a functioning business i.e a factory you can do it that way and their program is interesting let's call it that way right you can get a name change which i generally don't recommend so most people are not going to want to become cambodian although you can buy land uh which is rare in asia if you're a citizen uh egypt and jordan those are other programs you also have in addition to those 12 direct programs you also have a non-direct program which is malta malta does not call their program a citizenship by investment program they call it an exceptional investor program so the m-e-i-n and you were going to make a donation not an investment people get confused by the word investment sometimes you're making an investment in the country turkey and to a lesser extent montenegro you can have some chance of getting back that capital egypt are the same cambodia if you're starting a business the same vana wattu talked about rolling out a real estate program not a lot of news on that so there are a few of these programs where you can get the value back to me you're buying an option you're buying freedom you're buying the fact that no government can control you and for a lot of folks just spending a hundred thousand dollars plus the fees and documents and all that is better than tying up money somewhere but malta's program is a donation starting at 750 000 euros and then going up about 50 000 euros per dependent spouse would have you from there and so this is the only one that is a member of the european union a member of the schengen area bulgaria which is not a country part of the schengen area and does not have visa-free access to the united states they recently discontinued their somewhat similar fast-track program they have a slower track program that you can use without having to really live there but there's a few things that are unclear about that but malta's program you can become a citizen in about 18 months maybe a little bit less you are going to need to spend a little bit of time there in that but you're not moving there for a full year or anything like that you're spending a nominal amount of time in malta you're also going to have to either buy or rent a home for the first five years make a charitable contribution and then they're going to keep monitoring you for five years after you get the citizenship as well as inform your country of tax residents that you have gotten citizenship which for some folks who aren't allowed to have dual citizenship in the country that they're a citizen of which is also the country that they pay taxes in i.e if you live in the netherlands and um well if you live in the other ones you couldn't get it because you're already an eu member but if you live in a country where uh you are a resident and you pay taxes and you're a citizen and they find out potentially that could affect your your citizenship status there so malta is by far the most transparent program but you do get access to the european union which means in 18 months you can decide i'm moving to france i'm moving to estonia i'm moving to ireland i'm moving to italy now many of these other countries in europe have options where you could get a residence permit and so someone might say i'm going to get a citizenship in dominica and then as a dominican get a residence permit in portugal and then actually go and live in portugal or i'm going to go and get a golden visa in a country in europe and then live there and work towards citizenship in a slower way so there's many different ways to live visit have access to and eventually become on a slower timeline of citizens of europe but if you don't want to wait and you can afford that higher price type than malta's mein program is a non-direct the one non-direct program on this list and so you want to understand your options as what's the difference between residents what's the difference between citizenship are you planning on moving or are you planning on staying in your country where do you need access like what is your current passport there's many questions to ask in fact the average client that works with us we're going to ask them over 200 questions throughout the course of a multi-week engagement to figure out all their needs because we've seen this time and time and time again to help you figure out what's the best passport there are some times when citizenship by investment isn't worth it for you or it should be done in addition to something else so never go to someone who just says hey we sell these five passports we're in the citizenship by investment business because they're going to literally talk you out of getting a passport you may be entitled to for free through your ancestry or maybe you already want to live somewhere maybe you just need a golden visa i think anyone successful needs a second passport in case something happens to their first one or in case you want something to happen to your first one to protect your freedom and protect your wealth we are in crazy times this is a great way to secure a backup option or even what i call a plan a an active option that you can use within again a matter of months rather than years the way you have to wait for most citizenships but you should understand your options and if you go to nomadcapitalist.com we're happy to help

Channel: Nomad Capitalist

Views: 26,415

Keywords: nomad capitalist, go where you're treated best, second passport, dual citizenship, second citizenship, andrew henderson, cbi, how to get a second passport, best places to live, benefits of dual citizenship, getting a second passport, living in asia, moving to another country, where to live, how to decide where to live, deciding where to live, living in asia as an american, leaving america, cambodian passport, leaving usa, Every Citizenship by Investment Program in 2022

Id: AQy2HA-uUjM

Length: 15min 3sec (903 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 05 2023