Malta, Cyprus, and Austria are in the lead. Henley & Partners has identified the best residence and citizenship-by-investment programs. The rankings include countries in Europe, the Caribbean, North America, and Asia.
Citizenship-by-investment programs are a short and simplified way to obtain a full passport of another country without the need for prior long-term residence or even a visit.
In 2019, a new citizenship program was launchedin Montenegro. The country is not yet a member of the EU, but the program is already in demand thanks to its low investment requirements (from 250,000 euros) and short application processing times. Citizenship can be obtained in just 3 months. In early 2020,the first application was approvedfor Montenegrin citizenship.
For example, to become a citizen of Cyprus, one must invest at least 2.15 million euros in the country. And to obtain Maltese citizenship, investments starting from 1 million euros are required. In this case, the application processing time will be from 14 to 18 months.
Official EU investment citizenship programs are available only in Cyprus, Malta, and Austria. Citizenship of these countries allows you to live and work in any EU country without any restrictions.The following criteria were used to analyze investment citizenship programs: reputation, quality of life, visa-free travel, application processing time and quality of information handling, compliance, investment requirements, need to reside in the country, ability to move to other countries, need to visit the country, and transparency of the procedure.
Henley & Partners publishes rankings of official residence and citizenship-by-investment programs, as well as research on these programs, which represents the most comprehensive systematic analysis and comparative assessment of the main options for obtaining residence and citizenship by investment. Independent experts, investors, and public figures from different countries take part in compiling the rankings. For each criterion, experts assign countries points (from 0 to 10), after which the results are summed up.