Travel ban? What travel ban? When you can buy citizenship to the European Union (EU), there’s no need to worry about closed borders or an interruption of vacation plans.
You Can Buy European Union Citizenship
A handful of nations around the world effectively sell citizenship. This year, applications for those passports are up 49%. The biggest clientele groups are Americans, Indians, Nigerians and Lebanese. Per CNN, American applications alone are up 700%.
Those nations include:
- Dominica – $100,000 investment needed
- St. Lucia – $100,000
- Antigua and Barbuda – $130,000
- Grenada – $150,000
- St. Kitts and Nevis – $150,000
- Montenegro – $294,000
- Portugal – $294,000
- Bulgaria – $588,000
- Canada – $894,000
- USA – $900,000
- Cyprus – $2,530,000
- UK – $2,600,000
Other nations like Australia and Air New Zealand offer long-term visas, though not direct citizenship for large investments.
With the European Union shut off to residents of the United States and many others around the world, Montenegro has seen a 142% surge in applications while Cyprus has seen a 75% increase. Why not Portugal? It takes five years and you have to learn Portuguese.
Such passports not only offer unlimited access to the European Union, but the right to live and work anywhere in the EU.
Even the smaller Caribbean nations with less powerful passports are appealing as a safe haven to virus hotspots. Many wish to prepare for the next virus by building a passport. And a Dominica or St. Lucia passport is far more powerful than a passport from Nigeria or Bangladesh.
CONCLUSION
Throughout human history, money buys power, influence, and status. In that sense, this concept is hardly newsworthy. But it is interesting that these governments are seeing huge surges in passport applications this year. I may not have the extra cash for these sorts of investments, but my insurance policy was marrying a German! 😉
Would you buy EU citizenship?
I’m waiting for Pakistan to start selling passports so I can become a pilot for PIA. I mean, how hard can it be?
You wouldn’t have the contacts so keep on dreaming
Matthew,
There is an ever cheaper way if one has a little bit of ancestry luck. Many European countries offer “citizenship by descent” (full disclosure: that’s my line of work for Romanian citizenship), up to the 2nd (grandparents) or even 3rd (great-grandparents) generation. Others offer facilitated citizenship just for being a member of their ethnic group (example: Croatia), while others offer it for specific formerly persecuted groups now living abroad.
Often these paths to an EU passport allow the applicant to remain resident wherever they currently live (i.e. no logistics for moving; no tax residency change), while entitling to free movement and settlement all around the EU.
As for price, it is about one tenth or less of the costs you mentioned, depending on the closeness to the last known citizen ancestor and other entitlements. Q
This is good advice, and it’s how I got a UK passport. I’m 2nd generation, which no longer confers citizenship, but thankfully I was born, and registered with the consulate, a few months before the British Nationality Act became effective (effectively cutting things off at first generation). No luck for my kids but they got EU passports from my wife, which is better than a UK passport anyway.
Matthew I think you mean New Zealand and not Air New Zealand. 🙂
As someone who also married a German, you should know that you couldn’t get a German passport without surrendering your US one (dual citizenship not allowed) and you’d need to prove you can speak fluent German in order to do it.
Note that, whilst the UK number looks high, you only need to invest this amount is (obviously no risk) Government bonds. With the right security documentation, borrowing this amount for the modest period of time you need to hold it shouldn’t be tricky.
Plus, you have to actually reside in Germany, even if you marry a German. While there are some European countries that allow citizenship by marriage without having to reside in the spouses country (France, Cyprus, Malta, Portugal, and Switzerland), Germany is not one of them. The main benefit of being married to a German citizen is the residency period to become a citizen shrinks from 8 years to 3 years.
I’m well aware, unfortunately.
You have to reside in the USA too, to convert a green card to citizenship.
Tom Hanks & Rita Wilson flew by jet to Athens & had a Greek military plane take them to island & got their passports personal delivery from Greek PM!
Don’t believe most us can get that treatment only World Elites!
The rest of us have to pay!
But they can move anywere in Europe together. It’s actually easier to live with a German partner in another eu country for getting residents permits.
“The biggest clientele groups are Americans, Indians, Nigerians and Lebanese.”
What happened to all the Chinese and Russians as clientele groups?
Granted, the rick buying passports isn’t something new, it’s been going on for a while now. You didn’t mention another popular option, Malta, which costs about $1M, though the EU has been giving both Malta and Cyprus the stink eye for their golden passport businesses.
Rich, not rick.
Wow, this was great infos,thanks for sharing.
It’s something I was actively considering Pre-COVID. Still considering it, but since my business is 90% offline these days, I’m in a holding pattern.
Of course, my goal is to reside in Europe permanently in the end, so others’ mileage may vary.
I hate that the rich can buy citizenship and the EU is actively working to clamp down on these policies. FWIW, I have EU citizenship by descent, but I think that’s fair, because both middle-class Americans and desperate Venezuelans can get citizenship from my member state, based on ancestry. The rich have all the power in the world — they shouldn’t be able to buy citizenship. too. And, adding insult to injury, these global rich buy center-city apartments in Lisbon, Athens, and elsewhere — evicting local residents (actual citizens!) so they can profit from $200/night Airbnb guests.
You Eyetalian?
Yes. And I’m not proud of holding the dual nationality, because I think it’s really unfair that I could get the nationality — never having lived there and not speaking the language — but migrant kids struggle to do so at 18. Still, citizenship isn’t fair in many respects, so I still took advantage. I’d like Italy to make their citizenship by descent (by blood) a little more restrictive — you can literally go back multiple generations all the way to the founding of the Kingdom of Italy — and make their citizenship by birth (by soil) a little less restrictive.
La cittadinanza italiana è regolata dal principio del ius sanguinis sin dai tempi dell’Impero Romano. Tenendo conto la posizione geografica dell’Italia, se la cittadinanza venisse acquisita in base all’ius solis come accade nelle Americhe, in quel caso l’Italia diventerebbe la clinica ostetrica dell’Africa. Poi, nonostante molti Venezuelani (tra i quali molti sono figli di cittadini italiani emigrati in tempi di prosperità del Venezuela) la maggioranza dei discendenti di italiani in possesso della doppia cittadinanza non emigra, (cioè la maggioranza dei discendenti nati in altri paesi non usano la doppia cittadinanza per emigrare). E finalmente, anche se molti discendenti non mantengono la lingua e la cultura italiana e non si sentono vicini alla terra dei propri ascendenti, altri, invece, amiamo l’Italia è siamo pienamente integrati come cittadini pur vivendo all’estero. Molti abbiamo la doppia cittadinanza perché i principi del ius soli e ius sanguinis possono coesistere, ma veramente se dovessimo scegliere solo una, credimi saremmo in tanti a scegliere la cittadinanza italiana. Io sono discendente di Italiani nel lato materno, sono nata all’estero, sono cresciuta in un ambiente tutto italiano, ho studiato in una scuola italiana, poi ho studiato -e vissuto- 4 anni a Milano, sono tornata al paese dove sono nata per motivi familiari, ma da piccola partecipo attivamente nella comunità italiana, è sinceramente mi sento italiana. Per me la mia vera patria è Italia.
Comunque la cultura italiana è meravigliosa. Italian culture it’s amazing. You should be proud to be an Italian citizen. The Italian language it’s not difficult and it’s absolutely beautiful, it’s the language of culture, of opera, of art. If you have the opportunity to travel to the city where your ancestors come from, probably you could feel your Italian roots. It’s what happened to me years ago, when I was an adolescent. I was stunned by seen people who I never seen before but who had faces very similar to my Italian family: mother, Grandma, aunts and uncles. That’s was incredible. And a lot of people of this small city (Boves, Province of Cuneo, region Piemont) had the same surname of my Italian family. And every time when I speak with others italian descendants whose traveled to the ancestors’s city I realized that they had similar experiences.
I disagree with this dual citizenship BS. You have one, by birthright…be satisfied with it, or renounce and take out citizenship elsewhere.
For most people, sufficient mobility is offered already: 6 months in the EU in a 12 month period, for eg. Does anyone need more than that?
London is loaded with slimeballs from the cesspits of the earth, happily living in Chelsea while keeping the majority of their citizens at home in C14th penury/dark ages.
Are sour grapes still in season?
“Does anyone need more than that?”
Freedom of movement within the EU for work, study, and living does have it’s advantages.
Well, no doubt it’s advantageous to the individual with dual citizenship. But it’s a poor reflection on them as well. Maybe it’s the ‘ me, me, me’ generation doing this. But taking out citizenship ….with all it implies….just to get a shorter queue at an airport? That’s pathetic.
BTW, I have eligibility should I wish. I don’t want it, never have. It’s not sour grapes.
One of my friends has had three from her birth because she has connections to all of them. Why should she give up two of them just because your opinion is “one is enough”? That’s stupid.
It’s not complex: the simple question …Of which country am I a citizen? 99.999999% of people would be able to give an answer, singular. Not: “I’m XXXXXXX unless I want a shorter queue at the airport, or stay longer, or go somewhere XXXXXXXs can’t go, in which case I identify as something else”. Pathetic….
I’m not denying cultural links/heritage/ancestry, but those factors should not form the basis of dual citizenship.
The easiest is EU Cyprus passport. Requires €2,150,000 investment in residential property of which 1,5m can be resold in 5 years and main applicant and family get EU passport. No need to reside in Cyprus and application takes about 1 year. As long as main applicant has no criminal record , and proof of funds and dependant children upto age 28 are legible. My email costas.costas@cytanet.com.cy
You forgot my favorite – Malta
Where is the nation air New Zealand came from?
St Lucia and Barbados part of the European Union???
Montenegro is not part of the EU – at least not yet.
And you cannot hold dual citizenship in Montenegro.