Jaime HayBeing a citizen of a certain country means you are their resident; you probably own something there and you most certainly live and work there. If there is a country that is better than yours in certain ways you are probably working toward their citizenship and you are probably going through a growling period right now.
Some countries have very strict rules when it comes to obtaining their citizenship while others do not so much. There are some rules you need to follow and meet and, in several years, you are eligible to become their own. Now there are always some exceptions to the rules and citizenship by investment is one of those. Today we will discuss a bit about this process and try to explain what it is and how does it work.
Citizenship by investment or CBI for short is a process of where you ask for citizenship from a country that, for instance, offers visa-free travel to a lot of other countries and what you do from there is gather a bunch of information, send it to a service provider, pay some fees and wait for the country to reply what they decide is. Although this seems so straightforward, it is not. It is a basic and simplified version, and the details will be explained right now.
So, what exactly is CBI? The interesting thing about this is that most citizenship by investment is not by investment, it is actually by donation. CBI is a term that refers to you making some sort of financial contribution and you are getting citizenship in the country as a result of that. This is noteworthy different by residency by investment which is another term that is switched with this one.
This program, the CBI, is reserved for maybe 10 to 15 countries and other ones that have similar programs offer something rather different. The usual waiting period for getting this sort of citizenship is around six months which is very short, and a good thing to most of us. With this, you also get the right to live there permanently, typically the right to vote, access all their services, visa-free travel and almost everything else that you are entitled to as if you were born there.
As far as countries that you can access this program there are 5 of them in the Caribbean, Vanuatu in the South Pacific, Malta, Montenegro Jordan, Egypt, Georgia, Hungary, Ukraine, Cambodia and others. What you need to know is that some of these countries have official programs while others don’t. since this program has become so widely popular other countries are looking to open to this type of citizenship “giveaway” while it is also worth noting that some have cancelled this.
If by any chance, you are wondering why people are doing this and why are they looking for these types of citizenship, the answer is pretty simple. Many of these countries are small ones and when it comes to their income and resources, they are scarce or very limited. So, to make some they have to stoop to these things. If you do the math investment of $150.000 to any of these governments means a salary for 10 people for an entire year and maybe more. Now answer us this – why wouldn’t they do this if it is an easy way of financing your country?! If you do some research online you will see that Malta, for instance, has managed t raise a couple of Billion dollars by doing this which is rather incredible for a small country with as little over 500.000 people, that also does not have a high GDP per Capita.
What goes on here is that countries we have named, have something you want, something like a product. They are willing to offer that product and sell it to you for a price. So if you had something very valuable to someone else wouldn’t you try to make some money out of it, while at the same time benefiting you and your entire household?! The regular way to citizenship means that you have to spend a certain amount of time in the country and contribute there to get it. To be perfectly honest 90% of people going for regular citizenship are freeloading and living in the country during that period. Now, why would that type of person be more entitled to citizenship more than someone willing to pay cold hard cash for it and not take anything in return for it, at least instantly?
As far as we got this straight, we also need to discuss the process of getting there. You will not be able to just give the cash and wait for your passport, no. you will have to pay, and on top of that, there will be more fees mostly for the process itself, the due diligence where they do the criminal background and the entire history of the life of both you and your family. Now, this is something that lasts for 2 to four months and when it is over you still have a month or two of the government paperwork, correspondence and whatnot until you receive their passport. This really shouldn’t be a problem to anyone legitimate and this is something you have to go through in regular citizenship claims so just power it through.
So, as we already stated this is a good way of getting citizenship in a country that has to offer something you see fit for you, your business, your family. It is a bit faster way of getting it but it doesn’t mean that you have any less or more right to it than someone who has gone through the process of getting citizenship for 5 to 10 years. Another thing to consider is what type of CBI program you will go for – donation one or investment program. The ones you go for will also depend on what your desired country offers so have that in mind as well. The only thing to do now is to choose which country citizenship you want and apply if you got the funds for it. There are some that we listed already, but we recommend that you check out https://imperiallegal.com/st-kitts-nevis-citizenship/ because it is probably the most famous destination that has the most to offer.
