The Idea of buying citizenship for money, is not new, have existed since ancient times. Roughly two thousand years ago , Roman citizenship was sold to rich and wealthy for money. In the book of Acts, Paul has a discussion with a Roman Centurion who claims he bought his citizenship “for a lot of money”.
During 18th century, the world’s first special citizenship-by-investment program prevailed in Scotland, a century before St Kitts started the idea, which continued long after the Union with England in the 18th century: a share investment of GBP 83 in the Royal Bank of Scotland allowed a foreign citizen to become a citizen of Scotland and, by extension, the UK.
During the 18th and 19th century in England, there were a large number of mainly German and Italian merchants and wealthy investors, who acquired citizenship for merely economic reasons, and did not necessarily settle in England.
In the 1980,’s pacific tax haven countries operated “passports for convenience’ for as low as $50,000. St Kitts and Nevis pioneered the idea of citizenship by investment in 1984 and since then as many as 15 countries officially have active CIPs running as of today.
History
The economic citizenship programs existed in several countries well before 2010. Below is the timeline.
- Scotland 18th century – £83
- St Kitts and Nevis 1984 for $250,000
- Dominica 1993 for $50,000
- Belize 1985-2001 $40,000
- Cyprus 2007 – EUR 25 million
- Ireland 1984-1994 for £1million, citizenship scheme closed in 2002 replaced with immigrant investor scheme
- Grenada 1997-2001 for $50,000 reopened in 2015 for $200,000
- Montenegro 2010 (EUR 500,000) reopened in Oct 2018 for EUR 250,000
- Nauru 1998-2002 for $50,000
- Tonga 1982-1996 for $50,000
- Vanuatu 1996-1997 for $50,000 relaunched in 2016 for $200,000
- Moldova 2018 for EUR 100,000
- Jordan 2018 for $1m
- Egypt 2017 for $350,000
From just two CIPs in 1990’s, proliferated to 15 countries implementing it and the concept of citizenship by investment is being widely embraced globally, despite criticisms on due diligence.
It is estimated that CBI-citizenship by investment industry is $25 billion industry and by 2023, the industry is predicted to become $50 billion and more countries expected to offer citizenship through economic investment.
| Country | Inception | Minimum Investor | Residency Requirements | Citizenship time | |
| 1 | St Kitts and Nevis | 1984 | $250,000 | – | 3-6 months |
| 2 | Dominica | 1993 | $100,000 | – | 4-6 months |
| 3 | Cambodia | 1996 | $250,000 | – | 3-6 months |
| 4 | Bulgaria (closed) | 2009 | €1 m | 1 year | 15 months |
| 5 | Cyprus | 2011 | €2 m | 6 months | 8 months |
| 6 | Grenada | 2013 | $150,000 | – | 3-5 months |
| 7 | Antigua and Barbuda | 2014 | $100,000 | 5 days | 4-6 months |
| 8 | Malta | 2014 | €750,000 | 1 year | 15 months |
| 9 | Saint Lucia | 2015 | $100,000 | – | 5-7 months |
| 10 | Samoa | 2016 | $1.65m | 3 years | 3 months |
| 11 | Turkey | 2017 | $1m | unknown | 3 months |
| 12 | Vanuatu | 2017 | $150,000 | – | 3-4 months |
| 13 | Jordan | 2018 | $1.5m | 5 years | 3 months |
| 14 | Moldova (closed) | 2018 | €100,000 | – | 3 months |
| 15 | Montenegro (closed) | 2018 | €350,000 | 3 weeks | 3 months |
| 16 | Bulgaria (closed) | 2010 | €1,000,000 | 18 months | 3 months |
