Bulgaria really has the cheapest EU citizenship by investment program. How is this even possible? The trick is to finance €1m bonds issued by Government.
You can become EU citizen by investment taking advantage of Bulgaria, because Bulgaria is already full EU member state and a candidate to join schengen area in the future.
So how to do it?
Bulgaria’s fast track investor scheme requires purchase of interest free Government bonds and securities worth €1m euros. This route will get you the fastest citizenship time within 2 years. You can also buy state or municipality issued shares listed at bulgarian stock exchange.
Bulgarian government has removed government bonds for citizenship by investment under new 2021 rules. It is not possible be able to apply for citizenship investing in Government bonds. Please see here
You must arrange a loan to finance this investment for 5 years from a bulgarian bank or a bank in your country. There is no requirement to open a bank account in Bulgaria for the purpose of investing.
This will probably cost you a total of €180,000 to finance or loan one million euros of govt bonds at around 3.7% interest rate. You should expect the lawyer costs of 20,000 euros. The Bulgarian government bonds long term yields are available here
You can get immediate permanent residence permit after filing necessary papers with Bulgarian immigration office.
After this, file for citizenship after 1 year (12 months).
The processing time taken by citizenship office is around 9-12 months.
All in all, you can get Bulgarian passport in 24 months
You may also be asked to appear for interview, language test and knowledge on bulgarian culture. Take some language lessons form schools and training!
So for €200,000 euro one time costs, you get EU citizenship through Bulgaria, cheapest way, even cheaper than golden visa schemes. No other European country is willing to give you citizenship this way and this cheap.
Malta, Cyprus probably cost you millions, Bulgaria is your ANSWER!
Any other passport offers other than these countries in EU countries is probably a scam. There is no way to become a citizen in other EU-25 countries without legally living alteast 5 years.
Bulgaria also powerful EU passport with visa free access to over 170 countries (Canada, Australia, UK etc). It is interesting to note, Bulgaria CBI scheme takes fourth spot in our best citizenship by investment rankings for 2020.
You may also have to hurry up, as lately there has been a talk that bulgaria mulls suspending citizenship scheme for investment.
Summing up, a EU passport for €200,000 in 24 months, sounds a good deal!
Lastly, we want to give you a word of advice!
Bulgaria is notorious for coming hard at citizenship holders for not maintaining investments. They even went as far as revoking citizenships (denaturalization) for this. You have to maintain investment for a total of 5 years in total, first two years before citizenship and 3 years after receiving citizenship.
