Malta is set to terminate the Individual investor program (IIP) that offers citizenship for investments to foreign investors and replace with residency scheme after september, according to the recent announcement by Maltese Government.
IIP will now be replaced by a new scheme focusing on residency that offer two investment routes to acquire citizenship after living in Malta. No applications for IIP will be accepted after September. The program raised 1.4 billion euros so far.
The Malta Residency scheme will open to replace citizenship by investment scheme and with increased investment conditions making it more expensive. The new program will also make it impossible to obtain citizenship without living in Malta for atleast one year.
New Changes from September
- Two investment routes to open for the residency scheme: Pay €750,000 (citizenship after 1 year) or €600,000 (citizenship after 3 years)
- Limited Quotas: 400 citizenships per year and 1500 total limit
- Pay mandatory €10,000 donation to a registered philanthropic organisation.
- Buying a real estate value increases to €700,000 (from €350,000 currently)
- Minimum Renting increases to €18,000 (from €16,000) per annum.
- Applicant has to pass due diligence checks before filing application.
- Applicants have to pay additional €50,000 for each dependent.
- MIIPA agency will be shutdown and new agency will be introduced to handle the cases.
- Names of new citizens will be published every year in gazette (no changes)
The new changes has been approved by cabinet and the parliamentary approval will be final.
The scrapping of citizenship by investment program was done to strengthen relations with the European Commission after it expressed concerns on risks associated with the scheme. The new set of changes is welcomed by Malta chamber of commerce inline with maintaining genuine link criteria with Malta for citizenship applicants.
Note: MIIPA will continue accepting applications for citizenship under the Malta Individual Investor Programme Regulations until the 30th of September 2020. Applications for residence under this IIP programme will continue to be accepted until the 31st of July 2020. After this deadline IIP will shut down.
Source: MaltaToday
