The Montenegro Cabinet has announced extending its special economic citizenship by investment scheme until Dec 31, 2022. Previously the program was set to close on Dec 31, 2021 but the new announcement extended the deadline of the program by one year.
So far out of 2000 limited quota, only 131 applications have been received and only 37 citizenships granted, the program did not become popular as expected, failing to meet the expectations of clients.
The Government launched the citizenship program in 2018, with great hopes expecting to raise €1 billion in FDI. The legislation were adopted to run this scheme only for 3 years with limited quota of 2000 applications.
The Special economic citizenship program of Montenegro is a very unique program with distinct advantages, requires a minimum 250K euro to be invested in Northern regions of Montenegro or 450K euro in Southern coastal areas. On top of that there are 100K euro per application fee (goes to donation fund) plus several Govt processing fee, due diligence and agency fee.
Some of the important advantages for investors include access to E-2 visa to US and Montenegro likely joining EU and Schengen in 2025. Montenegro also has the lowest property prices in Europe.
The Montenegro CBI will remain open and last applications will be received until Dec 31, 2022 after this date the program will be permanently closed.
The latest Government official announcement states
“Having in mind the reservations of the European Commission on this issue due to the possible difficulties of Montenegro’s path to the EU, as well as the questionable purpose of the Programme and its contribution to economic development, given that only 37 citizenships of the planned limit of 2000 have been granted so far, the Cabinet decided that the Programme should not be extended after the expiration of its three-year duration on 31 December 2021.”
Previously, two other CBI programs were closed for investment
