Malta has been ranked as the world’s top citizenship by investment program for the seventh consecutive year while Portugal is the most-popular golden visa program among investors across the globe.
European CIPs: EU Citizenship Advantage
Despite a hefty price tag, recent changes that made it costlier for investors to qualify for citizenship after one year of residence, regular criticism by the European Parliament, and frequent calls for termination of the program, Malta’s CIP continues to outrank all other countries with economic citizenship programs.
Despite their low investment requirements, the CIPs of Caribbean nations rank low because of the inherent benefit of EU citizenship offered by programs like Malta, Austria, and Montenegro.
Between 2011 and 2019, EU countries have granted residence or citizenship to more than 130,000 investors and attracted more than €21 billion of foreign investment into their economies.
Ranked below the EU countries are the programs of St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia at the fourth spot. Turkey, Egypt, Vanuatu, Cambodia, and other Caribbean nations like Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, and Dominica make up the rest of the list.
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Golden Visa Rankings
While CIPs invite criticisms of putting a price tag on citizenship, golden visa programs or residence-by-investment programs are less controversial and, hence, more popular.
Portugal’s golden visa program takes the top spot among the more than 50 available.
For a long time, Portugal’s golden visa had many positives. The 2008 recession-battered asset prices and offered investors an attractive entry price. Plus, the program had an affordable €500,000 investment requirement with applicants free to invest in a wide range of options ranging from real estate to job creation.
The option of qualifying for EU citizenship makes it an even more attractive option despite the five-year wait before the golden visa investor becomes eligible.
Other top-ranked golden visa programs include Austria and Italy in the second spot with Switzerland’s investor residence program third.
Austria and Switzerland do not specify minimum investment requirements and applications are assessed on a case-by-case basis on overall impact and benefits to the economy.
EU a Common Thread in the Rankings
The world’s most popular investment immigration programs – citizenship as well as a permanent residence – are dominated by countries in the EU.
The primary reason behind this is that the investor gets access to the entire European Union by becoming a citizen or permanent resident of a member nation.
The spouse of an investor qualifying under Malta’s CIP can move and live across the entire EU. The children of a golden visa holder in Portugal can study, work, and live in any EU country.
Even the US, despite its status as the most developed economy in the world, does not offer this advantage to those opting for the EB-5 visa program.