Can your customers benefit from dual citizenship? Gaining citizenship or residency privileges is increasingly open to anyone who can make a significant economic contribution, often in the range of million dollars, to a specified country.
Why would your client want to consider obtaining dual citizenship or residency? Eric Major, CEO of Latitude Consultancy Ltd., a company specializing in “investment migration” services, offers five key ideas that fit well under the acronym SMILE.
- sSecurity: Yespolitical events, political instability, climate change, financial challenges, as well as civil disturbance such as wace recentlyin With mass protests in Canada, which which Frozen bank accounts may lead wealthy investors to think that “two passports may be better than one”. Chief them Ask a backup plan.
- MCapacity: DuryDuring the pandemic, many US citizens found their visa-free travel options halved, while a passport from One Caribbean countries would have providedEd Much better access. In fact, a Caribbean passport provides visa-free travel to 157 different countries.
- IInvestment Opportunity: an extra citizenshipProperty, unlike vehicles, jewelry or art, is for life and can be passed on between generations and is much more empowering as it helps a family to reshape the way future generations live, work and invest. Enables shaping.
- IEffestyle: In many countries, lifestyle, Hot wooether, Climate or pace of life or culture may be more favourable.
- Igold education IEmployment: Family members may wish access to education or employment opportunitiesdid May come with residency or citizenship.
Let’s say your client wants to search for citizenship or residence by investment. What will it include?
passport privileges
Let’s start with the cost of passport privileges. In some Caribbean countries, they can be obtained for a local investment of as little as $200,000, and include a family of four. The price depends on the country.
If they choose St. Kitts, they can travel visa-free to 157 countries, excluding the United States and Canada. A passport from Dominica would enable them to travel visa-free to 137 countries.
citizenship
Costs and residency requirements vary from country to country. Let’s take Malta as an example.
The investment requirement will be in the range of $1 million, with the entire process taking 14 to 16 months.
However, once your client’s family has acquired Maltese citizenship, it will give them the right to live in France, own a villa in Spain, work in Germany, or move around Ireland. Citizenship in an EU country entitles them to the right to settle in all 27 EU member states.
how to do it
Applying for residency or citizenship begins with considerable paperwork.
The host country generally takes extensive precautions to ensure that the applicant is who they say is not participating in any nefarious activity and generally has a clean background. The applicant has to provide birth certificate, marriage certificate and banking information.
Depending on the country, there will probably be additional background checks. Part of the country’s goal in conducting background checks is that they want to avoid coming across people who put the country’s reputation at risk.
Typically, the paperwork and background checks take about three months. After approval, the individual or family is required to make the required investment in the host country. After a couple of weeks, if all goes well, they will get their passport.
Major has observed that the pandemic and recent geopolitical crises have fueled interest in “citizenship by investment”. Since 2020, they have seen a 700% increase in citizenship and residency inquiries from US citizens.
He is of the view that dual citizenship means being empowered and having options. No one knows what the world will look like five or ten years from now, but now may be a good time to take action. For many, it’s like a non-traditional insurance policy, which is better to have and not have than to need and not have. After all, it was not raining when Noah built the ark.
