On July 9, 2016, Times of Malta, reported, “Almost one in four applicants for Malta’s golden passport scheme are refused, official data seen by the Times of Malta shows. Around half the refused applications came from Russian nationals while the rest were from Chinese, Libyans, Indians, Ukrainians and Americans, among other nationalities.”
This means around 25% of the applications are refused under its Malta individual investor programme (Malta IIP).
Malta IIP, grants citizenship against an economic investment of 650,000 euros to Malta fund, 350,000 euro in property purchase and 150,000 euro in government bond. The purchase of real estate route is optional, many seem to take a cheaper way of renting a place for address registration in Malta, saving 350k euros. The total cost will come around 900,000 euro, yes it is way too cheap, compared to cyprus which is 2,0 to 5 million euros for EU citizenship. There were reports that over 1200 individuals applied for Malta residency since the start of the program from 2014 (Source: Malta Independent).
Malta is a schengen state, small country and there is a rush for number of people, to become a citizen of Malta through investment, and all that for EU golden passport, which opens access to UK and Europe without visa.
What many dont know is, if you have a shady past or dodgy background, not just Malta, no country would give citizenship, even if you are a billionaire tossing around money.
Malta has to protect the integrity of their country, along with the interests of 26 member states of the EU, and they will not give citizenship to anybody just like that. Only very reputable candidates of good moral character with clean criminal record and strong financial background are invited to apply for citizenship in Malta. Malta IIP enforces very strict background checks on all candidates applying for citizenship through independent detective agencies such as Interpol. If you lie or hide something in your application, they will find out the truth and will instantly refuse your application for citizenship. Have you received a visa denial? Just forget about Malta.
The following are the most common reasons for receiving refusal of economic citizenship from Malta
- Provide misrepresentation, false or concealed information in the application.
- Has a criminal record at home (paedophilia, defilement of minors, rape, violent indecent assault, prostitution, abduction, kidnapping etc)
- Pose as a potential national security threat to Malta or other member states in EU.
- Involved in Financial or economic fraud (embezzling funds).
- Red flag entry in SIS (schengen information system)
- If individual has Frozen assets or properties in the EU.
- Involved in any activity likely causing disrepute to Malta
- Denied a visa to a country with which Malta has visa-free travel arrangements (EU, USA, UK etc) and has not subsequently obtained a visa to the country that issued the denial.
- Involved with financial transactions in OFAC sanction countries
- Assisting enemy at war.
- Deported from USA, UK or EU member states.
- Tax evasion.
- Failure to satisfy health checks.
- Failure to meet IIP rules with investment, and satisfy residency requirements.
iip.gov.mt, says “The names of all persons who will have acquired Maltese citizenship in any particular year are published in the Government Gazette only once in that year.”
The problem with Malta is, those who receive citizenship under IIP rules, their names are made public in Malta Government Gazette every year . There is no real privacy despite investing so much money. The gazette publishes names in general, all those who are naturalised and received citizenship, but the list does not explicitly mention who got citizenship under IIP, which is good news, as the publication does not discriminate between rich and poor.
Cyprus is a much better program that Malta, only if you have over 2.5 million euro and we recommend cyprus to clients, as their rejection rates are very low.
You may reach out to me for private consultation for Malta or Cyprus. Please contact me below.
