Author: Prabhu Balakrishnan

  Dominica offers one of the best citizenship by investment programmes for families. It is also cheaper to apply as a family with three or more family members. All family members qualify for Dominica passports under CBI scheme.   There are two routes to qualify for citizenship in Dominica. One is EDF donation and other…

  Malta and Latvia offer the cheapest residency bond scheme in Europe, both of the residency schemes require EUR 250,000 purchase of Government stocks or bonds in exchange for residence permit. Hungary had similar residency bond scheme but it was closed in since 2017.   Residency bonds are nothing but purchase of Government guaranteed interest…

  The highly anticipated Moldova citizenship by investment program (MCBI) was officially launched at Global Residence and Citizenship Conference 2018 organized by Henley and Partners.   The officially website of Moldova citizenship by investment program was launched by Government: http://cbi.gov.md/.  CBI Agents can register for MCBI  program here   Launched in the second half of 2018, the…

Global growth of CBI industry is nearing 5 billion in 2018 and expected to more with more and more countries offering investor visas for investors. There are around 10 countries officially offering citizenship by investment for wealthy families and investors. Before you head on applying for CBI passport, what is known about these countries in terms of economy,…

  St Kitts and Nevis pioneered the idea of economic citizenship in 1984 and since then as many as 15 countries officially in 2018 have active CIPs running. In 18th century, a special citizenship-by-investment program prevailed in Scotland, a century before St Kitts started the idea, which continued long after the Union with England in the…

  Moldova and Montenegro announced their new citizenship by investment schemes in July 2018 and set to open officially for applications in Oct 2018.  Here are the comparison between the programs. Both the CBI programs should not be confused with each other. The main difference is Montenegro does not have a donation program. It has…

The Government of Montenegro, officially announced today, opening of new economic citizenship by investment program on Oct 1, 2018. The Montenegro Economic Citizenship  Program (MECP)  also known as ‘Special investment scheme’ offers foreign and non-EU persons citizenship by admission through a designated investment. The MECP scheme is capped to only 2000 applications and will run…

Antigua and Barbuda becomes the first country to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment for citizenship by investment program (CIP) On Monday July 23, the parliament of Antigua and Barbuda amended by resolution on Citizenship by Investment Programme Act to allow payments to be made in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.  The resolution also allows payments to be made…

  The Republic of Moldova has opened a new economic citizenship program granting citizenship to highly qualified foreign investors, who bring wealth, talent and highly qualified skills to Republic of Moldova Launched in Q2 2018, the Moldova Citizenship-by-Investment (MCBI) program is being developed by the Government of Moldova in partnership with its service provider Henley & Partners…

  In 2017, France received about 3.6 million uniform schengen visa applications, of which over 502,526 applications were refused.  Germany followed france in second place refusing about 150,000 visa applications, according the the visa statistics of the European union office.   The statistics also reveal.. Schengen States issued 14.6 million visas for short stays in…