Author: Prabhu Balakrishnan

The Hungarian government announced recently, that the residency bond program will be indefinitely suspended effective from April 2017.  The Hungarian Debt Management Agency (AKK) announced they and will stop issuing new residency bonds from March 31, 2017. Since the announcement, many anticipate there will be rush of people from China, Russia and other countries to apply for the bond program before…

St Lucia today announced that they have reduced the investment amount to  just $100,000 (previously was $200,000) by making amendments to their citizenship by investment programme effective from Jan 3, 2017. This move makes St Lucia compete with Dominica, Antigua for the cheapest passport program in the market for $100,000 dollars. Other citizenship programs running in Grenada…

Over the past couple of years, there has been a big demand for second passports and golden visas from nationals of several countries. According to Fortune, In 2014, the 1% of the global rich spent an estimated $2 billion acquiring nationalities. Many countries are cutting down debt through inflows from economic citizenship programs. In this IMF report…

Over 25 countries in the world offer an easy path to citizenship through property investment either directly or indirectly. The bigger the investment amount, the easier becomes path to citizenship. Caribbean nations grant fast track citizenship and passport against property investment. Cyprus offers citizenship  (EU) within 6 months, whereas Portugal, Spain or Greece, they require you to…

Grenada citizenship by investment programme is a newly launched CIP program in the caribbean. It is possible to become a citizen of Grenada by paying $150,000 plus fees within 2-3 months as this scheme has the fastest processing times. One of the very important key points that distinguishes Grenada from other citizenship programmes in the…

Global uncertainties arising from the Trump victory and Brexit have prompted the rich and wealthy to go on the run, looking for alternative second citizenships. This week a number of companies promoting investment citizenship schemes reported a surge in inquiries for second citizenships. Roughly two thousand years ago, Roman citizenship was sold to the rich…

Have you ever heard of buying a citizenship in an online store? If you havent, then wake up to the reality in the post Brexit and Trump world, there is even a website CitizenshipShop.com where you can shop for citizenships and golden visas of several countries online under one roof. Mr. Balakrishnan, founder of CitizenshipShop.com said “Never…

Which countries offer citizenship or residency through property investment? Over a dozen countries directly or indirectly give citizenship to foreign investors through property ownership.  The process requires purchase of a flat, land, luxury apartment, condominium or a limited share in a hotel room. Citizenship leads to passport. Citizenship in tiny islands of caribbean is a fast…

Portugal’s golden visa program, which generated over 2 billion euros seems to be on a decline.  Foreign investors can get residency in Portugal, provided they buy a property worth 500,000 euros. According to the statistics SEF Portugal immigration office, only 80 ARI residence permits were issued in August 2016 under golden visa scheme. Analysing the…