These Countries Will Sell You A Passport

This post was republished with permission from Zero Hedge

For people unhappy with their passport and with the right amount of spare cash hanging around, acquiring a new nationality that – for example – awards visa-free travel to more countries is possible. 

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, according to law firm Henley & Partners, a dozen countries around the world offer passports in exchange for investments and the large majority does not require applicants to move or even visit there.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The scheme is a way for small island states – mainly in the Caribbean – to receive some cash injections into their economies while sharing the wide-reaching visa-free travel priviledges their passports hold.

A passport from St. Kitts and Nevis, for example, offers relatively hassle-free entry to 154 countries, not far off from the world record held by Singapore at 193. Other so-called golden passport countries follow close behind, including Antigua and Barbuda at 152 countries, Grenada at 147, St. Lucia at 146 and Dominica at 143.

Outside the Caribbean, non-EU member North Macedonia has visa-free travel to 130 countries, Turkey to 114 countries and Nauru to 87 (at the lower rate of $130,000).

Larger nations which offer passports for investment, also including Egypt and Jordan, advertise additional benefits their citizenship-for-investment schemes can offer, for example ease of accessing local markets and trade routes.

Jordan and Turkey charge more than the $200,000 to $250,000 usual in Caribbean for this priviledge, while the Egypt investment stands at $250,000 also.

Malta, as one of only two EU countries offering citizenship-for-investment, has the most stringent rules, including a three-year residence requirement and a five-year investment period.

Austria, the second EU member included on this list, does not have set rules for its scheme, hinting at it being the hardest-to-acquire option.

Both nations also have residence-by-investment schemes, a more common occurance in Europe and around the world, where investors are given (permanent) resident status first before later potentially having a path to citizenship. With more countries participating, price ranges for residence-by-investment are wider, while the program is not necessarily cheaper.

European Union prices also reach as high as $500,000, while this is around $1 million in the United States (business founders only) and into several millions in the case of Singapore, New Zealand or Hong Kong.

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