Relocate abroad via a citizenship-by-investment program
Do I dare to move to a foreign country? Should I do that? How can I relocate abroad? Should I take my family with me straight away or settle down first? Should I plan to live in a foreign state until the end of my life? These are the questions that a great number of people ask themselves today. The world is becoming larger day after day and moving around is much easier now than it used to be before.
The most optimal solution of the relocation problem would be to make use of one of the possibilities to acquire permanent residence permit or even full citizenship in a foreign country in exchange for investment into its economy. Currently, there are several options to choose from and with many of them, you can obtain a second passport without ever leaving the comfort of your home. The availability of this opportunity is especially valuable in the times of the coronavirus pandemic.
If you have already made up your mind to acquire a second citizenship by investment, please apply for a free consultation on this matter by sending a request to [email protected]. We will help you choose the most appropriate destination.
When is the best time to relocate abroad? In most cases, the correct answer is ‘As soon as possible’. If you have started thinking of changing your country of residence, please do not take too long to make the ultimate decision. As this thought has settled in your mind, it is the right thought. Start acting on it now!
Relocate abroad via a citizenship-by-investment program: Do not put off until tomorrow what you can do today
We realize that this phrase sounds trite but this is good advice. You have probably made a shortlist of possible countries you could move to and reside there permanently. Do not wait for too long and make the first step straight away. The sooner you start the relocation process the more chances for success you will have. Relocating does not happen overnight if your brain works properly.
The most secure relocation method is acquiring a permanent residence permit or full citizenship of a foreign country by bringing some money there. Several national citizenship-by-investment programs offer the possibility to obtain a second passport after buying a piece of real estate in the country. Other such programs allow investing into business in the country thus acquiring foreign citizenship. Many national states offer a choice of several investment options each of which will lead to citizenship acquisition.
It does not really matter if you are young or old: people of all ages relocate to foreign countries. Retirees seek a comfortable climate and a less expensive lifestyle, youngsters look for wider opportunities, and middle-age entrepreneurs want to take their business companies to a new stage…
Whether you are 20 or 70 years of age, you should not only plan to move abroad. Follow the call and start doing what it takes to find a better place of living right now. Things change all the time and they always will. Instead of standing on the shore, dive in and start swimming. If you can swim, you will not sink but get out of the water at a nicer shore.
Relocate abroad via a citizenship-by-investment program: Plans vs. flexibility
After several decades of living in a foreign country, few expats will say that this is exactly the place where they initially intended to live. Not many of them will say that this is exactly the lifestyle they were looking for when they left their home countries. Remember that when you decide to move abroad, your journey is only started. Be prepared to end up not where you had expected but in a better place instead.
Do not plan your life abroad thus far. When you leave, you will have great chances to look around and see everything with your own eyes. If you allow yourself to be flexible, you will be able to find the best opportunities, those that you did not know of before. If you stick to you initial plans in a strict manner, your vision is going to be limited. You might miss some great opportunities. Be prepared to change your views as the circumstances change. Let one step lead to the following step and keep on moving until you find peace of mind.
Of course, you have to answer some basic questions before you ‘hit the road’ and move to a foreign country. You have to know how you should start the process even though your initial plans are going to change in all likelihood.
Would you like to live at a luxury resort complex on the shore of the Caribbean Sea? Maybe you would like to reside on Costa del Sol in Spain? Or maybe you want to settle down in a Portuguese village? We would be happy to assist you in finding a nice abode in any of these places and many others.
Would you like to live in an expat community or integrate with the local society? Are you prepared to learn a new language? Do you want to go back home often to see your family? Do you need a source of income? Would you like to avoid putting all the eggs in one basket and diversify your financial and other assets?
How would you like to spend Friday nights and Sunday afternoons? What view would you like to find when you look out of your bedroom window in the morning? Would you like to watch the sunset?
These are important questions to answer and, of course, you have to weigh all pros and contras. But please do not allow your initial plans and ideas to pressure you: you will have to adapt to the new environment anyway and you cannot be sure what you will find in a foreign country until you have lived there for some time.
When you make the first shot, you may well miss the target. You may find that your new place of residence has some drawbacks you could not have thought of. Well, if this is the case, you will have to make another shot that will hit the target!
Flexibility is the key when it comes to moving abroad. There is no right nor wrong way to relocate: there is a way that suits you best. Give it some serious thinking, use the experts’ advice and get going!
Relocate abroad via a citizenship-by-investment program: How living abroad can enhance your sense of self
In the perpetually globalizing world, the number of people who prefer to work or study abroad is constantly growing. The sociological research has shown that the experience of living in a foreign country increases creativity, decreases in-group favoritism (one of the cognitive biases that we all are susceptible to), and contributes to the career development.
The American Psychoanalytical Association tested the hypothesis that living abroad improves self-perception and psychological well-being. 1,874 respondents were questioned part of them living outside their home countries and the other part staying were they were born. The results confirmed the correctness of the hypothesis and showed that emigration also helps fight stress and improves work performance.
When you live in the country of your birth, you are surrounded by people who have the same culture and employ the same behavioral patterns. This should actually make you wonder if your habitual behavior reflects your personal values or the values of the society that you are used to living in.
On the other hand, when you immerse into a new culture, you have a chance to reassess your values and habits because you have to interact with people who have worldviews that are different from your own. This practice can reassure you about your outlook or, on the contrary, it can make you change your mind about certain things.
Another interesting result of the research mentioned above was as follows. Those who had thought about moving to another country showed better clarity of thinking than those who had never had this idea. You can sometimes hear that dry bread at home is better than roast meat abroad but conventional wisdom is often a poor advisor.
Relocate abroad via a citizenship-by-investment program: ‘Golden visa’ or ‘Golden passport’ as the starting point of your journey
There are dozens of countries in the world that offer permanent residence permits or even full citizenship to the foreigners who purchase real property there. This opportunity is in high demand indeed, as wealthy people look to acquire more freedom of movement and to diversify their assets.
Naturally, you will be worried when investing into real estate abroad because you do not know the local market nor the developer nor the quality of the building. It may look as if the obvious solution of this problem was going to the country as a tourist before moving there for good. This is not enough, however. You have to use the assistance of an experienced professional such as Offshore-Pro Group, for example, who knows all the good things to take advantage of as well as all the pitfalls to avoid when relocating to a foreign country.
So, where should you invest? Most experts will agree that the Caribbean basin is the best place where you can buy residential accommodations while acquiring a second passport. Five countries in this region run citizenship-by-investment programs that offer the optimum balance between the price and the number of advantages that you can use becoming a citizen of a Caribbean country. You can find brief information about all the five programs if you follow this link.
In the Commonwealth of Dominica, for instance, luxury accommodations in resort complexes are for sale. Cabrits Resort & Spa Kempinski Dominica has recently been added to the list of the development projects that the Government of the country approves for the participation in the citizenship-by-investment program. The minimum required investment amount in Dominica is US$ 200,000.
Another popular destination is Grenada whose passport gives visa-free access to Schengen countries, Great Britain, and China. In addition to that, Grenadians qualify for an E2 visa to the United States. This is a non-immigration visa but it entitles the holder to live and work in the USA as long as he or she desires. The minimum required investment amount in Grenada is US$ 220,000 and the choice of accommodations is sufficient.
There are also European countries that offer citizenship to foreigners in exchange for investment. You can purchase property in Cyprus, for example, and become a citizenship of the state. The required investment amount, however, exceeds 2,000,000 EUR but the Cypriot passport gives access to the majority of the world states.
The possibility to return the investment later while keeping the citizen status is what makes citizenship-by-investment programs especially attractive. Depending on the country, you can sell the property back after three to seven years and keep the passport. On the other hand, if you buy a luxury suite on a paradise island, you may never want to sell it but live there instead or at least spend your vacations there.
Relocate abroad via a citizenship-by-investment program: A second passport as statelessness insurance
When you acquire a second passport, you protect yourself from the risk to become a stateless person or an apatride, among other things.
The Governments of the states that offer citizenship by investment as well as immigration agents that promote this opportunity most often emphasize the economic security that the holder of a second passport obtains. But what about political security? In particular, you should not forget that becoming a stateless person is far from impossible in the modern world.
Citizenship as we know it is the product of the Westphalian Treaty of 1648. At the same time, statelessness is a relatively new phenomenon.
The person who is not a citizen of any country is actually a person without any rights and freedoms. He or she is totally unprotected in social, judicial, political, and all other terms. If you think that there are very few stateless people in the world, you are mistaken, we are afraid.
Protests against depriving people of their citizenship continue but the practice remains in place anyway. The estimated number of people who are citizens of no country is about 12,000,000 today. These include Gypsies in the Balkans and indigenous peoples of Thailand that live in the border-straddling regions. In 1982, a new law was passed in Myanmar that made around a million rochinha people stateless overnight.
According to the UN Commissioner for refugees, millions of people are threatened by losing their citizenship at any moment in time. Uighurs, Indonesians of Chinese origin, Muslim Indians can wake up stateless one morning.
These examples show that the phenomenon of statelessness is nothing unique or out of the ordinary as the ‘Terminal’ movie, starring Tom Hanks, suggests. Just to remind you: the movie is about a refugee who is stuck at an airport during transit and who becomes a person without citizenship because his home country disintegrated while he was travelling.
Most often, statelessness occurs due to the change of national borders. However, this is not the only reason why a person can become stateless. Discrepancies in national legislations can also lead to the same sad result.
Let us give you a simple example. Imagine that a married couple are citizens of the country where Ius Soli (citizenship by the soil) is applied. They go to live to another country where Ius Sanguinis (citizenship by the blood) is applied. If their child is born in the second country, he or she does not qualify neither for the citizenship of his/ her parents’ home country nor for the citizenship of the country of his/ her birth. Thus, the child is a stateless person.
Besides, some people may happen to be unhappy about their home country citizenship. A citizen of any country has rights but he or she also has obligations and some of these obligations may appear too burdensome.
For example, US citizens are taxed on their worldwide income. Some Americans who earn money outside the United States are frustrated by this requirement. They do not use their home country infrastructure, they do not take loans from American banks, they receive no support of their business from Uncle Sam whatsoever but they still have to pay him money!
Of course, losing the US citizenship and becoming stateless is not an acceptable option. But buying a second passport and then renouncing the US citizenship is not a bad idea from the mercantile point of view. Many countries that have citizenship-by-investment programs tax their citizens only on the income generated within the geographical borders of these countries.
A second passport does not come cheap. You cannot purchase citizenship of a foreign country for less than US$ 100,000. This price is obviously unaffordable to most stateless people but in case you can afford a second passport, you should give this opportunity some serious consideration. For economic or for political reasons, buying foreign citizenship may be a very good idea.
Relocate abroad via a citizenship-by-investment program: Some concluding remarks
Moving to a foreign country means starting a new life. If you have been thinking about this possibility, then you are not completely satisfied with your present country of residence. So go ahead and relocate!
There are countries with better climate conditions. There are those with wider business opportunities. There are places where people are friendlier. There are national states whose Governments are more sympathetic to the residents. There are many new realms to explore.
You have a large number of countries to choose from. Some of them require that you live on their territories and own property there for a few years before you can apply for citizenship. Others will grant you full citizenship within a couple of months and will not even make you pay a visit there. There are paradise islands in the Caribbean. There is Vanuatu in the Pacific. There are Portugal, Malta, and Cyprus in Europe… The choice is yours.
Every country has its own pluses and minuses. Every one of them charges different prices for the passport. Every probable immigration destination has its own rules and its own choice of immigration routes. But all these countries offer something valuable that your current country of residence does not have.
We have helped a great number of people relocate to various national states via citizenship-by-investment programs and we will be happy to assist you in this endeavor. Please write to us to [email protected] and after we find out what exactly your needs are, we will recommend the best options to you and guide you through the procedure of applying for citizenship of a foreign country.