Citizenship by investment

What you are actually buying

A citizenship programme grants nationality, not a residence permit. You get a passport, its visa-free access, and in most cases the right to pass that citizenship to your children. You are not required to move: the programmes compared here ask for no physical residence, or a few days over several years.

What it does not do is change where you are taxed. Tax residence follows where you live, not which passport you hold — the exception being the United States. That distinction is set out in full on our tax pages.

The two families of routes

• A donation to a national fund is money you never see again. It is the cheapest headline figure and the fastest file to process, because there is no asset to value.
• An investment — real estate, bonds, an approved business — can return your capital after a holding period, usually five to seven years. It costs more up front and carries the risk of the asset itself: an apartment bought at a programme-inflated price may not resell at that price.

Neither is better. The donation is a fee; the investment is a fee plus a bet. Use the filters below to see only the routes that match how you want to commit the money.

What to check before the price

Price is the last criterion, not the first. Check in this order: whether your nationality is accepted at all, whether the announced processing time matches what practitioners observe, what the programme demands of your family, and whether the country's programme is under political pressure. Malta shows why that last point matters — its investor citizenship route closed after a Court of Justice ruling, while its residence programme kept running.