Today we're exploring the difference between investing in a second passport and naturalisation, the two main pathways to citizenship, and by the end hopefully we can help make your decision on which country you’ll soon be calling home that little bit easier.
Moving overseas is complex and not something to be taken lightly, which is why we're here to assist you with the initial stages of planning your relocation. There are two main routes to citizenship which we mentioned above, investment and naturalisation, both of which are valid routes to a new passport, but both come with their own timelines, benefits and challenges. Let our article act as a guide for you to reference when making your decision.
Citizenship by investment
In short, you are able to fast track visa processes and times to citizenship in a number of countries across almost every continent in the world.
How?
By making an investment! This either comes in the form of a donation, real estate acquisition, or through business investment, following which you receive a visa which is typically renewable and grants you residency in the nation where you made your initial investment.
Following a period of between 6 months and 4 years of residency following your investment, depending on the nation you’ve chosen to invest in, there’ll come a time when you are able to apply for citizenship.
Seems easy, right? Well, it is. In essence, if you have the disposable capital assets to invest in these programs, it’s usually just some application forms and a relatively short waiting time, especially compared to the naturalisation alternative, but we’ll get onto that in a minute.
Naturalisation
Now that we’ve covered the investment route to citizenship available to potential expats, it’s important to provide the benchmark to let you make your mind up as to which route to a second passport is best suited to you.
So, what is this benchmark? Put simply, it’s called naturalisation.
What does naturalisation mean then? Well, in essence, it is the process of becoming a citizen of a nation through time spent in the country, no investment required.
However, just because there is no investment included as part of the application for residency, there are things like real estate to consider, as wherever you end up you’ll need a place to stay, which is where investment programs come in handy as the investment itself in some cases can be a house.
Anyway, regarding naturalisation, this time spent living in a nation, typically 5 to 10 years, will definitely provide you an opportunity to make sure you are happy with your decision to be abroad, without having parted ways with hefty investment amounts.
While these different pathways leave a lot of questions for you to answer, we’re here to help you every step of the way, and hopefully the comparison we’ll get to in a minute will be useful too.
So, which route should I take?
In short, despite the massive difference between the pathways on offer to reach citizen status in a different country, the principal distinctions are the price points and timespan.
So, if you’re deciding between how your relocation should look, it’s all about finding the balance in your priorities between how fast your second passport can get into your hands matters, and the amount of money you’re willing to invest to speed that time up.
Luckily, there are a number of different opportunities, and many more in the works, all of which approach the idea differently, offering new benefits and different prices, allowing a wider audience of investors to consider the citizenship by investment pathway and avoid long naturalisation times.
So, if you are interested in finding out more about the pathway to citizenship overseas through investment or naturalisation, as well as other opportunities to develop your business, contact us today! Below this article, you will find a link to set up a free fifteen-minute consultation with us to discuss your options further.
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