Today the world is changing faster than it has ever before. New trends in technology are making these changes faster and more obvious. Lives of people are very different than in the past. We make money in different ways, leisure time is different for us, we see more of the world than our ancestors ever did. In the past mobility of people was very limited. People were born, they grew up and died within the circle of 50-100 km without ever going outside of it.
Today almost nobody in developed countries lives life like that. We travel a lot, we meet different cultures, we study and work abroad. More and more people refer to themselves as ‘’global citizens’’ rather than citizens of any country.
Opportunities that we have today are amazing! People who are international have very broad point of view, they are more experienced and often seem more educated than people who never travelled.
Most of my clients and friends are like that. These people realized the importance of seeing the world. Not just like tourists but way deeper than that.
Some of them would fall in love with a country and would decide to stay there for longer.
That has many advantages but also bunch of obstacles we tend to overlook when we fall in love with a country. One of the biggest is definitely bureaucracy – you need to get visa and residency permit. This is not very easy in most of countries, in some it’s close to impossible.
If you want to be able to live in a foreign country you would need to do one of the following things:
-Enroll in some kind of educational institution (such as university)
-Get working permit by your employee in a foreign country (usually very hard and stressful process)
-Get married
None of these options are simple and fast. I’ve seen multiple cases of people getting married ‘’for papers’’ just to be able to live in a country. Yes sure that it worked for some, but for others it was a living nightmare. Some of these people had serious issues because of such marriage – from blackmailing from their fictional spouse to being deported from a country. Plus it costed them lots of money and nerves. They expected a better life, but what they’ve got was far worse than they imagined. Not to mention that such marriage is not legal in most countries and can press serious charges against subjects if authorities find out.
It is very important to look at every side of the problem you are dealing with. You need to understand the situation well, you need to understand what your options are so you can act based on that.
Once you’ve moved into a foreign country it takes you years, sometimes even decades to actually get the passport of the country. This is something called naturalization. Assuming that you legally entered the country and that you lived in it legally, it will take you anywhere from 4 to 20 years to obtain their passport. Definitely not easy and fast.
In order to attract wealthy foreigners some countries made an easy solution – citizenship by investment. This means that you can skip bureaucracy and years of waiting and that you can get your passport in as fast as three months. Of course timing depends on the country you are interested in.
In order to do this you must invest certain amount of money in a foreign country. Needless to say EU countries that offer this program require higher amounts of invested money than countries in Caribbean for example.
Different countries have different regulations on how money needs to be invested – some countries allow buying property, some require investment in certain projects, some countries require that you simply donate money – but we will discuss this topic later in articles that are dedicated to each of these countries.
We will explain you how this process works in different countries who allow this type of program. We will compare different countries, their passports and requirements they have.
We will tell you what is possible and what is not.
Advantages of having another passport are huge.
Depending on the passport that you get you will be able to travel to multiple countries visa free, you will be able to do business abroad (if your home country prevents you from doing it, some businesses such as cryptocurrencies are quite tricky and laws change often), you will be able to get better education and healthcare, pay less tax, etc.
You will be one step closer to becoming a citizen of the world.
