You Can (Still) Buy Residence Permits
There are several ways to obtain citizenship of a country. As well as simply being born there or being the descendant of one of its citizens, nations allow permits through marriage, adoption or naturalisation – the latter of which is based on an application-related executive decision.
By investing a certain amount of money, it becomes possible to obtain citizenship without bureaucratic hurdles. “Golden visas“, i.e. residence permits granted in exchange for investments in the economy, still exist in several other EU countries. While this practice was recently abolished in Portugal and Ireland, Spain, Greece, Cyprus and Malta, among others, still grant residency rights in exchange for economic investments.
Worldwide, the first CBI programs were launched in the 1980s on a few Caribbean islands, and some of them are still active there today. European non-EU countries that offer CBI include Montenegro and Turkey.
