Category Archives: Updates

Investment migration, in 2021, is a $25 billion-plus global industry. That’s big enough to get you noticed. It’s big enough to get you on the radar of powerful people like Ursula von der Leyen. It’s big enough to earn you a target on your back from global regulators and clicks-addicted media outlets. 

While Brussels can’t dictate to individual EU countries whom they naturalize, and how they do it, they can make life difficult for the countries offering Golden Visa programs. 

Continue reading at www.imidaily.com

Editor: Andre Bothma

Vijesti this evening reports that Montenegro’s citizenship by investment program, which by all accounts was set to expire tomorrow, has been extended for another year.

The Montenegrin Cabinet reportedly took the decision to extend during a meeting today, and also determined to implement some changes to the program’s terms:

Continue reading at www.imidaily.com

Editor: Christian Henrik Nesheim

Spain approved 232 golden visa applications (main applicants) in the first half of 2021, according to statistics released late last month. The figure represents a 43% increase on the preceding six months, during which 162 golden visas were issued. though still considerably below the same six months in 2020, when Spain was approving golden visas hand-over-fist thanks to its rule on “positive silence”.

Spanish law uniquely favors residency permit applicants by mandating that applications be either approved or rejected within a 20-day period, barring which an application is considered approved by default, or tacit assent (silencio positive). In the first half of 2020, as Spain was still reeling from the sudden onset of the pandemic and most government bureaus remained closed, a majority of applications went unaddressed and, consequently, ended up being approved by tacit assent.

Continue reading at www.imidaily.com

Editor: Christian Henrik Nesheim

During a meeting yesterday in Roseau, Dominica’s Prime Minister Skerrit and Chinese Ambassador Lin XianJiang signed a visa-waiver agreement between the two countries, making Dominica the second CBI-country (after Grenada) to gain visa-free travel to China for its passport-holders.

Dominicans can now travel to a total of 144 countries without arranging a visa in advance, including, as WIC News pointed out, four out of the world’s six largest economies (China, Germany, UK, and France).

Continue reading at www.imidaily.com

Editor: Christian Henrik Nesheim

I wrote an article back in June 2019 about the EUR 350,000 funds route being the next growth area for the Portuguese Golden Visa market. Back then, everybody was suspicious and thinking: ‘’What is Hakan saying?‘’

In reality, these were predictions based on experience. We are not from Portugal, but we have been managing investments for the last 20 years in multiple markets and have been noticing a pattern. Any FDI program based on citizenship and residency starts with real estate because it’s the low-hanging fruit. But then, after a couple of years, it opens the way to fund investments, real business investments creating jobs, and attracting capital into the capital markets.

Continue reading at www.imidaily.com

The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) – the European Parliament’s in-house research department charged with providing objective analysis and background material for MEPs – last week published a 159-page study on investment migration programs in the EU that aimed to explore “possible legal bases on which the EU could act to address” IM programs.

Note that the report is not a policy document; it should not be interpreted as representing any official position within the European Parliament. It aims merely to assist MEPs in their work and has no legislative bearing in itself.

Continue reading at www.imidaily.com

Speaking to IMI in an exclusive interview, Les Khan – CEO of the Saint Kitts & Nevis Citizenship by Investment Unit – reveals never-before-published details about the CIU’s blacklisting practices: What types of discounting is permitted, what is not, what exactly it takes to get blacklisted, and how market participants can report illegal practices to get firms blacklisted.

See the 3-minute highlight reel below, or watch the full 32-minute interview in the IMI Club Members’ Lounge.

Continue reading at www.imidaily.com

During her visit to Malta this week to approve a COVID-19 economic recovery package, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, responded to a question from the press regarding her position on citizenship by investment in the country:

“We have been discussing the topic of the ‘golden passport’ and that it is of utmost importance to stop that procedure because we should not forget that the ‘golden passports’ enable, potentially, the person to have access to 27 member states in the European Union.”

Continue reading at www.imidaily.com

In 2019, we analyzed the database of the RCBI Company Directory to understand which investment migration programs are the most commonly offered among firms globally.

Since then, the number of companies registered in our database has more than tripled in size, from just over 300 to just under 1,000 today. That considerable expansion of the sample size warrants another look at which program destination countries feature the most frequently on RCBI company shelves.

Continue reading at www.imidaily.com