BRICS, NATO and the Commonwealth give citizens of their member countries no right to live or work in another member country. That right comes from blocs like the European Union and Mercosur, so the best citizenship in each power alliance is from a country in one of those blocs.
Foreign specialists on Kazakhstan’s professions list can apply for permanent residence without proof of financial solvency. A draft order would more than triple that list, though the new list is not yet on the government portal.
El Salvador is the only government that takes Bitcoin or USDT as the qualifying payment for citizenship. Almost every other program wants cash, so the due diligence on where your crypto came from decides your application.
Philip J. Pierre and Gaston Browne told EU Commissioner Magnus Brunner that citizenship by investment finances development in the Eastern Caribbean. Saint Lucia’s account of the meeting announced no change to the June 2028 phase-out date.
Paraguay admitted more than 6,500 permanent residents in 2024 and issued 45 naturalization resolutions. Brazilians took the most permits. Argentines took the most citizenships. The two lists have pointed in opposite directions for a decade.
Canada, Australia, and the UK all call their status “permanent,” then take it back if you leave too long. A short list of countries actually mean it. Here is where permanent residence survives indefinite absence, and where it doesn’t.
A tax treaty settles dual residence by applying its tests one at a time, starting with where you have a home available. Each treaty sets its own order, and some differ from the OECD Model. If the treaty picks the other country, Canada treats you as having left, and the UK and Australia do not.
Malaysia’s tourism minister has asked the Immigration Department to increase checks on MM2H participants who do business without permission. MOTAC lists business as permissible only on the Platinum tier, which made up 46 of the program’s 3,172 approvals in 2025.
Every route to citizenship has two timelines: the one its nationality law sets and the one the queue adds. Across eight routes, the second is where the surprise lives.
All five Eastern Caribbean citizenship by investment programs face a 30-day presence rule that has not started. Most in-person steps in force today, including biometrics, interviews and oaths, can be completed abroad. Vanuatu and Antigua and Barbuda are the exceptions.
IMI found no published bank rule refusing people who acquired citizenship through investment. The questions banks do ask come from the OECD’s list of potentially high-risk programs and a 2023 report on earlier passports.
Every citizenship by investment program can take back what it granted. The grounds are wide and rest on a minister being satisfied. The procedure decides whether you can fight a revocation, and the time you get to answer varies from seven days to 60.
Tax residence is a separate test from immigration status, and only Argentina and Hungary write a permit into it. For every other country on this list, your wealth tax bill turns on days present and on where your assets are.
Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and El Salvador each publish a restricted list, and no two of them name the same countries.
A child born after the parent’s citizenship by investment grant is named in no application. Whether that child is a citizen, and what it costs, is decided by 14 nationality laws, not 14 programs. Ten make the child a citizen at birth. Four make the family apply and pay a second time.
Eight years would place Ireland above the five-year figure used by Germany, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Luxembourg. The Justice Minister confirms that applicants four years into the current five-year clock will face the higher bar.
The UK’s third-biggest taxpayer is reportedly switching his residency to Greece and opening an Athens office. Greece charges new tax residents a flat 100,000 euros a year on all foreign income, whatever they earn, for up to 15 years.
From a $70,000 Paraguay investment to a $1,000 Panama pension, six paths to a livable Plan B residency, all for under $100,000.
The markets paying the most rent are often the hardest to buy into, and the easiest ones to enter pay least. Where gross yield and foreign ownership rules overlap.
The “anchor baby” label promises parents an immigration shortcut most countries never deliver. A US-born child cannot sponsor a parent until age 21. A small group of countries, led by Brazil, works differently, granting the foreign parent immediate residency and a faster path to citizenship.
