Applications Worth EUR 1.5 Billion Pending For Cyprus CIP Following Last-Minute Deluge of Filings
In the 18 days between announcing the program’s suspension on October 13th and the application deadline on November 1st, Cyprus’ CIP received an additional 105 citizenship applications from main applicants and 311 concerning dependents, the country’s Interior Ministry confirmed today.
The minimum outlay for an application that doesn’t include a spouse or any children is EUR 2.22 million, which, multiplied by 105, would equate to some 235 million euros. Since the vast majority of applications include more than one individual, average capital outlays are closer to EUR 2.3 million, which would imply that, during the final half of October, applicants submitted cases worth close to EUR 250 million, or about EUR 14 million euros a day.
The Ministry is now in possession of 691 pending citizenship applications from main applicants and 722 from dependents. Those 691 applications are worth an average of about EUR 2,245,000, implying the program now has pending applications that, if approved, would raise more than 1.5 billion euros.
Cyprus’ attorney-general this week appointed a panel that will recruit 24 lawyers, accountants, and economists to work on a six-week probe of the alleged CIP-related misconduct of prominent Cypriot politicians and service providers, an investigation instigated by the now-infamous Al Jazeera video report series.
Earlier this week, the attorney general and the auditor general had an inimicable and public exchange of words after the former denied the latter access to government files relating to 18 specific naturalizations. The two public authorities are conducting separate probes into the matter. On this occasion, the attorney general’s investigation appears to have taken precedence over that of the auditor-general; on Wednesday, the two issued a joint statement in which the auditor-general appeared to reluctantly concede to the attorney general’s request that he wait his turn to obtain the files.
Christian Henrik Nesheim is the founder and editor of Investment Migration Insider, the #1 magazine – online or offline – for residency and citizenship by investment. He is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, documentary producer, and writer on the subject of investment migration, whose work is cited in the Economist, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, Newsweek, and Business Insider. Norwegian by birth, Christian has spent the last 16 years in the United States, China, Spain, and Portugal.