Malta, Austria Have Best Citizenship, Residence Programs Finds Henley & Partners

In its fourth annual Global Residence and Citizenship Programs report, released today, Henley & Partners finds that Austria has bumped Portugal down to runner-up position and become the world’s best residence by investment program (RIP), while Malta retains its top spot as the world’s best citizenship by investment program (CIP).

According to a company press release, the world’s RCBI-programs “were evaluated by a distinguished panel of independent experts — including immigration and citizenship lawyers, economists, sovereign risk experts, and academic researchers — who took into account a broad range of factors pertaining to each program. The result is a global bird’s-eye view of the investment migration industry and a ranking of all the major programs on offer in both the residence and the citizenship sector.”

Matchless Malta 

At 79 points out of a possible 100, Malta citizenship program, the MIIP, remains primus inter pares, seven points ahead of its closest rival, Cyprus.

The report further noted that “European newcomers Moldova and Montenegro performed strongly, in 5^th and 6^th place respectively, mostly on account of their competitive pricing structure, minimal physical-visit requirements, strong transparency, and streamlined processing. St. Kitts and Nevis and Grenada slid slightly down the ranking as a result of these new entries but maintained strong scores of 61 (St. Kitts and Nevis) and 59 (Grenada). St. Lucia scored 57 and holds 9^th place overall. Dominica holds 10^th place.

Levantine laggards

At the very bottom of the CIP index were those countries that had no visa-free access to the Schengen countries.

“Middle Eastern newcomers Jordan and Turkey join the citizenship index at the bottom of the ranking, below Dominica, which has historically occupied bottom place. Jordan, in 11^th place, has a score of 51 out of 100, while Turkey, in 12^th place, has a score of 44.”

Austrian ascendancy

Heading the list of residence by investment programs is a rarely discussed central-European solution.

“Boasting a score of 79 out of 100, the Austria Private Residence Program has emerged as the world’s best residence-by-investment program, knocking Portugal off the top spot for the first time since the Global Residence and Citizenship Programs publication was launched in 2015. Now in 2^nd place, Portugal has a score of 77, while newcomer Italy has claimed 3^rd place, scoring 72.”

Several extremely popular residence programs received a lower rank due to their non-EU status (soon to be, in the UK’s case).

“The Thailand Elite Residence Program comes in at 4^th place, with a score of 68, and the UK Tier 1 Investor Immigration Program holds 5^th place, with a score of 67. The US’s EB-5 residence program only holds 8^th position on the ranking. In bottom place, Bulgaria’s residence program scored 42 points out of a possible 100. 21 residence programs in total were surveyed.”

See the detailed scores of each program in the gallery below. 

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