Ever wanted a second, third, or fourth passport?
Well, it's actually an easy thing to do as long as you've got the cash, by making and posting videos, I'll be talking about citizenship by investment and giving you an introduction into becoming a global citizen. But before I get started, if you find this information helpful, please do like, and comment, it's very helpful for us.
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Most people have one-citizenship and it's often the country that they were born in. If you are like me, the lucky ones, you might have multiple, I have two passports, but for most of us thinking about a stack of passports may seem like some James Bond secret agent stuff. From the start, I've mentioned that this BLOG is going to be about finance and freedom, and we've spoken a little bit about finance so far,
Obviously it's a really big topic so we're gonna be unpacking it over months and years.
And now, we're gonna be starting to talk a little bit about the freedom side of things because these two things they go together so beautifully. Ultimately, so many of us strive for the ultimate freedom, being as free as possible, being able to travel wherever, live wherever, essentially have the world as your oyster, something that I believe is a human right.
I'm not going to give you a long list of reasons why you might want a second passport.
I'm sure you already know a lot of them for yourself, but if you don't know, let me kick-start imagination,
freedom of movement, better opportunities,
lower taxes, better lifestyle,
to escape persecution, the list goes on.
For me, it's absolutely about freedom. One of the greatest gifts that my parents ever gave me was multiple passports.
I was born in Australia and so I get a passport, and then Polish is my lineage, I haven't done anything for it and I'm not obsessed with my countries, I'm not patriotic as such, I love aspects of these countries, of course, I'm very grateful that I was born in Australia, one of the freest, it's a country with a great lifestyle, but I personally resonate with having the world as my home. And I know that sounds really hippy, but there are so many opportunities to be had, so many great conversations, so many great people to meet,
so much love to be shared all over the world,
and it might not be the country where you were born in.
So, that's why having multiple passports means ultimate freedom to me, but I think the reason
so many people are intrigued by this concept is to have a backup plan because you might not be happy with what's happening in your own country.
Unfortunately, the problem is that for most people getting a second passport is actually quite difficult. In some instances, claiming your citizenship by ancestry is actually quite doable
for most people depending on the country, but otherwise it is tricky and in the future,
I will be doing videos about getting citizenship by descent and naturalization, and so forth.
However, in this video, we're specifically talking about citizenship by investment, CBI.
And, it's interesting how few people actually know that this exists and that's why I'm here
to shed light on this information (chuckles).
But I did mention that this is a little bit tricky only
because you do require some capital behind you in order to make this happen.
So, even if this doesn't apply to you right now because of your financial situation,
I think it's something to definitely keep in mind and know about, and know how it works
so that when you have set up your finances really well, thanks to the help of this channel, maybe then you can make this dream also come true.
Firstly, though, just to clarify, what is citizenship by investment,
essentially it is acquiring a passport or a citizenship simply by making some sort
of financial contribution to the country. And oftentimes, these funds are used in order
to develop the nation, it is also a way for nations to acquire high tax-paying citizens.
Now, whether you agree or disagree with this concept and citizenship by investment, it looks like it's here to stay and it's probably going to become more popular
in the future, so let's talk about some ways of how to acquire citizenship by investment right now.
The cheapest of these programs, and I say cheapest in relative terms compared
to the rest of these strategies, is to invest in programs that are happening in the small nations in the Caribbean. Some examples of these countries include Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Grenada. For a lot of people that are looking for CBI programs,
this is often the very first place they look. Starting at around $100,000 for a single person
or 150,000 to $200,000 for a couple or a family, you are able to be granted citizenship these small nations in a matter of months.
As a massive caveat before you start the CBI process, you absolutely want to double check whether
or not your nation that you're acquiring is going to ask you to renounce your citizenship that you already have.
There are some nations that do this. However, this one at the time of recording, the Caribbean nations do not require you to give up your existing citizenship. It allows you to have multiple citizenships which is exactly what we want. An extra perk of being a citizen of these Caribbean nations is that you get visa-free travel to all of Europe as well as other places in the world, which is awesome.
Final reason a lot of people look to these Caribbean nations is because of tax reasons.
As I've mentioned many times on this channel, there are legally many ways of reducing your tax.
So, whether you like this strategy or not, it's there so you might as well know about it.
For example, as a citizen of Saint Kitts, there is actually a 0% personal income tax
at the time of recording and there's also no wealth tax and no personal gains tax in most cases.
So yes, all in all these Caribbean nations, they are a really good choice if you want to get a second passport or third passport, or fourth passport as fast as possible.
The downside of having a passport in these nations is that you are literally just giving the money away, like (mouth popping) gone (chuckles).
There are different strategies which I'm about to talk about, but in this case, it is just money donated. And you'll never see that again, but you do trade it for an awesome extra passport.
There are some higher price options of becoming a citizen of some of these nations, which includes buying bonds for up to half a million dollars which you can withdraw later, but it definitely does tie up your money.
There are other nations though where you don't have to have your money tied up
and you actually invest and get something in return, not just a passport, which is already amazing, but for example, in Turkey, you can buy a property for around the value of $250,000 U.S. And, that essentially grants you the ability to apply through a process and then become, potentially, a citizen of the country. And, best deal, within three years, you are able to sell that and still retain your citizenship.
Malta and citizenship via investment
I do wonder how many people's minds are getting blown right now and there's more to come.
I hope yours is because there's more possibilities is opening up, and if so, do you let me know down in the comments below, I think the interesting thing about the CBI programs is that a lot
of people probably assume, presume, that the programs are just for developing nations only which is very far from the truth. For example, in countries like Malta, you can become a citizen for an investment of around 650,000 euros, the reason Malta is so interesting and intriguing for a lot of people is because it is a member of the EU.
AKA Europe becomes your playground then because obviously the EU is an amazing space where you can travel freely and live freely amongst it all. The opportunities in this part of the world are endless. Let's step it up just one month and see what other countries have this citizenship by investment program.
Would you think of Austria as being one of those?
Probably not, but for a nice, easy sum of 3 million euros, you can become a citizen of Austria.
The reason why this acquisition is so interesting is
because the Austrian citizenship is one of the hardest to acquire full-stop.
And so, if you have this kind of cash lying around, it's kind of bragging rights that you
have an Austrian citizenship, but all in all, we're looking at around 15 countries worldwide
that have this citizenship by investment program.
However, depending on your current citizenship status, they might not all be worth it.
For obvious reasons, if you're a citizen of one of the European countries, Austria or Montenegro
or Malta might not be interesting to you at all. After all, in my opinion, having multiple passports
is for the benefit of freedom of movement and you already have that, then there's also the downsides of acquiring extra passports, which I did touch on before.
Let's expand on those because obviously there are downsides to almost everything in life.
So, we have to be aware of those as well. As I did mention before, there are some countries
that will require you to ditch your current citizenship in order to acquire the new one so you absolutely want to double check that because that might not be worth it to a lot of people.
And in some cases, you might end up having to pay tax twice because you hold two passports.
Most countries do have tax treaties to prevent this from happening, but not all countries,
so you definitely want to double check that, too. So as always, I am just here as an educator,
I am not a lawyer, I'm not advising you on anything, so you want to take this information and see what works for you and a lot of people might not feel so comfortable with the concept
of this citizenship being available to people in the world with cash.
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