2019 saw an increased demand for EU passport investments from South African nationals

Recent developments in South Africa, from recent explosion in violent crime to the military deployment in Cape Town to combat gang related crime, have prompted a growing number of South Africans to seek safe havens from the increasing violence of their home nation.

It’s a situation we’ve seen numerous times in the past few years, from locations as diverse as Iraq and Hong Kong. As geopolitical instability grows and uncertainty grows in the world’s hotspots, the number of enquiries we receive from these locations invariably grows.

The patterns are always the same, so the developments in South Africa during 2018 and 2019 are nothing new for us. 

Yet it is a sad fact that South African citizens looking to escape the increasing instability and uncertainty at home are largely “trapped by their passports’ relative lack of power on the global stage.” To put this into context, the South African passport is ranked 48th in the world, with visa-free access to just 102 nations, not including North America or the European Union¹.

This, in turn, is fueling an ever increasing number of people to actively seek out a second nationality in order to safeguard theirs and their families’ future. And with European Union citizenship as a perennial goal for South Africans, the various “EU passport by investment” programmes available throughout the Customs Union have gained a significant amount of attention in the past couple of years. 

While there are a number of options open to prospective emigrants, the “Cyprus Investment Programme” is by far the easiest, fastest, and most cost-effective means of obtaining a European Union passport through investment.

The benefits of Cyprus’ pathway to citizenship for foreign investors soon becomes clear, once the various available programmes are compared side-by-side.

For instance, should you seek to obtain Austrian EU citizenship, it will cost you a “contribution” of €10 Million. By comparison, Portugal offers a much cheaper route, with a required investment of just €350,000. While this is a bargain, on the face of it, Portuguese citizenship takes five years to obtain. On the face of it, the best option between cost and time-scale is Malta, with a required “contribution” of €1 Million and a “path to citizenship of 12 – 18 months.

However, the “contribution” required by the Maltese government in return for an EU passport is just that, a contribution. Once it’s been paid, it’s gone.

Cyprus, by contrast, allows investors to make an investment in return for the fastest path to EU citizenship anywhere in the Customs Union.

Foreign investors are required to invest €2.0 Million Euros into the nation, either in real estate, commercial entities, or financial assets (bonds, stocks, etc.) 75% of these investments may be liquidated after five years, at the investor’s discretion. The only part of the initial €2.0 Million that needs to be retained beyond this period is a permanent residence worth at least €500,000.

Added to the fact that citizenship (and an EU passport) can be obtained by investors after a period of just six to nine months following their initial application, it becomes clear why the Republic of Cyprus has demanded such a massive amount of attention from South African investors during the latter part of 2019 and the early stages of 2020.

Contact us today to see how we can help you achieve the security of an EUropean Union citizenship through the Cyprus investment programme.
¹ By comparison, the Cyprus passport is ranked #8, with visa-free access to 168 countries, including all 28 EU member states, as well as Canada.

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