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How to Get Residency in 9 Post-Soviet States · IMI Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, 15 republics splintered off.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Three decades later, nine of them will sell you residency, and a few will even grant you citizenship.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: IMI has mapped all nine, from the Baltics to the Caucasus, to the Silk Road, to Moscow, so you can gauge for yourself which may be worth the time or money.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start on the Baltic coast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 and were first out the door when the Union broke apart.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: All three of those countries joined the European Union and NATO in 2004, and all three eventually adopted the Euro.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: So their investor roots are not really escape hatches, if that's what you're searching for.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: They are integration offers, residence permits that can lead to citizenship in the European Union.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Estonia went the furthest of anyone.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: After independence, it ran the region's most aggressive liberalization via flat taxes, wholesale privatization, and a digital government so complete that the country is now shorthand for e-governance.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Its immigration policy follows similar logic.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Capital is welcome, but it has to be productive.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: There was no citizenship by investment program here, nor a passive golden visa.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: The residence permit for major investors asks for at least 65,000 euros in share capital of an Estonian company, with a 1 million euro tier that speeds up processing and lifts you out of the annual immigration quota.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Shell structures are not permitted.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Citizenship takes eight years of residence and an Estonian language exam, and because Estonia does not recognize dual nationality, you would technically have to give up the citizenship or citizenships you currently hold.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Latvia has perhaps the most well-known option we'll discuss in this video: a true European Union Golden Visa, one of the region's earliest.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: The headline option is 50,000 euros into the share capital of a qualifying Latvian company, tied to that company's tax contribution and paired with a one-time state fee.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: There is no physical presence requirement, apart from a single entry per year, to re-register.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Latvia also lets you qualify through real estate, subordinated bank capital, or government bonds.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: If property is the route you're weighing, whether in Latvia or beyond, that is exactly the kind of call the members inside IMI Sovereigns work through together in our private investor community.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Membership comes with a global property scoreboard, a tool that scores real estate markets around the world across dozens of metrics, so you can sort and filter for whatever you care about most.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Link and a nice discount are in the description.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lithuania runs out the Baltics with the most openly entrepreneurial offer of the three.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was the first republic to break away from the Soviet Union, declaring independence a full year before the block formally ended.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Today its economy leans hard into FinTech and a startup scene centered in Vilnius.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: The capital route is the startup visa, a temporary permit for founders building innovation-driven businesses in the country.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: No minimum investment applies, but you need to show means of support of roughly 12,000 euros for the first year.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Lithuania also rejects dual nationality, so renunciation of whatever passport you arrived with is required.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's drop south from the Baltics to the Caucasus, where Georgia and Armenia never tried to join a block.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Both have become fixtures on Plan B shortlists precisely because entry requirements are minimal.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Georgia is one of the easiest places to do business, the product of a sweeping deregulation drive after its 2003 Rose Revolution.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Its property investor route grants a renewable one-year residence permit upon a real estate purchase, or multiple properties, worth at least$150,000, a threshold raised from$100,000 in early 2026.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Invest$300,000, and you get an immediate five-year permit covering your spouse and minor children as well.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: On tax, Georgia only levies taxes on Georgian source income, so foreign earnings remain untouched.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: The catch is political though, as Georgia earned EU candidate status in late 2023, but relations with Brussels have soured since, which leaves its European path genuinely uncertain.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: What its next-door neighbor, Armenia, sells is the near absence of friction.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: The permanent residency route for business owners and investors can be applied forward entirely remotely, has known minimum investment, and imposes no physical presence requirement.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But even if you relocate and become a tax resident, you still face no capital gains tax and no taxes on gifts, inheritance, or net worth either.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: For three decades, Central Asia was dormant when it comes to residency and citizenship by investment.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: That changed in the middle of 2025, when the region's two largest economies launched golden visas within weeks of each other, betting that capital headed for Dubai or Lisbon might look at Al Madi or Tashkent instead.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Kazakhstan's Golden Visa grants a residence permit valid for up to 10 years against an investment of at least$300,000 into the charter capital of local companies or into locally listed securities.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Real estate does not count, a deliberate choice to push foreign direct investment toward productive asset classes.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: The oft-forgotten and additional Astana International Financial Center route requires just$60,000 in securities on the Astana Exchange for a five-year visa, with tax residency available after only 90 days.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Uzbekistan spent a quarter century as one of the most closed economies in the former union before opening up significantly in 2017, a turn that has since pulled in more than$100 billion of foreign investment.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Its investor framework offers three tracks.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: A donation route grants a five-year permit for a$250,000 contribution to a state account, plus$150,000 for each family member.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: An investment route offers a three-year permit for roughly$250,000 in a local company, or a 10-year permit for$3 million in productive enterprises.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, a real estate route grants permanent residency at tiered thresholds, from$100,000 up to$300,000 in Tashkent.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Citizenship, though, is deliberately distant.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: At least five years of permanent residence, proficiency in Uzbek, and renunciation of every other nationality you hold.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: That leaves the two countries that never really separated from the former Soviet Union.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Russia and Belarus have been bound since 1999 in a formal union state with open borders, and since 2022, a shared position outside the Western and global financial systems.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Both now court new investor residents.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Russia entered this market in 2023.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Its golden visa grants permanent residency outright for a minimum of 15 million rubles with roots through business, real estate, and socially significant projects.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the terms are generous.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Family inclusion across five generations, a five-year path to citizenship, and after a late 2025 amendment, no physical presence requirement.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: To naturalize as a Russian citizen, you do have to pass a Russian language test.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uptake has been thin, though.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just 40 investors came through in three years against a government target of 300 to 400 a year, with potential and current sanctions cutting off much of the traditional market.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Curiously, Russia's other offer has done far better.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Shared Values Visa, launched in 2024, asks for no investment at all.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: It grants residence to foreigners who declare alignment with Russia's traditional values, and by mid-2025, it had pulled in more than 1,150 applicants, led by Germans, Latvians, and Americans, several times what the Golden Visa has managed in the same timeframe.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, Belarus may be about to become the most interesting name on this list.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Its investor residence permit grants permanent residency for roughly$200,000, through a local business investment, intellectual property rights, or a public-private partnership.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Holders, however, are expected to spend at least half the year in the country, and naturalization opens after seven years.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is where Belarus has recently become more interesting.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: In January 2026, Belarusian lawmakers advanced a draft law that would grant citizenship to qualifying foreign investors, with practitioners expecting approval within months.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: If it passes, it would be the first citizenship by investment program anywhere in the former Soviet space.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: But details since that bill was introduced have been scant.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: If what pulls you toward these places is the idea of getting in early, before a country's value and therefore its investment thresholds climb, you may also look at the Balkans in Eastern Europe.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Three countries there are somewhat close to European Union membership, and getting residency there before they join could grandfather you in.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: We cover exactly how in the video on your screen now.