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14 Countries That Have Proposed Citizenship by Investment Programs · IMI Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Governments announce citizenship by investment programs far more often than they launch them.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: In the last six years, at least fourteen countries have publicly floated, drafted, or legislated plans to offer citizenship in exchange for investment, yet only a handful appear close to opening their doors.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Industry veterans understand the gap between political rhetoric and operational programs.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: As Sam Bayet of Bayot Legal Services has observed, quote, anyone can set up and advertise a program, but running a successful CIP and attracting a high volume of applicants are different issues, end quote.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: What follows is a country by country account of where these plans stand, from the one nation that has confirmed a 2026 launch to those whose ambitions remain little more than a press release.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is the only country on this list with a confirmed launch date.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Newly elected Prime Minister Godwin Friday announced in December 2025 that his government would open a CBI program in 2026, calling it a critical economic pillar for a nation carrying nearly$1 billion in public debt.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: The path here was long and politically charged.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: For over two decades, former Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves rejected CBI on ideological grounds, arguing such programs lacked sustainability and could not form the basis for economic development.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Friday's New Democratic Party had promised a CBI program since at least 2018, with its leader calling the absence of one almost criminal.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: A May 2025 survey found 62% of Vincentians supported the idea, and 81% preferred jobs through a CBI supported economy over unemployment.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Deputy Prime Minister Major St.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Clair Leacock has since outlined a multi-institutional oversight framework, citing Grenada's recent reforms as a model.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: He described the program as an important contributor to the economic transformation that must and will take place.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: The launch arrives at an inopportune moment.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: The United States recently suspended visa privileges for Antigua and Barbuda and Dominica over their CBI operations, and the EU has asked Caribbean programs to work toward discontinuation or face visa suspension.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Friday has acknowledged these tensions but maintains he doesn't believe these developments are a death knell for such programs.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Argentina formalized its CBI program through Decree five hundred twenty four twenty twenty five, which the government gazetted in July 2025.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: The decree establishes the legal framework and procedural requirements for foreign investors to obtain Argentine citizenship through economic contributions, creating the Agencia de Programas de Ciudadanía por inversion, referred to as APCI, as a decentralized body within the Ministry of Economy.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: The initiative moved from announcement to official approval in under two months, reflecting the Millet administration's prioritization of the project.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: President Javier Millet's government first revealed the plans in May 2025, with initial reports citing a$500,000 investment minimum, though no binding thresholds appear in official documents.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: In December 2025, the Ministry of Economy published a formal tender, No.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: 34-0001-CPU25, for a four-year consulting contract to design, implement, and operate the program.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: The winning consultancy will build Argentina's entire CBI architecture from scratch, including investment thresholds, roots processes, and global rollout.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Bid submissions closed on January 20, 2026.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Government officials project the initiative will process up to 5,000 favorable recommendation reports during the initial contract period, with a volume-based termination clause requiring that the master agent secure at least 200 approvals by month 24.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: We do not know the program details yet, but we do know it is coming.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Nigeria's House of Representatives passed a CBI bill in April 2025, marking the first concrete legislative action on CBI from Africa's largest economy.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Whether the Senate will take up the bill and on what timeline remains unclear.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Nigeria already ranks among the investment migration industry's fastest growing outbound markets.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: More than 1,000 Nigerians inquired about foreign citizenship through Henley and Partners in a single year, a figure the firm's head of marketing called unheard of.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: An inbound Nigerian CBI program would represent an entirely different proposition.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Nigerian passport provides limited mobility, and the country's appeal as a CBI jurisdiction would hinge on factors well beyond visa-free travel.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Tonga ran one of the Pacific's most emblematic CBI programs during the 1980s and 1990s, a period many have described as the region's wild west of passport sales.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: The king authorized the sale of over 7,000 passports, raising some$26 million.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Authorities ultimately shuttered the program after the proceeds vanished in a series of disastrous investments, including a scheme involving life insurance policies for the terminally ill.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now the Pacific Kingdom appears poised for a second attempt.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: In December 2025, Lord Fatafehi Fakafanua, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and a candidate in that month's prime ministerial election, publicly endorsed a leaked CBI proposal reportedly designed by Henley and partners.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Under that proposal, single applicants would pay$190,000, while families of two to four would pay$220,000 as non-refundable contributions.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Fakafanua said that he aimed to introduce, quote, a potential solution to the government's over-reliance on aid dependency, budget deficit, and lack of foreign investment opportunities, end quote.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: He acknowledged the political sensitivity of the term passport sale given Tonga's history, but insisted the new proposal differs from past attempts, citing safeguards such as multilayer vetting, government-controlled fund deposits, and revocation mechanisms for fraudulent applications.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Fukafanua went on to become Tonga's new prime minister, placing the CBI proposal's chief advocate in the country's top office.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Time will tell if he follows through on his promise.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Prime Minister Eddie Rama first declared in November 2019 that a CBI program was the right way and something we have to do.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: By 2020, the government had established the Special Citizenship Programs Drafting Agency, and by August 2022, it approved a public-private partnership decision to engage an international firm for program promotion.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Bledar Skenderi, director of the agency, characterized the program's progress as the beginning of the establishment of Albanian CBI.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: He emphasized that processing, vetting, and passport issuance would remain the government's exclusive responsibility.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: The European Commission has repeatedly warned Albania to refrain from opening such a program, calling CBI incompatible with EU accession.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Albania has dismissed these warnings.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Skenderi pushed back directly.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Quote, the EU says that European values are not for sale.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, 100,000 people enter France without being verified, end quote.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: As of early 2025, the Commission reiterated its opposition.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: The government has not published investment thresholds, application terms, or a launch date, and Albania's EU accession aspirations remain the program's most formidable obstacle.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Armenia came closer than most.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: In October 2022, the government issued a draft decision setting out criteria by which the president could grant citizenship by decree to individuals making a significant economic contribution, with investment amounts starting at$150,000 in property, bonds, shares, or funds.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Parliament had already amended the citizenship law in July 2022, according to immigration attorney Nurses Izajanyan of Vardanyan and Partners, who confirmed the law defined two categories of applicants, and that the Prime Minister's office would process applications, with the National Security Service handling clearances.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Political opposition proved fierce.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Critics allege that Prime Minister Pashinan intended to sell passports to nationals of Azerbaijan and Turkey.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Isajanyan noted that, quote, the critics do not question the reasonableness of the suggested investment amounts, but the idea of citizenship by investment in principle due to national security considerations.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: End quote.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: A formal CBI program never materialized.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: Armenia instead expanded its residency by investment framework, announcing in November 2025 a five-year fast-track investor residency track, effective August 2026.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: The government has not published qualifying investment thresholds.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Governor General David Vunagi first revealed in March 2020 that the government was evaluating a CBI program, describing it as an innovative investment program that has the potential to bring in huge new investments.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: He noted that similar programs elsewhere had generated substantial resources, usually in excess of$100 million a year.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Progress appeared to accelerate in September 2024 when Prime Minister Jeremiah Minnell revealed that his government had completed a first draft of the Citizenship by Investment Bill and sent it to the Attorney General's chambers for review.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: The government identified the program as a priority in its 100-day agenda.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then came the reversal.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: In May 2025, Chief of Staff McFadin Aoraonisaka declared that CBI was a long way off, insisting that citizenship is a sacred bond that the government would never commercialize.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Officials warned against unauthorized solicitations and rejected arrangements that compromise national sovereignty.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Solomon Islands passport grants visa-free access to 132 destinations, including the Schengen Zone, Canada, and the UK, a mobility score that would make it one of the most attractive CBI products on the market.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Whether the program will ultimately proceed remains an open question.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: In his 2018-19 budget address to Parliament, Prime Minister Pravend Kumar Jugnauth announced plans to introduce two CBI adjacent programs that year.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: The Economic Development Board, EDB, would manage both, one offering citizenship to foreigners making a non-refundable$1 million contribution to a Mauritius sovereign fund, and another granting a Mauritian passport for a$500,000 contribution.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: The announcement attracted immediate attention.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Mauritius is one of only two African countries whose citizens can visit the Schengen zone without a visa, and its passport opens doors to the UK and Russia as well.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: CBI researcher Stefane Tajik called Mauritius one of the most fertile grounds for a future CBI program, noting the country is already very foreign investor friendly and has special clauses in their citizenship law to accelerate naturalization of investors.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: The program never launched.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: The EDB did not respond to IMI's inquiries at the time, and the government has offered no public updates since.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Reports of a planned Kenyan CBI program first surfaced in late 2019, with authorities floating investment minimums around$200,000.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: By April 2021, Ken Invest Managing Director Moses Ikiara told Business Daily that plans were moving quickly, noting that among key policymakers, there's really no opposition to it.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Ikiara confirmed that Ken Invest was working with the Kenya Law Reform Commission to draft amendments, and that the plans had received support from the Nairobi International Financial Center Authority.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: At our level, because we feel we can't wait for other agencies to push, we are now pushing ahead, he added.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: No further updates have followed and Parliament has not passed CBI legislation.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Kenyan passport grants visa-free access to just 71 destinations, none in Europe or North America, a limitation that would constrain the program's appeal.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Still, similar handicaps have not prevented Jordan's CBI program from reportedly raising notable sums.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: In October 2020, Rwanda's cabinet approved a draft bill that would allow foreigners to naturalize on the basis of sustainable investment activities.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: The cabinet submitted the bill to parliament, requiring that a competent body certify the national interest justifying citizenship for a particular applicant.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Rwanda had already included a national interest naturalization provision in its nationality law since 2008.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: The proposed legislation sought to formalize and detail those requirements further.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: A standalone CBI program has not materialized.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Rwanda currently offers an investor visa requiring$1 million in a registered investment project, or$500,000 in luxury property, granting permanent residency with a five-year path to citizenship through conventional naturalization.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: In November 2022, Uzbekistan's Ministry of Investments and Foreign Trade prepared a bill to amend the country's law on citizenship, proposing a simplified procedure for granting citizenship to foreigners who invest at least$1 million.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: The bill also covered stateless individuals and envisioned fast-track naturalization for individuals of merit in sports, science, and culture.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Market observers widely considered the price tag out of step with Uzbekistan's relative attractiveness.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: The country does not permit dual citizenship, a further deterrent.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Analysts attributed the timing to a bid to capitalize on the growing Russian diaspora, fleeing the war in Ukraine.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: No CBI program launched.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uzbekistan instead expanded its residency by investment framework, introducing a donation-based golden visa in June 2025, starting at$250,000.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: In October 2022, Laos gazetted decree number 14, setting out plans to grant honorary citizenship to foreigners who invest$1 million and donate an additional$500,000 toward socioeconomic development.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: The total$1.5 million cost, coupled with the honorary nature of the status, which technically does not constitute full citizenship, drew widespread skepticism.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: The government framed the program as recognition of outstanding contribution that foreigners have made to socioeconomic development in Laos, suggesting it targeted existing investors rather than new applicants.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Philippe May believed Laos will be ready soon, but did not consider it an attractive proposition at all because of the high price, the fact that it's an honorary citizenship, and the poor mobility score of the Laotian passport.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: During his annual speech in Parliament in September 2022, President Chandri Kapersad, Chan Santoki, revealed that an expert team is studying the possibilities of a citizenship by investment program.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: He characterized it as one of several measures under evaluation to spur economic development, but offered no elaboration.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Dutch-speaking Suriname has an annual economy of about$3 billion, roughly half the GDP of Montenegro, and double that of Antigua and Barbuda.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: CBI inflows could make a considerable difference for government coffers.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Its passport grants visa-free access to 78 destinations, including China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: According to IMI confidential sources, Papua New Guinea has explored the possibility of an investor-friendly visa system with a pathway toward citizenship through investment.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: The country currently offers an investor residence pathway requiring majority ownership of a business with net assets exceeding K2 million, approximately$470,000, leading to citizenship after eight years of continuous residency.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: But no official news regarding a CBI program exists yet.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: A formal CBI program does not exist.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Experts have previously said the autonomous region of Bougainville, which expects to gain independence from Papua New Guinea around 2027, could conceivably launch a CBI program to fund its new statehood.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Of the 14 countries on the list, only St.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Vincent and the Grenadines has set a concrete launch date.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Albania has built institutional infrastructure but remains hemmed in by EU pressure.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Armenia pivoted from CBI to fast-track residency.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nigeria's bill awaits Senate action.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Solomon Islands plans seemed to have stalled.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: This episode first appeared as an article by Amada Bas on IMIDaily.com.
• 18:45
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• 18:51
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