In the nineteenth century, in many countries you had to be a property owner before you could vote in elections. While nowadays the general population can vote, some countries still respect property ownership as a route to citizenship.
One of these is St Kitts, one of the so-called “sister isles” making up the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. St Kitts is one of two countries on the planet today where you can legally ‘buy’ a second passport even if you don’t have any prior connection with the country. This is a fully legitimate program, and funds will be held in escrow by the Royal Bank of Canada or Scotiabank as custodians until your citizenship is approved and you can apply for your passport.
The St Kitts program requires you to purchase property worth at least $350,000 on the island in an approved development – typically a luxury beachfront condo.
Dominica, meanwhile, is the other country where you can legally buy a second citizenship. Dominica is a small, English speaking sovereign nation - not to be confused with the much larger, Spanish speaking Dominican Republic that is mentioned below.
Dominica charges a fee of $75,000 for citizenship for a single individual, or $100,000 for a family. Substantial extra processing, due diligence, legal and government fees must be added.
Once you are in to either of these programs and have your passport, it is good for travel around the world. St Kitts now has visa-free travel to the Schengen area in Western Europe, as well as Canada, and visas to most other countries are not hard to obtain.
The cost seems high. When these two programs were launched in the 1990s, many of the applicants were newly-rich Russians seeking a better travel document. Chinese and Arabs also signed up in numbers. But – a sign of the times – most of the applicants now are from USA citizens. For anybody with say a million dollars upwards of net worth, $100,000 for the opportunity to renounce US citizenship and never have to pay a penny in US taxes again may seem like a drop in the ocean. Certainly a steady stream of applicants are flying down to the Caribbean.
If you would like to acquire either of these passports, please contact us at BankerTrust@gmail.com
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