GCG Structuring

private clients / residency / citizenship by investment

Citizenship by investment programmes for global investors

01_introduction

Most enquiries about a second passport begin with travel and end somewhere else entirely. Citizenship by investment is a statutory route to a second nationality, granted for a qualifying economic contribution, with no requirement to live in the country. Whether it is the right instrument depends on what you need it to do, and on what it cannot do for you.

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01
What decides the cost of citizenship by investment?

Cost is decided by the shape of the file: the route you choose, the number of people included, the programme’s own fee schedule, and the complexity of your source of funds.

Each element moves the total on its own, and the lowest headline figure rarely produces the lowest one. The current route and fee structure for each programme sits on our Caribbean CBI page.

Citizenship and residency answer different problems. Citizenship is permanent, inherited by your children and carried in a passport, in exchange for a contribution you do not recover. Residency is narrower: a renewable right to live in one country, usually against an investment you keep, and it can lead to citizenship later after real residence there.

The UAE has no citizenship by investment; its investor option is the ten year Golden Visa, with European residency such as the Portugal Golden Visa alongside it, all set out under Residency by investment. As a rule, residency suits the need for a base and citizenship the need for optionality that does not depend on any one country.

Timelines run in months, and because processing is driven by due diligence, a complete file is the single biggest accelerator.

Published targets and actual timelines differ, and application volumes move both. Programme specific timelines sit on the Caribbean CBI page.

Your own country decides this. Some states permit dual nationality freely, while others restrict it or require you to renounce your existing citizenship, and where renunciation is required the loss is not reversible.

The programmes GCG works with allow you to keep your current nationality.

A second passport does not change your tax position by itself. Tax residency is decided by its own tests, mainly where you spend your time, where your home is and where your affairs are run, and financial account reporting follows that residency rather than the passport you hold.

A small number of countries, the United States among them, tax their citizens wherever they live, and a second passport does not change that.

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How GCG handles it

GCG starts from the question rather than the programme: whether you need a nationality or a base.

We test the route against your existing nationality, tax position, family and travel needs, build the source of funds file before any programme is approached, then select the programme and place the file with a licensed agent in that country. We stay with it through to the government’s decision and keep the outcome consistent with your companies, residency and succession, alongside your HNW wealth planning and wealth structuring.

HIDE

Start with the right question

The first decision is not which programme, but whether citizenship or residency answers your actual problem. A short call settles that, and tells you what evidence your file will need.

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04_faq

Citizenship is a permanent nationality you keep for life; residency is a right to live in a country that you hold while the qualifying investment stands. The comparison above sets out which suits which objective.

Speed depends on due diligence readiness more than the programme, and it moves with application volume. The current programme-by-programme position is on the Caribbean CBI page.

A common regional minimum has applied since 2024, and it sits below the true total once government, due diligence and professional fees are added. GCG confirms the current figures before you commit; the routes are on the Caribbean CBI page.

Yes, without exception. Every programme runs source-of-funds and background checks on each applicant, evidenced document by document, and a refusal by one programme is visible to the others.

Yes. Programmes admit a spouse and dependent children, and several extend to parents and other dependents, subject to conditions that vary. Each person included adds to the due diligence and the cost.

A passport gives visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to the countries that grant it, on the terms those governments set at the time. That access is a feature of the passport, not a permanent right, and it can change.

Citizenship carries the ordinary obligations of any national, including tax filing where the country requires it. Some programmes also require the qualifying investment to be held for a set period before it can be released; those holding terms are on the Caribbean CBI page.