{"id":211903,"date":"2017-11-21T18:00:51","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T16:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=211903"},"modified":"2017-11-21T17:45:09","modified_gmt":"2017-11-21T15:45:09","slug":"the-best-countries-to-buy-your-way-into-residency-or-citizenship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/211903\/the-best-countries-to-buy-your-way-into-residency-or-citizenship\/","title":{"rendered":"The best countries to buy your way into residency or citizenship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although there is an increasing number of South Africans interested in investment migration programmes, they are not necessarily making good on their intent to leave.<\/p>\n

Instead, these programmes provide them with a \u201cPlan B\u201d option as a hedge against the uncertain future of the country, according to Nigel Barnes, managing partner of Henley & Partners South Africa.<\/p>\n

According to Barnes, instead of emigrating, South Africans are using these\u00a0programmes to enjoy the benefits of greater global mobility with visa-free access to destinations worldwide – both for travel and business purposes.<\/p>\n

“There is a growing trend towards individuals wanting to live a more mobile life where they can take advantage of opportunities internationally and make a contribution on a global level,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The recent credit downgrades and the potential effects of junk status have wealthy South Africans seriously reviewing the available options for diversifying their personal interests and investment assets beyond the country\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

“Residence- and citizenship-by-investment programmes provide wealthy and talented South Africans with the opportunity to expand their investments across borders.”<\/p>\n

World\u2019s top investment migration programmes
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Henley and Partners recently released its rankings of the world’s top investment migration programmes.<\/p>\n

These two indices have become the global standard to gauge and reflect the relative worth of residence and citizenship programmes around the world, by analysing a broad range of factors to produce an overall global view and ranking of the different investment migration programmes on offer.<\/p>\n

Malta was ranked as the world\u2019s top citizenship-by-investment programme and Portugal was ranked as the world\u2019s top residence-by-investment programme.<\/p>\n

There is a difference between having citizenship in a country and being a resident, noted James Bowling, CEO of immigration consultants Monarch & Co.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy achieving permanent residency, the person is allowed to reside for as long as the validity of the residency within a country of which he or she is not a citizen,\u201d said Bowling.<\/p>\n

\u201cA person with such status is known as a resident or permanent resident of that country. Resident permits are issued for migrants who meet certain criteria and its validity is time-based.\u201d<\/p>\n

By obtaining citizenship in another country, the investor becomes a citizen of that country which entitles them to carry that country\u2019s passport.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepending on the countries involved, the investor will be able to keep their existing citizenship and passport and thus the new passport becomes their second passport. This is why these programmes are often referred to as second passport programmes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0Not all economists are bleak about South Africa\u2019s \u2018junk\u2019 economy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although there is an increasing number of South Africans interested in investment migration programmes, they are not necessarily making good on their intent to leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":118404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9880],"tags":[26,12238],"class_list":["post-211903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth","tag-headline","tag-henley-and-partners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211903"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211955,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211903\/revisions\/211955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}