Immigrant investor programmes in the European Union (EU)

Abstract

Immigrant investor programmes (IIPs) have mushroomed around the world in recent years. Focusing on the EU context, where each Member State has at least one legal mechanism for granting residence or citizenship rights in exchange for investment, this paper has a twofold objective. First, it seeks to develop a typology of IIPs on the grounds of investment amounts and status obligations. Second, the paper applies this typology to map and examine IIPs in the EU. Rather than looking in detail at the politics of investment-based migration in each country, this study identifies general conditions across states that enable different types of IIPs to develop.

Keywords:

• Immigrant investor
• European Union
• citizenship
• residence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the editors of this special issue – Djordje Sredanovic and Jeremias Stadlmair, to the anonymous reviewers, to Prof. Rainer Bauböck and to Samuel D. Schmid on their comments on an earlier draft of the article.

Notes

1. The Hungarian Investment Immigration Program was indefinitely put on hold on 31 March 2017. However, it is included in this analysis as it has been developed in the second wave of contemporary IIPs in the EU. Subject to parliamentary approval, the programme might reopen in 2018.

2. In both cases, beneficiaries will include almost exclusively third country nationals (TCNs), as EU citizens and permanent residents already enjoy free movement rights.

3. The only exception to this rule is currently Greece, in which capital controls are in place.

4. This type of programmes is very rare, nonetheless existent in some countries such as Romania. It has been ranked on the third point of the scale since the acquisition of citizenship is facilitated. Even though residence is mandatory, it is lower than in cases of ordinary naturalisation. In the fourth point of the scale, residence is facilitated but the number of years for naturalisation is unchanged.

5. Eurostat (2015) and national statistical offices of the EU’s Member States provide no information on the exact numbers of discretionary naturalisation broken down by grounds for admission.

6. The citizenship laws of the Denmark, Finland, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom do not contain provisions on naturalisation on grounds of special achievements. GLOBALCIT (2018) . See information under ‘Mode A24, Special Achievements’.

7. Until August 2012, Germany offered an investor residence scheme to applicants who invested 250,000 euros and created 10 jobs. Amendments to article 21 of the German Residence Act abolished the minimum thresholds for investment, but retained an entrepreneurial program, granting a higher discretion to the authorities to decide on the economic priorities of the state.

8. The 2005 programme offered ordinary residence rights in Greece, while the 2014 offers facilitated residence with minimum requirements of physical presence.

9. The original programme adopted by Spain required beneficiaries of the programme to be physically present in the country for over six months. The 2015 amendments, aimed at making the Spanish programme compared to the Portuguese one abolished this requirement.

10. After five years of continuous and legal residence with this permit, investors are entitled to apply for an EU Long Term Residence (LTR), provided that they are not absent Hungary for six consecutive months (and less than ten months in the five-year period). This entitles them to EU-wide rights, including free movement of workers and social benefits (Council Directive 2003/109/EC).