While for many countries, gaining citizenship is a long-winded, time consuming and complicated process aggravated by endless red tape, this is not the case in Cyprus. In fact, the Cyprus government, keen to encourage overseas investment, has created the Cypriot Investment Programme to make the process of gaining Cyprus Citizenship quick and simple.
The requirements for your investment
To take advantage of the Cypriot Investment Programme and use this as your means of acquiring Cyprus citizenship, you must make an investment within the country and this must be of a value of at least €2 million. This investment can take a variety of forms and the choice of where you invest is up to you, within some limitations. It can be an investment in real estate, this can be your own home or another property such as a holiday home for rental purposes. You can make your investment in a commercial business or in a tourism project. Alternatively, you maymake an investment in land that has yet to be developed, however you will be required to submit plans regarding how you propose to develop the land and the land you invest in must be suitable for development and have no related restrictions regarding building on it or your application will be invalid.
Your entire family can be included
One of the great benefits of this scheme is that your whole family can form part of the application. With your investment, your spouse and all children aged 17 years or younger are automatically included in the citizenship application with no further investment needed. In addition, if you have older children who would like to accompany you to Cyprus, they too can be included, provided they are aged between 17 and 28 and are studying for a University degree. You can even take your parents along with you within your application, there is no need for them to apply separately. They must be the parents of the main applicant, so in-laws are not eligible for this scheme. Should you wish for your spouses parents to also attain citizenship, either they themselves would need to make their own application, or your spouse would need to be the main applicant on the application for your family. To be part of the application, your parents must make an additional investment in residential property of a minimum of €500,000. This is easily done with an investment into a home for them to live in presuming they will live separately from you.
Great healthcare facilities, world class educational establishments and one of the lowest crime rates in all of Europe give you that peace of mind you need when you’re choosing a place to live with your family. For businesses, there are some very good tax benefits, great transport links and access to a wide market.
You could be a Cyprus citizen within 6 months
The process of the scheme has been streamlined to ensure it can be completed quickly. There is no medical and no requirement to learn to speak Greek. Within just six months you and your family could be legal citizens of Cyprus.
