Citizenship by Investment (CBI)

Citizenship by investment, or CBI, is a legal route some countries offer in which a qualifying investment, donation, or property purchase is a condition of being granted citizenship, or of starting a process that leads to it. Related programmes offer residence by investment without a passport. The marketing is often about visa-free travel, a plan B, or access to a school system. The legal reality is a naturalisation or immigration file, with diligence on source of wealth, and an investment that may be illiquid or political.

A second citizenship is not a tax plan. Tax residence, domicile, reporting, and estate rules follow facts such as where people live, where companies are managed, and which treaties apply. Families that treat a passport as a substitute for tax planning are usually disappointed, sometimes in public. Banks and fund administrators will still ask where the family lives, where the money came from, and who the UBO is.

Programmes change. Minimums, approved agents, and the standing of a given passport can move with a government's next budget or with pressure from other countries. Any decision has to be reversible in the family's records even if the passport is not.

Why it matters for family offices

The office will be asked for the evidence pack: source of wealth, structure charts, bank letters, and translations. That is KYC work with a government as the counterparty. Using an unlicensed intermediary, or recycling a thin source-of-wealth story, is how applications fail and how banking relationships get reviewed.

If the family proceeds, the office has to track the qualifying asset. A property bought for a programme is still a property: title, insurance, valuation, rental income, and exit rules belong on the net worth statement like any other holding. If several family members apply, the office also has to keep identity documents, expiry dates, and whose children are covered.

Estate planning may need an update. Forced heirship, marital property, and the ability to pass the status to descendants are country-specific. Counsel in the home country and in the new country should both be on the file.

How it shows up in practice

A principal asks the office to "get the family a second passport" after reading about a property programme. The office does not pick a country. It commissions counsel, builds a source-of-wealth memo from the already-documented business sale, and lists the cash, travel, and reporting consequences of actually living there versus only holding the passport.

The family proceeds with one adult, not the whole group. The office records the investment, the citizenship certificate, and the fact that tax residence has not changed. Two years later a bank's periodic review asks why a new nationality appeared. The office sends the same memo. The programme did not replace the family's existing wealth structuring. It added a fact that had to be explainable.