Investment Immigration Programs Compete with EB-5https://www.cankash.org/%D8%A7%D8%AE%D8%B0-%D8%A7%D

After spending the past few months traveling around China, I have witnessed firsthand a proliferation of foreign programs. These investment immigration programs are aimed at attracting foreign capital in exchange for permanent residency or even just a passport.

This industry is certainly not new, as investor immigration programs have existed for more than 30 years. However, there is little doubt that the number and popularity of these programs have increased tremendously in recent years as countries vie for foreign capital. Approximately half of the European Union members have immigration investor programs. Throw in Australia, New Zealand and the United States’ EB-5 investor visa program, and the marketplace looks surprisingly crowded.

On any given weekend in China, banks and migration agents hold numerous seminars to promote these global investment immigration programs. I recently visited a large migration office with more than 100 cubicles, along with a large, illuminated picture of the world covering one entire wall. Just around the coer was a conference room stocked with brochures for countries such as Portugal, Greece, Spain, the United Kingdom, Antigua and countless others. A willing investor can pick a destination and relocate his family to many of these countries as easily as booking a vacation.

The EB-5 program, which is uniquely demanding for its job creation requirement and at-risk nature, has been a strong player recently with the Chinese hitting their EB-5 visa cap for the past two fiscal years. U.S. dominance in this arena is not a given, however; we have major competition.

In 2012, Australia launched its Significant Investor Visa program requiring an investment of $5 million (AUD). The program yielded just 65 visas in 2013, 91 percent of which were granted to Chinese nationals. However, this has increased to 1,679 applications submitted and 751 visas approved as of March 2015. Similarly, Portugal’s Golden Residence Permit program, in which an immigrant investor may simply acquire properties above 500,000 euros in total, grew from two investors in 2012 to 1,526 in 2014.

Below is a partial list of the more prominent inteational investor immigration programs, with the lowest qualifying investment amounts listed:

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