The Clear Cost of a Second Passport

A citizenship by investment programme gives you a second passport, usually without needing to live in the country. A golden visa gives you residency first: a permit you hold, renew, and often maintain before any path to a passport. The right choice depends on whether you want a passport now or a place to live and a longer route to one.

Turkey grants citizenship for a 400,000 US dollar real estate investment held for three years, or 500,000 US dollars through other approved assets, with no residency or language requirement. The headline figure is only the start: government charges, legal fees, valuation, and currency conversion all add to the real total.

Grenada is the only Caribbean citizenship by investment country that holds a US E-2 treaty, which is why investors pair a Grenadian passport with a plan to run a business in the United States. But the E-2 visa is a separate, non-automatic application with its own rules, and Grenada expects a period of domicile before you qualify.

The cheapest CBI program is not always the lowest advertised contribution. Due diligence, government fees, family pricing, bank charges, and advisor fees change the real total.

Vanuatu is one of the few programmes that publishes its prices plainly: 130,000 US dollars for a single applicant, 150,000 for a married couple, 180,000 for a couple with two children, plus a 5,000 dollar financial intelligence due diligence fee. The harder question is what the passport does. Visa-free access to the Schengen area was fully suspended in February 2023 and then permanently removed by regulation, which changes the case for buying one substantially.

Vanuatu passport ranking pages can be useful starting points, but destination-country visa rules and institutional treatment can change quickly.

Most Portugal golden visa quotes show the investment and one government fee. The published AIMA table, in force since 1 March 2026, charges 842.80 euros to receive and analyse the application, 8,418.90 euros to grant the residence permit and 4,210.30 euros to renew it — and each of those applies per person, including family members. For a family of four the state fees alone run past 35,000 euros before any lawyer is paid.

Portugal golden visa fund searches are high-intent, but investors should review eligibility, fund costs, liquidity, risk, and legal fit before subscribing.

UAE golden visa cost varies by category, emirate, applicant profile, investment route, document work, medical checks, Emirates ID, and professional support.

The E-2 business plan has one job the regulations actually name: showing the enterprise is not marginal. A marginal enterprise cannot generate more than a minimal living for you and your family, and a new business must show the capacity to clear that within five years of your E-2 status beginning. Everything else in the plan supports two further tests, substantiality and develop-and-direct. Fees and rules below are from USCIS and the State Department and change without notice.

The EB-5 minimum is 1,050,000 US dollars, or 800,000 dollars for a targeted employment area or infrastructure project, and both figures face their first inflation adjustment for petitions filed on or after 1 January 2027. Filing fees changed direction in November 2025, when a court order sent EB-5 forms back to their pre-2024 amounts. Below that, the costs that decide the outcome are the ones attached to job creation and to what the regulations refuse to count as capital.

Golden visa cost has three layers that behave differently: the qualifying investment, the one-off government fees, and the charges that come back at every renewal. Portugal publishes an exact table — EUR 842.80 to lodge, EUR 8,418.90 to grant and EUR 4,210.30 to renew. Greece prices the property at EUR 800,000, EUR 400,000 or EUR 250,000 depending on where it sits. Dubai publishes a single all-in total of AED 9,884.75. Every figure below comes from the issuing authority's own schedule and was checked in September 2026.

The best citizenship by investment country depends on budget, family size, source-of-funds complexity, travel goals, program risk, and current official rules.

There are two honest answers, and they are four orders of magnitude apart. The passport booklet itself costs EC$150 for an adult and EC$75 for a child under 16, paid at the Treasury Department, with a two-week turnaround. Becoming a Dominican citizen so that you can be issued one costs from about USD 210,000 in government charges through the Citizenship by Investment Programme. The CBI fee schedule contains no passport line at all: it ends at a USD 500 certificate of naturalisation. Figures checked September 2026.

Dominica's fund route starts at a non-refundable USD 200,000 for a single applicant and USD 250,000 for a main applicant with up to three dependants. Every fee on top is set out in Schedule 1 of S.R.O. 8 of 2024: USD 7,500 due diligence for the main applicant, USD 4,000 per dependant, USD 1,000 processing per application, USD 1,000 per interview and USD 500 per certificate of naturalisation. A single applicant reaches about USD 210,000 in government charges and a family of four about USD 266,500. Checked against the CBIU and the Regulations in September 2026.

St Lucia is a major Caribbean CBI option with multiple routes. Cost comparisons should separate the official route from advisor and document costs.

Antigua and Barbuda often matters for family applications because family pricing can change the total-cost ranking.

Grenada's contribution route starts at a non-refundable USD 235,000 to the National Transformation Fund, and that single figure covers a main applicant, a couple, or a family of four. The fees on top do not: application, due diligence, processing and interview charges are levied per person. A single applicant lands near USD 244,000 and a family of four near USD 257,000 before an agent has invoiced anything. All figures are from the Investment Migration Agency Grenada's published schedule, checked September 2026.

St. Kitts and Nevis is one of the best-known CBI programs, but cost comparisons must use current official rules rather than older price memories.

On 29 April 2025 the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union held that Malta's investor citizenship scheme breached EU law. The route that sold Maltese, and therefore EU, citizenship for a payment is closed, and no quote for it is credible. Malta still operates a residence-by-investment programme with published costs: a 50,000 euro administrative fee, a government contribution of 30,000 or 60,000 euros depending on whether you buy or rent, and property at 375,000 euros or 14,000 a year.

Australia has no citizenship by investment programme and no price for a passport. It had an investor programme and it closed: the whole Business Innovation and Investment Program shut to new applications on 31 July 2024, and the Business Talent visa on 1 July 2021. What replaced them is the National Innovation visa, which is invitation-only, has no investment threshold at all, and costs AUD 6,235 for the main applicant. Citizenship then costs AUD 595 after four years of residence. Figures from the Department of Home Affairs, checked September 2026.

There is no Norwegian citizenship by investment programme, no golden visa, and no price. Money changes the answer in exactly one published way: an income above three times the National Insurance basic amount cuts the residence requirement from eight years in the last eleven to six in the last ten. That is earned income declared in a Norwegian tax settlement, not capital moved into the country, and it is the whole of the investment story. Figures below are from UDI and change without notice.

Austria is often marketed as citizenship by investment, but official guidance emphasizes citizenship requirements rather than a standard fixed-price CBI route.

A good comparison weighs total cost, due diligence, timeline, family economics, passport utility, and program risk.

Due diligence fees are one of the most important CBI cost lines because every adult applicant is reviewed separately and enhanced checks can change the budget.

Family CBI cost can rank programs differently from single-applicant cost because dependents, adult children, parents, and due diligence rows change the total.

Caribbean CBI comparisons should look beyond donation minimums and weigh total cost, family rules, due diligence burden, passport utility, and policy risk.

Source-of-funds preparation is often the difference between a clean CBI file and a slow, expensive, or rejected application review.

The E-2 visa has no official minimum investment. Officers judge whether your investment is substantial relative to the business you are buying or building, whether the funds are genuinely committed and at risk, and whether the business can grow beyond marginal income. In practice that makes the right number business-specific, not a fixed threshold, and it makes documentation as important as the amount.

The cheapest golden visa headline in Europe is Latvia at 50,000 euros through a company investment, but the lowest advertised number is not the same as the lowest real cost. Hungary, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus, and Malta cluster between 150,000 and 500,000 euros depending on route, and every one of them adds government fees, legal work, renewals, and family costs on top. Rank programs by total cost for your family and goal, not by the marketing number.

São Tomé and Príncipe launched its citizenship by investment program in 2025 under Decree-Law 07/2025, with a minimum contribution of 90,000 US dollars for a single applicant and 95,000 dollars for a family of two to four. That makes it one of the lowest headline prices in the market, but it is also one of the newest and least proven programs, so due diligence on the program itself matters as much as the price.

St Kitts and Nevis runs the longest-standing citizenship by investment program in the world, dating to 1984. Today it offers three main routes: a 250,000 dollar Sustainable Island State Contribution, a 250,000 dollar Public Benefit Option, and approved real estate from 325,000 dollars with a seven-year holding period. The program repriced sharply in 2023, so treat older figures and old marketing as obsolete and verify everything against the Citizenship by Investment Unit.

The E-2 treaty investor visa has six core requirements: you hold nationality of a treaty country, you have invested or are actively investing a substantial amount, the funds are at risk and committed, the business is real and operating rather than marginal, treaty nationals own at least 50 percent of it, and you are coming to develop and direct it. None of these is a paperwork formality; each one is a ground for refusal on its own.

The list of golden visa countries has shrunk and repriced. Spain, Ireland, and the UK have closed; Portugal and Greece removed or restricted their cheapest routes; and the survivors now cluster between 250,000 and 800,000 euros in Europe, with Latvia's 50,000 euro company route as the outlier. Outside Europe, the UAE's ten-year visa and a handful of investor residence programs carry the model. What separates the good ones is not price but what the permit actually leads to.

Nearly every guide on this topic says golden visas require health insurance. That is not quite true. Portugal's investor route is a notable exception that grants access to the national health service after approval, while Greece expects private cover and Schengen entry separately requires a minimum level of medical and repatriation cover. The requirement, the minimum sum insured, and whether travel cover is accepted all vary by country and by route.

Digital nomad visas are marketed on lifestyle and sold on paperwork. The real filter is the income test, and the gap between programmes is wide: Spain sits lowest of the major European routes, Portugal highest, and Greece in between while charging a government fee more than ten times Spain's. Thailand ignores income entirely and tests savings instead. Figures below were checked against published guidance and change without notice.

Greece requires roughly 3,500 euros a month in net income, rising by about 20 percent for a spouse and 15 percent for each child, plus private health insurance from a provider authorised in Greece and proof of accommodation. The initial residence permit fee is around 1,016 euros, which is high by European standards. From February 2026, applications must be made through a Greek consulate before travelling.

Article 15 of the Visa Code requires adequate and valid travel medical insurance with minimum coverage of 30,000 euros, valid throughout the territory of the Member States and covering the entire period of the intended stay. It must cover repatriation for medical reasons, urgent medical attention, emergency hospital treatment and death. The requirement most applicants fail is not the amount but paragraph 5: consulates must be satisfied a claim against the insurer would be recoverable in a Member State.

Searching for a UAE freelance visa returns one product where the system has two. A freelance or self-employment permit is permission to work. A residence visa is permission to live there, and they are issued by different bodies. The five-year Green Residence is the self-sponsored route freelancers actually want, and its published income test is AED 360,000 a year from freelance work across each of the previous two years — around 98,000 US dollars, which is well above what most people picture when they start looking.

Singapore assesses Employment Pass candidates in two stages, and the first is a hard gate: a candidate who misses the qualifying salary is ineligible regardless of how well they would have scored on COMPASS. The salary bar is indexed to age, starting at S$5,600 a month and reaching S$10,700 at 45 and above, with a higher scale in financial services. Both scales rise for new applications from 1 January 2027. Stage two is COMPASS, a 40-point framework in which a company with fewer than 25 local professionals banks 20 points automatically.

There is no Singapore golden visa, and the phrase misleads in a specific and expensive way. The only investor route is the Global Investor Programme, which starts at S$10 million, charges a S$20,000 non-refundable application fee, and grants permanent residence rather than a residence permit. Below that threshold Singapore sells no residence at any price: the routes are work passes, and they are graded on salary or on what your company has done. Figures below are from EDB, MOM, ICA, ACRA and IRAS and change without notice.

Most golden visa cost comparisons line up four headline investment figures and stop, which is how people end up budgeting for the wrong programme by tens of thousands of euros. Portugal charges 8,418.90 euros to grant a single permit and the same again for every family member. Greece charges 2,016 euros in total. Dubai publishes a fee list adding up to 9,884.75 dirhams. This golden visa cost comparison works from the published 2026 fee tables of AIMA, the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum, the Dubai Land Department and Residency Malta Agency, separates the money you may get back from the money you never see again, and runs the family arithmetic. Every figure is as published in 2026 and can change without notice.

Ask five agents how long citizenship by investment takes and you get five numbers, none of them sourced. The gap between the marketing answer and the real one is expensive: an approval that slips from four months to nine is another year in the tax position you were trying to leave, and a second round of police certificates that expire while you wait. This page collects what the units themselves publish about citizenship by investment processing time in 2026 — Grenada says three to four months, St Kitts and Nevis says three to six, and the other three Eastern Caribbean programmes publish nothing at all — then sets those figures against the reforms the OECS Heads of Government announced on 23 September 2025, which added biometric capture, a regional regulator and a US$200,000 floor to every file. We read each unit's own pages rather than an advisory brochure, and we mark clearly which numbers are official and which are planning estimates.

Nauru's contribution is USD 90,000 for a principal applicant until 31 December 2026, and USD 115,000 once the discount lapses. The fees on top are published line by line: USD 5,000 application, USD 6,000 due diligence, USD 1,200 in bank charges and USD 500 per passport. That puts a single applicant at USD 102,700 and a family of four at USD 115,700 in government charges. All figures come from the Naoero Program Office's own schedule, checked 8 September 2026.