The Cypriot Ministry of the Interior has introduced some changes to their Golden Visa programme, writes Jason Porter, business development director at Blevins Franks.
The Cyprus Golden Visa programme is designed to enable non-EU, non-EEA, and non-Swiss nationals who are prepared to invest €300,000 (£264,537, $329,442) in either real estate (residential or commercial), shares in a business that employs at least five people, or in units of a Cyprus Collective Investment Organization to obtain Cypriot permanent residency.
Furthermore, these individuals could then obtain citizenship and a Cypriot passport within five-to-seven years.
Originally, Cyprus had two investor immigration programmes – one of which was aimed at those wishing to secure permanent residency, and the other for those favouring citizenship. But in 2020, following an Al Jazeera investigation, the Cyprus citizenship by investment scheme was abolished.
Now the Cypriot Council of Ministers, fearful of a similar scandal, has decided to adjust the rules of the surviving golden visa scheme to “shield the scheme’s process and eliminate weaknesses that were observed and could potentially leave room for exploitation”.
In addition to the main applicant, the breadth of “dependants” who could originally have been attached could only have been described as wide – spouse, parents, parents-in-law, and children (potentially up the age of 25). The rules here have been changed to no longer include parents and parents-in-law. Now they can only qualify by making their own investments.
As well as the minimum €300,000 capital investment, there was also a requirement for €30,000 of income per annum for the main applicant and €5,000 per annum, per dependent. These have been increased to €50,000 and €10,000 respectively, as well as a specific requirement of €15,000 per annum for a spouse.
Moreover, it is now also necessary to provide proof on an annual basis that both the capital investment and minimum income levels have been maintained. Failure to provide this could result in the permanent residence permits being cancelled.
These changes do not impact applications where the purchaser entered into contracts to acquire property with the Department of Lands and Surveys prior to 28 April 2023.
This article was written for International Adviser by Jason Porter, business development director at Blevins Franks.
