Citizenship Is the Hot Commodity of the 21st Century

Dateline: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

What’s the most undervalued commodity in the world? 

Gold? Silver? Copper?

I would argue that the most undervalued commodity is actually citizenship.

As the world becomes increasingly connected, owning traditional commodities and diversifying are certainly going to become more important.

More important than they already are. 

But, if thinking about diversification doesn’t go beyond gold and copper, you could be missing out on a valuable opportunity to lower your taxes and grow your wealth.

Very few people right now take into account the value of citizenship as a commodity. Most of us think of it as something we have because we were born with it or because we moved to another country and got it in exchange for living there. 

Ultra-high-net-worth individuals, on the other hand, have already jumped into the world of global citizenship. They understand that a citizenship is indeed a commodity that can be obtained or purchased to ensure a better life and limit risk.

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When people ask me how the offshore world has changed in the last five, ten, or twenty years, the best way to describe it is to tell them that the world itself has changed.

If you were to look back just twenty or thirty years ago, you wouldn’t hear nearly as much about China or India as you do now. And Dubai? It was barely on the map! But now, these countries all have growing economies and good travel passports. 

Best of all, there are numerous countries around the world today where westerners could feel comfortable living. It wasn’t like that thirty years ago.

On the other side of the world, the attitude in western countries is shifting. In the US, Australia, and the UK, there are increasing numbers of people who hate capitalism. There are people calling for regulations that will make business more difficult for the successful entrepreneur. 

Countries that have long held the reputation of being the envy of the world are becoming less attractive to successful entrepreneurs and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.

The bottom line? The world has changed dramatically. Doing the same thing people did a few decades ago isn’t going to work.

What every six- or seven-figure entrepreneur needs to consider is how they can use this new understanding of citizenship to create a better lifestyle.

The opportunity is out there for you to begin a residence program in a country that you might not even need to spend much time in to qualify for tax benefits and eventually gain citizenship. 

If you can sit back and wait five or seven years before going back and collecting citizenship in that country, you can have the power and privilege to move to and from that country as you please.

In this article, I will cover why you should consider looking into building a citizenship portfolio, how you can legally obtain a second citizenship, and how you can find the best countries to start building your portfolio.

Why You Should Build a Citizenship Portfolio

Having one passport in an increasingly global world where political and economic dynamics are constantly changing is very dangerous. Getting a second citizenship and having more than one passport to get around can protect you from all kinds of problems at home.

The idea of “problems at home” might make your mind jump to doomsday scenarios. While riots, nuclear wars, famines, or other things in the same category could always potentially happen, they aren’t our main focus at Nomad Capitalist.

Our focus is making sure that you always have the opportunity to go where you’re treated best.

There may come a time when you don’t feel welcome at home. Changes in government regulations might make doing business or living the way you want difficult. 

This might seem like a foreign idea, but chances are your ancestors moved from one part of the world to another so that they could build a better life for themselves and their children. 

There could come a day where you need to do the same.

The reality of our world is that we never know what’s going to change tomorrow – both at home and abroad. You don’t know which country might stop letting US citizens or Australians enter its borders, but this won’t be a problem if you have a second citizenship.

With two or more citizenships, you have the freedom to travel wherever you like, the freedom to live the way you want, the freedom to escape problems at home, and even the freedom to avoid high tax rates.

Diversifying your life by becoming a global citizen allows you to get visa-free travel to countries you don’t have now. 

It can open up the door to new investment opportunities that you don’t have access to at home. 

And it can open you to new cultures and ways of thinking that will change how, where, and why you do business.

Living a Nomad Capitalist lifestyle will help you create wealth, lower your taxes, and become a global citizen.

How to Get a Second Citizenship

One of the problems that keeps people from taking advantage of the world’s most underpriced commodity is that the concept of becoming a citizen of another country seems very complicated. 

What people often don’t realize is that it can be as simple as looking at their family tree and filing some paperwork.

Almost every country around the world will give you citizenship if one of your parents is a citizen there. In places like Europe, you can go back even farther. Depending on the country, that could mean that if one of your grandparents or great-grandparents was Irish or Polish, you could become an Irish or Polish citizen as well.

If you don’t have that opportunity in your family tree, there are other options open to you. Other countries are looking to attract foreign entrepreneurs and have set up programs where you can get citizenship by investment. If you put money into real estate or a business in the country, they will give you residency and put you on a fastrack for citizenship.

All in all, there are five different ways that you can diversify your lifestyle and become a global citizen:

1. Naturalization
2. Citizenship by Descent
3. Citizenship by Investment
4. Exceptional Citizenship
5. Marriage

Is there a “best” or “easiest” way to get citizenship anywhere?

It depends.

It depends on you, your goals, your ancestry, your investments, your lifestyle… And it depends on the country. Some countries might not allow some of these methods. Some programs might be harder than others.

But with the right amount of research and effort, you can create a plan that allows you to go where you’re treated the best.

The Best Second Citizenships

Taking your life offshore and becoming a global citizen can be a demanding and complicated process. But you will make the process much harder chasing after the “offshore hack” that will make everything easy for you.

It’s shiny object syndrome at its worst.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. There is no one best country or strategy that will allow you to live the lifestyle you’ve always wanted. Each individual situation will require its own personalized plan before it can solve the problems that pushed you to want to get a second citizenship in the first place.

After over a decade of living the Nomad Capitalist lifestyle, I’ve learned that the “easy” solution will give you more trouble than you started with and that the “cheap” method will usually get you exactly what you paid for.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t find the best strategy or passport for your situation. It just means it will take more work than a simple search in your web browser.

If you look through our articles or watch our YouTube channel, you’ll find some suggestions. For example, our article on the best citizenship by investment programs will guide you through each country, the process of obtaining citizenship, and the type of individual who will most benefit from that particular citizenship.

You can also find the Nomad Passport Index on our website. This index measures the value of each passport on a specific set of criteria to help you determine how it might fit into your strategy. And we update it each year to reflect changes in the world.

While other indices focus solely on how many countries a passport will allow you to visit visa-free, we’ve expanded our measurements to include the country’s levels of taxation, the personal freedom of the country’s citizens, the global perception of the passport, and any restrictions on dual-citizenship to give you a more accurate representation of how each passport can help you build a personal offshore strategy.

And if you want an example of a successful offshore lifestyle, my Trifecta method has allowed me to legally reduce my tax burden to basically nothing by restructuring where I live around the world. By acquiring residency and citizenship in different countries and creating “bases” around the world, I’ve found a way to live how I want at the price I want to pay.

Our website is full of over a decade’s worth of research, mistakes, and lessons in taking advantage of the world’s most underpriced commodity.

We’ve made the mistakes and learned the lessons for you so that you won’t have to make them yourself if you choose to work with our team of experts to create a plan for your business and personal life.

The Rising Cost of Citizenship

There’s a trend in the world right now when it comes to the trajectory of the price of citizenship. 

Prices are going up.

The New York Times wrote an article in 1993 about how a citizenship by investment program in Peru allowed you to become a Peruvian citizen for $25,000. Not long after that, Belize and Grenada opened programs that would allow you to acquire citizenship for $40,000.

A few years ago, Grenada came back with a program that can be anywhere between $150,000 to $200,000 depending on how you do it. 

Meanwhile, countries around the world, like Singapore, are tightening their restrictions. Ten or fifteen years ago, you could have easily become a citizen in Singapore, but now it’s practically off limits. 

There are fewer and fewer good opportunities around the world as the years go by.

If you do acquire that second citizenship, you’ll watch its value go up with the prices. As the world changes, more countries are finding a place on the economic stage. More countries are becoming open to visa-free travel.

Unless you decide to get a passport in the Somalias or Irans of the world, the return on your investment is only going to become more profitable.

That is why we’ve named second citizenship the hot commodity of the 21st century.

The competitive edge that a US, European, or Australian passport has above the rest of the world is no longer as great as it used to be. 

This is your chance to look at citizenship as a commodity, as a tool that will help you make sure you’re always safe. To make sure you’re always protected and prosperous.

Some people will call this idea vulgar. There are people who are going to hate the idea of citizenship being bought, sold, or traded.

The reality is that there are all kinds of people who want to protect themselves, their freedoms, and their prosperity. 

And there are more and more countries every day who are willing to put their greatest commodity – citizenship – on the market to help you achieve just that.

Source: https://nomadcapitalist.com/2020/02/12/citizenship-hot-commodity-21st-century/