Citizenship by Investment Countries 2026: The Active Programs, Real Costs, and What Changed

St. Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Lucia all offer passports in four to six months, with non-refundable donation minimums starting at $100,000 for a single applicant. St. Kitts raised its Sustainable Growth Fund minimum to $250,000 in 2023 and has held that floor into 2026. Grenada remains the standout for US-bound investors because it is the only Caribbean CBI passport that qualifies holders for the US E-2 treaty investor visa. Dominica remains the lowest-cost option at $100,000 donation for a single applicant, with total all-in costs including government and due diligence fees typically landing between $120,000 and $135,000.

Malta's Community Malta Agency program requires a minimum government contribution of EUR 600,000 after 36 months of residency, or EUR 750,000 if you opt for the 12-month residency track. Add a property purchase of at least EUR 700,000 (or lease at EUR 16,000 per year) plus a EUR 10,000 charity donation, and total outlay typically runs EUR 1 million to EUR 1.4 million. The full Malta cost breakdown and process walkthrough covers what applicants routinely underestimate, including professional fees and the biometric residency card requirements. Cyprus and Bulgaria closed their programs under EU pressure, making Malta the sole remaining EU member state offering a clear investment-to-passport pathway.

Vanuatu's Development Support Program (DSP) issues passports in 30 to 60 days, faster than any other sovereign program, with a minimum contribution of $130,000 for a single applicant and roughly $180,000 for a couple. The Vanuatu passport is visa-free to the UK, Schengen, Russia, and around 90 countries total, but it was suspended from EU visa-free access in 2022 and that suspension remains in place in 2026. Jordan's investment path and Samoa's program are active but offer significantly weaker travel documents for comparable investment levels. Vanuatu still makes sense for applicants who need speed and do not prioritize EU access.

Turkey requires a minimum real estate purchase of $400,000, held for three years, to qualify for naturalization. Processing typically takes six to eight months. The Turkish passport gives visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to roughly 110 countries and is genuinely useful for investors from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and other markets where existing travel documents are weak. Turkey does not have a tax treaty with the US and does not impose worldwide taxation on non-residents, making it structurally clean for investors who plan to live elsewhere. Application volume has been extremely high since 2020, and due diligence requirements have tightened accordingly.

Jordan offers a naturalization-by-investment route requiring a $750,000 deposit in a local bank (at zero interest) or a $1 million business investment creating at least ten jobs. Egypt's investor citizenship requires a $250,000 non-refundable deposit with the Central Bank or a $500,000 real estate purchase. Neither passport approaches Caribbean or Turkish travel access, with Jordan at roughly 50 visa-free destinations and Egypt lower than that, but both serve specific strategic purposes, particularly for investors operating in MENA markets who need regional legitimacy or want a Muslim-majority second nationality. These programs are less polished procedurally and applicants consistently report slower, less predictable timelines than the brochure figures suggest.

Moldova suspended its CBI program under EU accession pressure. Montenegro closed its program in December 2022 as a condition of EU candidacy talks. Portugal ended its Golden Visa real estate route in October 2023, though fund-based and capital transfer routes remain open for residency rather than direct citizenship. Austria has a nominally active discretionary naturalization path for extraordinary economic contribution but approval is extremely rare and the government does not market it as a program. A full rundown of what launched and what changed in 2026 tracks the current status of programs in flux. Investors who were pitched on these closed routes by agents still selling them in 2025 should treat that as a red flag about the agent's current knowledge.