Citizenship For Sale: Ethics and Corruption of Golden Visa Programmes

Executive Summary

Investor visas or residency-by-permit visas, commonly referred to as golden visas, have given rise to a global citizenship market, in which wealthy investors are able to ‘shop’ for a suitable state that will allow them to gain domestic benefits in exchange for a substantial one-time investment. On the surface, this may seem to be an ideal arrangement, as both parties receive benefits; however, these programs pose ethical and practical concerns, as they contribute to the reinforcement of global inequality through visa access, turn citizenship into a commodity that can be bought and sold, reduce the sociopolitical meaning of citizenship, and make a country vulnerable to various governance, corruption, and security risks. Many countries, upon realization of security and economic risks in particular, have completely abolished these programmes, yet in many circumstances, immediate abolition is not a practical solution. As such, critical reforms must be introduced to safeguard the economic, legal, and social vulnerabilities of these programs: moving away from passive investments to active ones to ensure long-term economic contribution; the introduction of equity measures and conditional citizenship requirements to preserve the social and political meaning of citizenship, along with migration fairness; and strengthening transparency and oversight to ensure that all residencies granted are done so in absence of corruption.

Issue Synopsis

All that glitters is not gold. With the rising popularity of investor visas or residency-by-permit visas, colloquially dubbed and hereinafter referred to as golden visas, access to countries worldwide have been granted to affluent migrants [1]. While global investment migration has been an important policy tool to accelerate local economies through attracting foreign capital and increasing tax revenue [2], it carries significant ethical consequences. Despite its temporary financial benefits, it further deepens the already-existing inequalities in migration and mobility privilege, commodifies the privilege of citizenship, along with governance risks surrounding corruption and security. Thus, golden visas reveal the tension between the pursuit of economic growth and the principles of accountability and equal access to mobility.

Thematic Claim A: Golden Visa Programmes Reinforce Global Inequality

SUBCLAIM 1: Wealth determines access to mobility, particularly to countries with golden visa programmes, as they are able to gain residency and, at times, citizenship, through financial investment alone.

EVIDENCE:

• Wealthy investors are able to bypass some visa restrictions, which the average migrant is unable to do.

• Underprivileged migrants face stricter barriers to entry in these countries, even without applying for residency or asylum, due to ‘passport privilege.’

• Golden visa programmes give investors faster pathways towards residency and citizenship, whereas asylum seekers who may be in desperate need of residency in a ‘safer’ country may face obstacles and even blocked access due to preferential treatment.

  
  

SUBCLAIM 2: Migration systems with golden visa programmes privilege economic value.

EVIDENCE:

• Foreign investment is prioritized over humanitarian needs, as access to citizenship is directly tied to capital, as opposed to other metrics, such as immigrant vulnerability, or what a migrant may contribute to the economy long-term.

• There exists a great disparity in processing times and acceptance rates between golden visa applicants and those who pursue traditional pathways.

• This is further emphasized by disparities in passport strength, in which migrants from countries with strong economic power and a higher GDP per capita have visa-free access to more countries than those from economically disadvantaged states.

Thematic Claim B: Commodification of Citizenship

SUBCLAIM 1: Through golden visa programmes, citizenship is reduced to a market transaction, as residency is given in exchange for direct investment in the country.

Evidence:

• Although migrants contribute a significant financial sum in order to obtain citizenship, there is ultimately a financial exchange between residency and capital, ultimately putting a ‘price’ on citizenship.

• With each country that permits golden visa programmes, there is a growth of a global ‘citizenship market,’ allowing migrants to ‘shop’ for whichever program is more favourable to them, completely removing the sociopolitical meaning of citizenship.

SUBCLAIM 2: With each residency issued due to direct investment in the country, the political and social meaning of citizenship is reduced.

Evidence:

• In golden visa programmes in which citizenship is offered immediately, the normal pre-requisite of residency is completely bypassed.

• Assimilation and integration into the national culture is reduced, as, with residency bypasses, there is no need for any societal commingling.

• While xenophobia is a prevalent issue wherever immigration exists, golden visa programmes give rise to public concerns about the erosion of national identity, especially the implication that it can be ‘bought,’ and that there is no societal commingling between golden visa migrants and citizens.

• In the European Union (EU), golden visa programmes provide access to European mobility without integration, which is a typical standard for regular immigration pathways in each member state; the European Parliament stresses its concern over migrants taking advantage of EU privileges through the golden visa programme.

Thematic Claim C: Governance, Corruption, and Security Risks

SUBCLAIM 1: Given the requirement of a substantial financial investment to receive a golden visa, economies become vulnerable to economic crime and financial destabilization.

Evidence:

• Politically exposed persons and criminals have frequently used golden visa programmes to commit money laundering, hide assets, and insulate themselves from prosecution, among other crimes.

• Additional citizenships acquired through these programmes are often used to circumvent the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), a framework used to share banking information and prevent tax evasion.

• Corruption with government officials have often been reported through these programmes, with politically exposed individuals accepting bribes for expedited immigration processes.

SUBCLAIM 2: Golden visa programmes often have weak oversight, and lead to institutional gaps in regulation and enforcement.

Evidence:

• Across countries with these schemes, there are inconsistent standards as for who qualifies for these programmes.

• There has been EU criticism of these programmes, most notably the European Court of Justice’s April 2025 ruling that Malta’s golden passport programme violates EU law, declaring that golden visa programmes render citizenship a commercial transaction. [3]

• Cyprus’ golden visa programme was ultimately terminated in November 2020 following corruption scandals, leading to the revocation of over 360 ‘golden passports.’

Insight and Analysis

Firstly, golden visas effectively act as an extension of existing mobility inequality. Passport hierarchy already privileges wealthy nations, with citizens from the Global North having the ability to travel with minimal restrictions [4], whereas those from the Global South face strict visa, economic, and mobility constraints [5]. While diplomacy between states plays a large role in whether a country’s citizens may face visa restrictions, external factors play a large role, disproportionately affecting migrants from the Global South; for example, if a country is undergoing a civil war, access to even tourist visas may be limited by way of diplomatic sanctions, embassy and consulate closures, and the receiving country’s concern of immigrant intent [6]. Contemporary visa systems often reproduce historical colonial inequalities, leaving citizens of formerly colonized states with weaker mobility rights despite circumstances beyond their control. An example of this would be Haiti; the generational economic and political instability can be attributed in part to the Independence Debt imposed by France, yet it is this same political instability and security issues that act as a justification for visas for Haitian citizens who wish to visit France and the European Union [7]. Whereas some justifications for visa openness are related to practical concerns of overstaying one’s tourist visa and thus placing a burden upon public infrastructure, many citizens must suffer the consequences of their own government, becoming pawns in the international migration system’s game. As such, migration policy is often used to select economically beneficial migrants: points-based systems, such as Canada’s Comprehensive Ranking System and Category-Based Selection [8]; employer- and demand-driven visas, akin to the United States’ H-1B visa programme [9]; and temporary-to-permanent pathways, as seen in New Zealand’s Skilled Migrant Category [10] all use an approach to select immigrants who are most fit to economically contribute to the country. These migration policies already benefit privileged individuals; although many migrants may come from the Global South, they would have had enough privilege in their life to receive an education or relevant work experience that they are able to be chosen by migration policy. Traditional indicators of merit or humanitarian need are replaced with financial capital alone, creating a migration pathway available almost exclusively to the wealthy, reinforcing unequal access to international mobility. Migrants with ‘stronger’ passports from more robust economic states will, as a result, have more favourable circumstances through higher access to both personal wealth and opportunities. This correlation is also seen in the nationalities of those who most hold golden visas; the vast majority of golden visa holders are from wealthy Western countries, such as the United States [11]. There are also fewer requisites for golden visa investors than for migrants pursuing the typical route, as they generally only must prove financial stability; in Greece, for example, investors must purchase a residential property with a minimum value of € 800,000 in populous areas, such as Athens, or € 400,000 on islands with fewer than 3100 residents, whereas typical migrants must follow a more rigorous route to residency. [12]

States with similar programs choose migrants who will contribute to the long-term economic growth of the country, whereas golden visa programmes contribute one investment, albeit large, while leading to polarizing localized economic effects. Golden visa programmes are often designed to be a method of foreign direct investment (hereinafter referred to as “FDI”), as they fulfill the definition of being a cross-border flow of capital from a private, non-resident individual directly into a host country’s economic assets through the purchase of property. However, given the private nature of property acquisition, golden visa programmes are ‘passive’ FDI as, following the purchase of the property [13], oftentimes there are no other requirements of the investor in order to gain the privileges of residency [14]; this is in contrast to corporate and active FDI, in which foreign companies invest into the host country and provide longer-term economic benefits through building factories or cross-border mergers [15]. Although governments frequently justify these programmes as engines of economic development, evidence from European programmes suggests that passive investment has produced limited long-term economic gains. Investments concentrated in residential real estate rarely generate sustained employment or productivity growth, meaning that many programmes fail to deliver the broader development objectives used to justify their existence.

By contrast, golden visa programmes actually polarize the local economy. As the vast majority of golden visa holders invest in real estate, local housing costs and rents are often inflated to cater to golden visa applicants [16], effectively pricing locals out of their own communities as they can no longer afford what is now the standard local price. This is notable in, in which the median real estate sales price in both Lisbon and Porto rose by over 60% in a six-year period, as properties at the € 500,000 golden visa threshold routinely sold about € 50,000 higher than their actual valuation, displacing locals [17]. Thus, while these investments attract foreign capital, their economic benefits are unevenly distributed: they may benefit investors and property owners but they create pressures for local communities.

Furthermore, the political and social meaning of citizenship is diluted through golden visa programmes, as they are reduced to market transactions. While many countries do not offer a direct exchange of citizenship for capital in terms of investment, the expedited permanent residency through investment provides a gateway to enhanced benefits along with a faster path to citizenship, effectively turning citizenship into a market good. Investment migration has become a rapidly-expanding sector, growing to over $100 billion by 2025 [18], and spurring the creation of immigration consulting firms tailoring firms [19]. These firms tailor to the high-networth individual, allowing them to choose which golden visa programme is the best for them, basing on location, business opportunities, and providing concierge services [20], transforming the already amended immigration process into one of luxury. Thus, residency and citizenship are reduced into being a luxury commodity purchasable by the global elite. Citizenship is not a luxury to be procured, but a relationship between the citizen and the state; it provides rights and obligations, and connects citizens through a shared social and historic bond. Even though some citizens are naturalized, they will have had to have spent enough time within that country’s culture to have assimilated and adopted some of the cultural mannerisms; this is bypassed through the golden visa programme, as only investment is needed. As a result, the meaning of citizenship is reduced: if citizenship is effectively ‘bought’, it no longer represents the hard-earned culmination of rights, duties, and shared characteristics of a people. Communal solidarity is replaced by a consumer-client relationship between the golden visa holder and the country, and the shared civic identity and, most imperatively for wealthy Western nations, public trust in democratic institutions is weakened. When golden visas are issued, citizens perceive that government systems no longer serve the common good nor process needs fairly, but instead prioritize the wealthy bidder who can afford to invest in a nation. Consequently, a two-tier system of citizenship is created, favouring wealthy elites over lay applicants and local workers. This level of difference between golden visa holders and citizens, born or migrated, fuelling a domestic tension within the country, especially if the country is struggling financially and needs investors for economic purposes.

Moreover, the golden visa programme poses legal and ethical risks of sovereignty concerns, economic crime and corruption, and severe gaps in regulation. In the EU particularly, the European Commission has held that the ‘sale’ of member state passports through golden visa programmes is a breach of EU law, as it effectively grants wealthy non-nationals unrestricted access to the EU’s Single Market and the entire Schengen Area without the rigorous, unified vetting that the typical immigration process usually implies [21]; a golden visa granted by a country with lax background checks allows a potentially high-risk investor to freely travel across 29 European borders without internal passport controls [22]. The prioritization of revenue reduces scrutiny, as there is an inherent conflict of interest through the state’s responsibility of achieving FDI targets and marketing the country; meaning that denying an applicant would mean the rejection of cash influx, and incentivizing agencies to overlook anomalies to meet national financial goals. Furthermore, many corrupt actors and sanctioned individuals exploit these schemes to transfer large sums of money through shell companies, thus integrating the funds into the global financial system [23], and the acquisition of residency or citizenship allows these criminals to have a safe haven, evade arrest warrants, and obscure their identities from international authorities through using multiple passports from different states [24]. In Cyprus, Low Taek Jho achieved citizenship in 2015 through the state’s golden visa programme, gaining access to EU benefits. This posed problematic, as he was the central figure in the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund scandal, involving the theft of billions of dollars, and being wanted by Interpol [25]. The subsequent Cyprus Papers in 2020 revealed that citizenship had been granted to numerous high-risk political figures who were actively evading law enforcement in their home jurisdictions. [26]

Policy Recommendations

The most straightforward manner to eliminate the practical and ethical issues would be to eliminate golden visa programmes altogether. However, this is not always a practical solution, as, although golden visa programmes may be harmful to the economy, the sudden removal may destabilize the broader economy, triggering real estate shocks, freezing capital pipelines, and lowering international investor confidence. As such, limits on investment criteria, equity measures, and conditional citizenship requirements should be introduced, along with strengthening transparency and oversight to protect national security; to have reforms as opposed to the entire closure of these programmes allows the state to receive FDI and investors to receive residency or citizenship with the ensured protection in previously vulnerable areas, such as security, public acceptance, and general ethical issues; economic benefits must be balanced with ethical responsibility.

To reform investment criteria for golden visa programmes is to ensure long-term economic growth. As it currently stands, the most common golden visa requirement is a one-time investment, typically in real estate; this creates a sink in the economy, as investment allocation is distorted, redirecting FDI into passive or luxury assets as opposed to value-creating, productive investments, such as those that create jobs. It also contributes to the artificial inflation of the real estate bubble, as sellers artificially hike property values to meet minimum visa thresholds; this bubble is disconnected from local wages and actual economic health. This places the economy in a vulnerable position. The reform in investment criteria would move the investments made from passive to active investment, meaning that the investment must create local jobs and long-term economic contribution. This also reduces purely transactional models of investment-for-citizenship, reducing the commodification of citizenship and thus increasing public confidence in golden visa programmes.

Equity measures would alleviate the disparity between wealthy investors and disadvantaged migrants, as these measures would balance investment migration with expanded humanitarian pathways and fairer visa systems. For example, a state may introduce a quota, that for each investor migrant a certain number of work visa or asylum applications must be accepted; this would allow for a check on both the number of investor migrants and lay migrants, as the country would have to further consider whether the capital gained from the investment would be beneficial to the broader community as a whole. Additionally, conditional citizenship requirements should be introduced, as it would allow for the integration of the investor migrant into the community, reinforcing the concept of citizenship as a social and political membership. This would also dissuade popular discontent surrounding the investor migrants, as it would prove that the migrant has successfully assimilated into the community.

The most imperative reform would be to strengthen transparency and oversight of the golden visa process. Currently, many states with these programmes have a fragmented system; within the EU itself, where many migration procedures are similar, the countries with golden visa programmes vary their application processes [27]. Due diligence processes should be standardized across jurisdictions, especially if they are within the same customs union, notably the EU and MERCOSUR, and applicants and investments must be publicly disclosed to ensure that there is no money laundering or bribery of public officials involved. Within customs unions, there should be integrated golden visa immigration processes, to ensure that no country is neither taking advantage nor being taken advantage of by migrants.

Conclusion

Golden visa programmes, while at first glance seem ideal for wealthy investors and states alike, may be compared to fool’s gold. While they allow investors expedited access to residency and citizenship in exchange for a large one-time investment, their negative long-term impacts on the economy and the community often outweigh the temporary benefits. Additionally, citizenship is reduced to a market commodity, contributing to the rise of the global citizenship market and diluting the social and political meaning of citizenship and community.

While these issues have wide-reaching ethical, economic, and legal impact, the complete and instantaneous abolition of golden visa schemes are impractical due to the economic shocks that it will have. Thus, staged reforms, such as the introduction of equity measures to ensure fairer visa systems, changing investment requirements to mandate long-term economic contribution, conditional citizenship requirements to protect the sanctity of citizenship, and strengthening transparency and oversight measures, all contribute to the betterment of golden visa programmes, and may even eventually help the state transition into abolishing these programmes altogether. Until then, the programmes will be better supported under the above reforms.

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footnotes:

[1] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Residence/Citizenship by Investment Schemes. OECD.
[2] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes. OECD, 2023,
[3] Ibid., 1.
[4] Ibid., 1.
[5] Ibid., 1.
[6] Government of Canada. Travel Advice and Advisories. Government of Canada.
[7] France-Visas. Official Visa Website for France. Government of France.
[8]Canada assigns points to candidates on grounds of personal qualifications, such as education, language efficiency, work experience, and skill transferability. Additional points are added for advantages such as having family in Canada, having a Canadian education, or being part of a Provincial Nomination Program.
[9] The US’ H-1B visa programme allows employers to petition for foreign professionals in “specialty occupations,” such as medicine, engineering, and technology, so long as the migrant has the equivalent of a US bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience.
[10]The Skilled Migrant category combines the points-based system and the employer-driven visa, in which workers will have an expedited possibility of becoming a permanent resident and eventual citizen.
[11] Ibid., 1.
[12] Government of Greece, Ministry of Migration and Asylum. Legal Migration Information Guide [Νόμιμη Μετανάστευση]. Ministry of Migration and Asylum, Feb. 2023,
[13] International Monetary Fund. Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual. 7th ed., IMF.
[14] Ibid., 13.
[15] Ibid., 13.
[16] Ibid., 13.
[17] Tax Observatory. All That Glitters? Golden Visas and Real Estate. EU Tax Observatory.
[18] WealthBriefing. "'Golden Visa' Industry Seen Surging to $100 Billion in 2025 – Report." WealthBriefing.
[19] Henley & Partners. Golden Visa Programs. Henley & Partners.
[20] Ibid., 17.
[21] European Parliamentary Research Service. Avenues for EU Action on Citizenship and Residence by Investment Schemes. European Parliament, 2021.
[22] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Misuse of Citizenship and Residency by Investment Programmes. OECD, 2023.
[23] Ibid., 22.
[24] Ibid., 22.
[25] Welle, Deutsche. "Why Are Golden Visa Schemes Being Scrapped?" DW, 15 Jan. 2024.
[26] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Residence/Citizenship by Investment Schemes. OECD.
[27] European Parliamentary Research Service. Avenues for EU Action on Citizenship and Residence by Investment Schemes. European Parliament, 2021.

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