NEWS

Price of Turkey’s Citizenship by Investment Program Cut to $250,000

According to an Official Gazette (in Turkish), new prices are now in effect for the Turkey citizenship by investment program. 

The minimum investment necessary to qualify for citizenship is now US$250,000, down by three quarters from the initial minimum requirement of $1 million. Investors may choose from a variety of options, including real estate, bank deposits, job creation, and capital investments.

The new investment requirements are for real estate $250,000 (down from $1 million); for bank deposits $500,000 (down from $3 million); for capital investment $500,000 (down from $2 million).

For the job creation option, fifty positions of employment are now sufficient, down from 100.

Laszlo Kiss, head of Discus Holdings, a leading investment migration firm with a significant presence in Turkey, thinks the program’s policy change could benefit savvy investors with a moderate tolerance for risk.

“Turkey is in a financial crisis, with the depreciation of the Turkish Lira, the real estate investors who invested five years ago lost a lot of funds. Currently, with the effect of the crisis and the depreciation, available prices for real estate investment for pleasure or as an investment seems to offer a quite good upside potential in the medium term,” writes Kiss in an email.

What does Turkey offer? Without visa-free access to Schengen, a Turkish passport in itself is not particularly attractive, but Turkey is an E2-treaty signatory country, which means its nationals are eligible for E-2 visas in the US.

The Turkish program may now also be an intriguing proposition to applicants from countries that have entered so-called retrogression for the EB-5-program, notably China and Vietnam.

“The EB-5 process takes up to 2 years from Turkey and the quota for that is about 700 [Turks per year]. Currently, the application numbers are about 40-50 applications annually,” explains Kiss.

A Turkish passport in exchange for a $250,000 investment in Mediterranean real estate that could help you qualify for a green card within two years? It beats waiting 15 years to have your EB-5 case looked at. 

Source : Imidaily