What areas of immigration are in demand in 2020 - 2021 and why? Instead of a preface.
The crisis has changed the preferences of the majority of third-country nationals regarding the choice of directions and purposes of immigration. If yesterday the most of applicants for obtaining a resident status were concerned by freedom of movement, now security matters have come to the fore. We mean economical, financial, environmental, information security...
Only yesterday, most of the interested parties were supporters of the theory: residence permit as an alternate airfield. Today, taking into account the experience of the pandemic, it has become extremely clear that this is very ineffective to obtain resident status in a country with which there are no plans to connect their life, business, or, at least, the education of children.
Countries are coming to the fore, in which clients and their families are really ready to move under new conditions. Moreover, in a number of countries, to increase attractiveness, special tax regimes are offered for “newly minted residents”, that allows decline taxes on income, as a rule, received outside the state in which a residence permit was issued.
We conducted a survey of our customers and partners and make conclusion that a preference can be given to the following countries / programs:
- Austria - residence permit for Financially Independent Persons,
- UK - Visa Investor Tier 1 (subject to non-domicile Tax regime) & Start-up Visa,
- Greece - Golden Visa & Visa for Financially Independent Persons,
- Spain - Golden Visa & Non-lucrative (Wealthy) Visa,
- Italy - Visa Investor (in conjunction with the Tax benefits for residents initiative) & Blue Card work permit,
- Cyprus - Citizenship by Investment program (to our regret this program was stopped in November 2020. We are expecting new program to appear in 2021),
- Malta - Residency Visa & Individual Investor programs,
- Portugal - Golden Visa & Passive Income Visa D7 (in conjunction with the Non-Habitual Residents tax regime),
- USA - nonimmigrant Visa E-2 (subject to the purchase of a Grenada passport).
It should be noted that the mentioned nine countries are far from a complete list of opportunities for obtaining a residence permit, permanent residence or citizenship under the current COVID restrictions. Let's dwell on each of the above programs separately.
To be continued - Austria - residence permit for Financially Independent Persons.
