For all the criticisms and restrictions that are sometimes directed at these schemes, the authors of a new report reckon that the market for citizenship and residency could reach $100 billion in 2025.

Multipolitan, a Singapore-headquartered platform for citizenship/residence-by-investment and other cross-border solutions, says this market could overtake $100 billion next year from $21.4 billion before the pandemic in 2019.

The firm, founded this year, has issued its inaugural Navigating the Future of Wealth Report 2024.

"The global wealth landscape is evolving rapidly due to technological advances, demographic shifts, and the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in history. With younger investors and a dynamic geopolitical environment, new asset classes and markets are being unlocked,” Sandeep Jain, senior managing partner at Multipolitan, said. 

The firm said that “acquiring alternative residency or citizenship has become essential for navigating geopolitical uncertainties and seizing new opportunities.”

“Nations with favourable tax policies, strong security, and stable governance are in high demand, offering both an enhanced quality of life and a strategic hedge against political and economic risks,” it said. 

The report has been issued at a time when countries such as the UK have squeezed resident non-domiciled individuals, France is hiking taxes and some US citizens dislike their country’s domestic politics. Previously, much of the interest in such visa/residency regimes came from emerging market countries, Multipolitan’s CEO and co-founder, Nirbhay Handa, said. 

Citizenship/residency-by investment schemes, sometimes nicknamed “golden visas,” have proliferated, although they can be politically controversial. Canada and Portugal, for example, have halted, paused or restricted them because of domestic public complaints about upward pressure on property prices. Schemes operated in countries such as Malta have been criticised as a vulnerability for money launderers. The UK suspended its Tier 1 Visa system in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. On the other hand, defenders of these programmes say that with safeguards, they are a useful way to encourage inward investment. 

Multipolitan was founded by Handa and Lee Smith. Handa is a former group head of business development at Henley & Partners, a business advising individuals on citizenship/residency-by investment programmes, and Smith founded payment unicorn Paidy which was acquired by Paypal.