Skip to navigation

Skip to main content

Home

contact us

About Migration Dialogue

Migration Dialogue provides timely, factual and nonpartisan information and analysis of international migration issues through five major activities: the newsletters Migration News and Rural Migration News, Changing Face and other Research & Seminars, and the Sloan West Coast Program on Science and Engineering Workers.

Contact us at migrant@primal.ucdavis.edu.

Rural Migration Blog: Golden Passports and Mobility

Many small island nations offer golden passports that grant citizenship in exchange for donations or investments of $100,000 to $1 million. Many industrial countries including the US offer investors golden visas in exchange for investments that allow residence and can lead naturalization.

About 25 countries have golden passport or citizenship-by-investment (CBI) programs, and 50 have golden visa or residence-by-investment (RBI) programs. CBI programs are proliferating as more microstates with populations of less than a million realize that they can generate significant revenues without raising taxes. RBI programs in some countries have become controversial, charged with raising house prices in countries from Canada to Portugal and fueling fraud.

The first countries to create golden passport programs were ex-British colonies such as St Kitts (45,000) and Nevis (10,000) in the Caribbean, where the sale of citizenship accounts for up to half of government revenues. The main customers are Chinese citizens, followed by citizens of Russia, the ex-USSR, and middle eastern countries from Afghanistan to Syria.

St Kitts-Nevis has the longest-running CBI program

Countries that sold passports in 2023

  • Samoa
  • Antigua and Barbuda
  • Saint Kitts and Nevis
  • Dominica
  • Saint Lucia
  • Grenada
  • Romania
  • Montenegro
  • North Macedonia
  • Malta
  • Cyprus
  • Mauritania
  • Russia
  • Moldova
  • Turkey
  • Jordan
  • Egypt
  • Pakistan
  • Cambodia
  • Seychelles
  • Comoros
  • Vanuatu

Continue reading...

 
  • Rural Migration News

    Rural Migration News summarizes the most important migration-related issues affecting agricultural and rural America, and is produced with the support of the Colcom, Giannini, and Walmart foundations.

  • Rural Migration News Blogs

    Rural Migration News blogs examine a particular farm labor, migration, or trade issue, and are produced with the support of the Colcom, Giannini, and Walmart foundations.

  • Farm Labor and Mexican Produce Exports

    The US imports over half of its fresh fruit and a third of its fresh vegetables, mostly from Mexico. This project, led by the Wilson Center's Mexico Institute and supported by the Walmart foundations, strengthens protections for Mexican workers employed throughout North America agriculture and works with stakeholders to implement evidence-based policies that improve worker protections.

  • Migration News

    Migration News was a monthly and later quarterly summary of the most important migration issues in the US, Europe, and Asia that was produced between 1994 and 2014 with the support of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

  • Sloan West Coast Program On S&E Workers

    The Sloan Program on Science and Engineering Workers supported researchers interested in how affected US workers employed in IT-related occupations between 2007 and 2014 with the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

  • Changing Face & UFW Contracts

    The Changing Face project assessed the effects of immigrant farm workers on agriculture and agricultural communities in California and other states between 1994 and 2016 with the support of the Farm and Rosenberg Foundations.

  • Research & Seminars

    Migration Dialogue organized seminars for opinion leaders to discuss comparative migration issues between 1993 and 2004 with the support of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.