Visas and the queue
Citizenship by investment
Also called CBI, economic citizenship, golden passport, second passport.
Citizenship by investment is a scheme that grants a country's nationality, and its passport, in exchange for a set payment or investment; the United States runs no such scheme, and EB-5 buys conditional permanent residence, never citizenship.
What it decides
Naturalization in the United States is earned, not bought. Under 8 U.S.C. 1427(a) it takes five years of continuous residence after lawful admission for permanent residence, physical presence for at least half of that time, three months in the state or district where the application is filed, and good moral character throughout, so an EB-5 investor reaches a US passport only through conditional residence, removal of conditions and then naturalization. The two conditional years count toward the five, but USCIS will generally not naturalize someone whose conditions have not been removed. A bought passport carries no right to live in the United States. What it can do is nonimmigrant: a national of a treaty country may qualify for an E-2 treaty investor visa, and the State Department treaty table at 9 FAM 402.9 lists small states such as Grenada, but that is a temporary visa and not a green card. In Case C-181/23, decided on 29 April 2025, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union held that Malta's scheme breached Article 20 TFEU and Article 4(3) TEU as a commercialisation of Union citizenship.
Where this is explained properly
Pages here that go into citizenship by investment rather than mentioning it.
Related terms
- EB-5 Immigrant Investor ProgramEB-5 is the employment-based fifth preference immigrant visa category: a foreign national who invests the required capital in a new US commercial enterprise receives permanent residence, granted first on a two year conditional basis, and keeps it by proving that the investment created full-time jobs for at least ten qualifying US workers. It leads to residence, not citizenship.
- NaturalizationNaturalization is the process by which a lawful permanent resident becomes a US citizen, requiring under 8 U.S.C. 1427(a) five years of continuous residence after lawful admission for permanent residence, physical presence for at least half of that time, three months in the state where the application is filed, and good moral character.
- E-2 treaty investor visaThe E-2 treaty investor visa is a nonimmigrant classification for a national of a country holding a qualifying treaty of commerce and navigation with the United States who has invested, or is actively in the process of investing, a substantial amount of capital in a bona fide US enterprise and seeks entry solely to develop and direct it.
- Golden visaGolden visa is a colloquial name for a foreign residence by investment programme that grants residence in the country running it in return for a qualifying investment; it is not a term in United States law, it grants nothing in the United States, and the closest US equivalent is EB-5, which is bought with a real enterprise and ten jobs rather than with a payment.
- Gold CardThe Gold Card is an expedited immigrant visa process created by Executive Order 14351 of 19 September 2025, under which an unrestricted gift of $1 million by an individual, or $2 million by a company on an individual's behalf, to the Department of Commerce is treated as evidence of eligibility for an existing EB-1 or EB-2 immigrant visa; it is not a new visa category and it is not EB-5.
Checked against primary sources on . Back to the glossary