The tiny South Pacific island of Nauru has just announced that it is launching a Citizenship by Investment program.
$140,000 all-in for a single applicant
$155,000 all-in for a family of four
Nauru has visa-free access to the UK, Ireland, South Korea and the UAE.
Laszlo and I shared our initial thoughts, discussed the potential due diligence process, as well as compared Nauru with Vanuatu.
If you’re interested in this program or in the Vanuatu passport, feel free to send Laszlo an email. He’s been in this business for three decades.
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Transcript of “New Citizenship by Investment! Nauru”
LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello, everyone. Ladislas Maurice from thewanderinginvestor.com today with some breaking news, there is a new Citizenship by Investment Program. Laszlo, our passport gentleman, can you tell us about it?
LASZLO: Hello, Ladislas. Good afternoon, good morning to everyone who is listening to us. Yes, it’s quite good news, I would say, because it is just simply giving more choices to people who are thinking about the Plan B and having second citizenship. Nauru is in the Pacific Ocean. Not many people know a lot about Nauru, but it’s in the Pacific Ocean. So I would say that in our business of residency and citizenship by investment, it’s a kind of a competitor, it would become a kind of a competitor to Vanuatu. So all in all, whenever I see a new country coming up, I think in that region, we have to see how they are managing their program compared to Vanuatu, and to see the advantages and disadvantages from that viewpoint.
How much does the Nauru citizenship by investment program cost?
LADISLAS MAURICE: So importantly, what are the price points?
LASZLO: The price points are quite similar between the two countries, because the Nauru program has been announced today. So all in all, based on the information which we have already received, then a single applicant’s total cost would be, approximately, $140,000, while in Vanuatu it’s $135,000. Money wise, I do not think there is a big difference in that because $1,000 or $2,000, really, just I do not think would influence anybody to go at this one or to choose this one and that one. For a four-member family for the development support program in Vanuatu, it’s $180,000, while in Nauru, it is planned to have for a family of four $155,000.
Obviously, I would like to see the law. I would like to see the exact regulation so that we could make a calculation, above 18 children, is there any kind of special fee and so on. But for the information which we have so far, that is a difference. For a bigger family, it makes financially more sense to try to choose the Nauru citizenship instead of the Vanuatu one on a monetary on a price level.
Vanuatu vs Nauru passport strength
LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool, because when I compare the visa-free travel between the two countries or easier travels, because, sometimes, you’re looking at e-visas, or visa on arrival, so Vanuatu is better for developing countries. These are Belarus, Bosnia, Montenegro, a lot of Central America, like, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, even the Philippines, Senegal, Uganda, and Laos are countries that are easier to access with the Vanuatu passport. But on the other hand, Nauru, for now, it would appear that Ireland, South Korea, the UAE, and the UK grant easier access to Nauru citizens than Vanuatu.
LASZLO: That is true, even though in the UAE you could get visa on arrival. So all in all, that is not, but the UK, I think, is definitely the biggest selling point for somebody who wants to have easier access to the United Kingdom then would seriously consider Nauru. Dominica lost its visa-free travel, and Vanuatu lost its visa-free travel to the United Kingdom, so forth, competing with them, definitely, that’s an advantage for Vanuatu. That’s true.
How durable is Nauru’s UK visa-free access?
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. How durable is this UK visa-free situation?
LASZLO: It’s a political decision, usually. So all in all, now it’s hard to predict, because I would see the future and the crystal ball and everything then, I would be [laughs] most probably, I would be just sitting next to the Bahamas onto the beach and drinking something like– Anyway, sorry, I’m just joking. So all in all, I foresee that, yes, a certain level of due diligence would be demanded. The United Kingdom one day canceled the visa-free travel for Vanuatu. One of the reason was the not high level of due diligence when the customers and this new citizens, new applications were checked. So all in all, I think Nauru has to be careful with this and to provide a much better and much more widespread or thorough investigation of the applicant.
Investigation might not be a very positive word. So they have to do a more proper due diligence than Vanuatu currently does, because of the risk of possibly losing the UK visa-free travel, which is good, by the way, because that means that bad people would be not really welcome at all. People, for example, without passports, who are running away from law enforcement. So if somebody doesn’t have a passport, I mean, 90% of the cases, that is a serious case. Vanuatu was happy to handle some of the people without passports. I do not think that Nauru would be permitted or would be able to do that just if they are planning for the future.
If they are planning for one or two or three years’ time, fair enough, maybe they would risk it, but I think that they would keep up the standards. And for that respect, yes, better quality clients are expected to go to get the Nauru citizenship with the hope that the UK would understand this and would accept this kind of compromise, and then they would keep Nauruan people the citizenship to travel to the UK visa-free.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. And when people lose the UK, they, typically, also lose Ireland. The two work quite closely, especially that open border between the two in Northern Ireland.
LASZLO: Exactly.
Due diligence process for Nauru citizenship by investment program
LADISLAS MAURICE: So people just need to be mindful of this. And what you raised about the extra due diligence on Nauru, the general line of thinking is that they would probably have to have fairly similar due diligence processes to the countries in the Caribbean to be able to maintain the UK, which means that this makes a clear differentiation between Vanuatu and Nauru. If you want easier paperwork, you go for Vanuatu. If you’re fine with the extra due diligence, which, sometimes, is a lot of paperwork and can be quite intense for applicants, or if your case is relatively simple, it depends, if you’ve traveled a lot and your money’s coming from many different places, etc., due diligence is always more complicated than if you’ve just stayed in one state in the US your whole life, then it matters less. So it really depends on the applicants.
Political justification for Nauru CBI
LADISLAS MAURICE: And then also what I found that’s quite interesting is the political aspect of how they decided to pitch the CBI. So the Caribbean countries like to talk about, some of them, “We get wiped out by hurricanes once every few years, we need constant money to rebuild our infrastructure, et cetera.” Nauru announced their Citizenship by Investment Program at the big climate change conference in Baku. So this is really about, “Hey, sea levels are rising, and we’re eventually going to get submerged, and we need money to prepare, etc., etc.”
LASZLO: “We have to survive,” yes, somehow, yes. “And we need the citizenship program to generate money for us so that we can survive.” I guess this is the selling point, and this is how it was developed based on that way of thinking. True. Yes.
Comparing the actual countries: Vanuatu vs Nauru
LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool. And then I think it’s important for people, because we’re having a little conversation beforehand, because you’ve been to Vanuatu a few times, Laszlo, and they’re not the same, right? [laughs] Can you give us an idea of scale between the two?
LASZLO: [laughs] Looking from 15,000 miles away, obviously, yeah, they might look the same, but no, they are definitely different in many aspects. Vanuatu has 330,000 citizens, approximately. It has, like, 80 separate islands. Nauru has 12,000 people, one-two, 12,000 people only, and that is one small island, meaning that sociologically, economically, nearly every respect, they are different size. Also the history of Nauru, well, both countries because of the extraordinary circumstances, Vanuatu is usually hit by a hurricane every second year or so, while Nauru doesn’t have this kind of a problem.
But then Nauru, since the 1970s where they became independent, their economy really rather went down than up. And therefore, then the economic viability of doing any business on Nauru, think about it, it’s 12,000 people which is the actual market, and it’s in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The cost of reaching Nauru, the cost of telecommunication, every aspect of life is more expensive. So at the end, that’s why the citizenship is not a bad idea. But then Vanuatu is much bigger. Also, it means that they have probably more people, or more choices to choose the necessary people to do the job than from 12,000.
Think about you need when you are dealing with foreign customers coming from all over the world who are, basically, affluent people or rich people, and they have a demand for a certain quality of the service and so on and so on. So all in all, the people processing the applications in Nauru, they really have to be educated and really on a world level. But then it is not easy to choose, from 12,000 people, the suitable staff, 5 people, 10 people, because then they would be used for all the government administration or everywhere, because they are so useful.
And that is Vanuatu, obviously, then, because the 330,000 range, it is, obviously, a much easier job. Just one or two aspects of life, economies of scale, and running the government, all the government services. So all in all, yes, those two countries are different. Still Nauru is a sovereign country, visa-free travel to the UK and UAE.
Vanuatu passport vs Nauru passport for perpetual travelers
LADISLAS MAURICE: And people need to keep in mind, because, sometimes, people get a Vanuatu passport, or a Caribbean passport, for example, to claim residency as well, they’re perpetual travelers, they’re traveling all over the world, and then they just set up a base there, signed a lease agreement, and they say that it’s their main base, that is more of a viable option for Vanuatu, for sure, airline connections, just finding a place to rent, getting a driver’s license, opening a local bank account, all of these things are probably a lot easier to implement than trying to do this in Nauru, which is really, really hard to reach.
So that’s one point for people that would be interested for residency as well, because you can get citizenship, and then, once you’re a citizen, you can also claim residency in the country. Those are two different topics. Great, fantastic.
LASZLO: Yeah, with different sizes, and yes, so many things can be deducted from that simple fact, yes.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Fantastic. So if you’re interested in finding out more about the Nauru Citizenship by Investment, or if you’re interested in Vanuatu, feel free to get in touch with Laszlo. You can discuss potentially the two, which of the two is a better fit for you. So there’s Laszlo’s email below, as well as a link with more information on the Vanuatu Citizenship by Investment Program, and then we’ll see as we find out more information on Nauru. But yeah, this is good news for the industry to see new programs showing up.
LASZLO: Better choices, completely agree. Yes.
LADISLAS MAURICE: All right. Thank you, Laszlo.
LASZLO: Thank you so much. Cheers. Bye-bye.
