Buying a property in Europe to get an European passport

[Tamary97]

I feel sad that my children and us don't have the opportunity to move or work in Europe anymore due to Brexit. I know some countries have some schemes in which if you invest in their country you get residence and later on can apply for citizenship.

Has anyone done this? how easy/complicated it is? what is the process exactly?.

We may retire to a country in the European Union and would like the the children to have the opportunity to work anywhere in the European Union if they would like to when they grow up.

You haven’t lost the opportunity completely. You’re not banned. You’ll just need to apply for visas. If you want it badly enough, you’ll find a way, just as people have found ways to move to countries that were never in the EU such as Canada or Japan.

Investment visas that grant residency usually require an investment that is upwards of half a million.

It really isn't that bad. You can if you want and if the opportunity is there - get a job in Europe and move. Once there, stay long enough to get permanent residency.
You can buy property perhaps via an investment visa. I would think this is more expensive depending on which country you are looking at. You cannot just buy property and get a visa. Owning a house in the UK for example does not entitle you to a visa.
Retirement - you would need a visa, proof of income and health insurance. It is all possible just a lot tougher.

Your children wouldn't get any automatic rights just because you buy a property in another country. I have lived abroad for years and actually obtaining citizenship is quite complicated and comes with a raft of criteria showing financial and social integration and language ability. My dc will hopefully get dual nationality through me if the process is complete before they are 18, otherwise they would have to apply in their own right - and it's not a given.

I know some countries have some schemes in which if you invest in their country you get residence and later on can apply for citizenship.

You'd need to look into exactly what is required for each country, but it's usually not cheap, and you'd need to comply with the tax laws regarding the property; but plus tax and residency rules for your residency and then citizenship.

It depends on the country but normally now for EU jobs you have to pass a medical test and apply for a visa. Many jobs are no longer available for non-EU passport holders. It is a complete pain in the arse.

It really isn't that bad. You can if you want and if the opportunity is there - get a job in Europe and move. Once there, stay long enough to get permanent residency.

Permanent residency is not the same as having a European passport.

You would need to take citizenship to be entitled to a (e.g. French) passport. This is a long and expensive process.

I now have permant residency, but I remain a UK citizen and have no entitlement to a French passport.

It's incredibly difficult to get actual citizenship from most European countries, you not only have to be resident for a number of years but speak the language, take classes etc. And you cannot just pass it down to your children, they would need to qualify in their own right.

If you're a multi-millionaire and can throw money around you will have more options but that's obviously a small number of people.

If you are serious then your best bet is to try to get a work visa/job in another EU country and start the residency clock.

Or encourage your children to go to university in an EU country.

Obviously it varies from country to country but I wouldn't expect anything to be straightforward. My DH is entitled to citizenship of an EU country because of his parent's country of birth. I would be automatically entitled if he took that citizenship but our children would not be. They may become entitled after a period of time, but it's far from clear and could be expensive as well as complicated. Also this country doesn't allow dual citizenship so we would have to give up our British citizenship, meaning we'd have different nationality to our children. We've decided not to pursue the idea for now.
We're actually hoping DH's elderly parents will sell the property that they own in their home country rather than leave it to us, as the logistics of us having to deal with it as non citizens look very messy to be honest.

DH has an EU passport and we have looked into the easiest way for me to get one. We already own a property in Spain and believe me it’s not easy to get a passport.
We think the easiest way is going to be living for longer than 6 months of the year in the EU country DHs passport is from for 3 years.
If it was just a case of buying a property it would be great, but it’s not

Yes dual citizenship is an issue as well

I could have applied for German nationality but I would have had to give up my existing citizenship which I was not willing to do

DH has dual uk/German nationality as do the dc. Our understanding is that Germany allows it with another EU country (which the UK was at the time) but we hope it won’t be an issue at passport renewal.
Or perhaps you don’t have UK citizenship?

That's right, I don't have UK citizenship, which is why it was a problem a few years back

But going forward, UK citizens are in the same boat, thanks to Brexit. You needed to have applied before last December.

I can't imagine you will have any issue when you renew your passport, they're not revoking citizenships because of Brexit (luckily!)

I think it’s Malta and Cyprus that have the investment visas that allow you a fast track to citizenship which would indeed give you access to an EU passport. €500k if I remember correctly, though it might have changed now. Both countries are under pressure to change their systems though, as other EU member states aren’t very happy about EU citizenship being sold off in this way (concern isn’t about Brits primarily!) so I’m not sure how long it will last….

Thank you all for the reply.

I understand that you need to spend 500k in Spain and you will get resident, also any children under 18. For Portugal it is 350k and you don't have to live there permanently. It is just an idea, we can't afford it unless we sell our current property and downsize.

I would love the children to have the opportunity to live and work anywhere they want when they grow up but even though the opportunity is not totally lost, it is definitely more complicated now with Brexit, so I feel like we are stuck with the UK whether we like it or not.

I now have permanent residency, but I remain a UK citizen and have no entitlement to a French passport.

Same goes the other way - my French partner has permanent residency here but is not applying to become a British citizen.

Your Portuguese info is incorrect. If you are interested then join Facebook page British expats in Portugal and read their files. Having residency just means you can live and pay tax here. Citizenship is more complicated.

OP I'm not sure you understand the difference between residency and citizenship. There are certainly ways to buy yourself residency in a country but that doesn't give you any rights in any other EU country. For that you need citizenship, and for that you almost always need to live in the country for some years and learn the language.

We’re looking into it. As it stands people with just a British passport can only spend 90 days in Europe- that’s not long, particularly as we retire. Afaik the Spanish requirement is €500,000 and Greece is less.

The €500k requirement in Spain is for residency, not citizenship. You could go through the citizenship process but it takes about 10 years. Before that, you’d only have the right to reside in Spain, it doesn’t transfer to the rest of the EU.

Do you mind me asking - those that are looking into buying homes that are not in the UK in order to 'get a European passport' - are you planning on moving to these countries and living there and paying taxes in these countries?
If you are not, do you realise that you're possibly taking a property away from people who do want to live in those countries, work in those countries and pay taxes and contribute to those countries...not just use them for the EU status??

I'm sorry that the UK has left the EU but the opportunity was there to vote to remain in the EU and more people voted to leave than remain. It's that simple.

My dd has Dutch residence at the moment and, if she lives there permanently for about another two years, she can have permanent residence - but she will not get citizenship or a passport and, consequently, will not benefit from freedom of movement.
She lives near the Belgian border just now but, as a British citizen with Dutch residency, she is only entitled to live and work in the Netherlands. She can’t travel to a job in Belgium. She could apply for Dutch citizenship eventually but would have to renounce her British citizenship as part of that.
There is no way to buy an EU citizenship just by purchasing a property in Spain or Portugal. You can, I believe, ‘invest’ about €500k in Malta and get a Maltese passport but that ‘investment’ is money that you pay to the government. You don’t get to buy yourself a house in Malta that comes with a passport. You buy that separately.

@LookItsMeAgain

Do you mind me asking - those that are looking into buying homes that are not in the UK in order to 'get a European passport' - are you planning on moving to these countries and living there and paying taxes in these countries? If you are not, do you realise that you're possibly taking a property away from people who do want to live in those countries, work in those countries and pay taxes and contribute to those countries...not just use them for the EU status??

I'm sorry that the UK has left the EU but the opportunity was there to vote to remain in the EU and more people voted to leave than remain. It's that simple.

Well firstly we bought ours well before Brexit, never imagining that we would ever even vote on leaving let alone leave a The EU. Also there isn’t a property shortage in most EU countries so we wouldn’t be taking away a property from anyone Lastly I did vote Remain but although we lost I will not allow the people who voted Leave to take away the rights of myself and my DC if it’s in my power to do something about it.

Malta and Cyprus, as pp said, are really the only two countries that operate like this. The others grant residency, which is a completely separate thing from citizenship.

Anyway, Ireland is probably best place to go, as there is freedom to live there for British, and vice versa.

@CovidPassQuestion

Malta and Cyprus, as pp said, are really the only two countries that operate like this. The others grant residency, which is a completely separate thing from citizenship.

Anyway, Ireland is probably best place to go, as there is freedom to live there for British, and vice versa.

Please don't come to Ireland as we do have a property crisis at the moment as there aren't enough homes for the people we already have here at the moment.

You do know British people haven’t been instantly banned from living and working in the EU? The only thing stopping anyone from applying would be their own laziness.