Under the scheme, investors who make a minimum contribution of €650,000 ($878,000, £545,500) and who pass background checks will be able to become citizens of the Mediterranean island country. Spouses and minor children may also become citizens, for an additional €25,000 each.
Malta's so-called Individual Investor Programme, or IPP, was promoted by Malta’s government, which sees it as a means of generating extra revenue.
However, the opposition Nationalist Party is unhappy with the scheme, arguing that it lacks transparency. The fact that applicants' identities would not be publicly discosed is another concern, articles in the islands' online newspapers reveal.
The IPP is not Malta's first scheme to use financial incentives to encourage certain types of individuals to come to the island. Something called the Highly Qualified Persons Rules scheme was introduced in 2011 in an effort to attract people highly-skilled in certain areas, such as actuaries, by offering them a flat personal tax rate of 15% for a consecutive five-year period only.
Another scheme, the Malta Global Residence Programme, aims to bring high net worth individuals to Malta by trading the right of residency for the buying or renting of residential property costing above a certain minimum amount.
In launching the so-called Individual Investor Programme, or IPP, Malta joins a growing number of countries that now offer citizenship to foreigners as a means of luring private wealth to their shores. Such programmes are often seen as targeting Russian and Chinese millionaires, many of whom are leaving their countries even without the lure of passports.
Cyprus, another Mediterranean island with EU status, and one that was particularly hard-hit by the recent euro crisis, launched a similar passport-for-money scheme earlier this year.
Spain has also been working on a programme to grant residency to foreigners who buy homes in the country worth €160,000 or more, in an effort to jump-start its ailing residential property market.
Even the UK has what it calls its Tier 1 Investor scheme, under which some 470 foreign nationals were permitted to enter the UK last year via Tier 1 Investor visas, according to the Home Office.
In Malta, the job of overseeing the passport-for-cash scheme has been outsourced to Henley & Partners, an international residency and citizenship specialist. To read more about it on the H&P website, click here.
