Bulgaria government has abolished obtaining citizenship and permanent residence (golden visa) against investments in the country. It was announced officially by Ministry of Justice on March 21, 2019.
The Bulgaria Ministry of Justice also had proposed changes to citizenship act, making it no longer possible to buy citizenship or passports for investment. The Justice Ministry has published draft amendments to the Bulgarian Citizenship Act
The draft of proposed amendments mentioned
It is proposed to abandon the possibility of acquiring Bulgarian citizenship under naturalization by persons who have received a Permanent Residence Permit grounds of art. 25, para. 1, items 6 and 7 of the Aliens Act in the Republic of Bulgaria, or as family members of such persons, or have increased their investment in the same conditions of the law to a value of at least two million levs
The move was made after a series of scandals involving granted Bulgarian citizenship to businessmen sought out by various anti-criminal agencies around the world, reported Novinite News Agency
The Ministry of Justice said real investment in Bulgaria has not been made and bad practises caused two scandals, the Ministry of Justice said.
“Practice shows that applicants for citizenship on these grounds have been granted a permanent residence permit due to investments made mainly in the purchase of government securities worth over BGN 1 million or have invested more than BGN 1 million in a licensed credit institution under a contract for respectively, increased the investment under the same conditions to BGN 2 million. At the time of filing the application for Bulgarian citizenship or at one of the next stages of the production often turns out that the investment is not available due to the sale of the purchased securities, “the Justice Ministry’s announcement said.
In Jan 2019 announcement, The Ministry of Justice said , The proposal of the working group at the Ministry of Justice to eliminate the possibility for Bulgarian citizenship to be acquired based on investments, was prepared on the basis of an analysis of the application of Article 12а and Article 14а of the Bulgarian Citizenship Act, in force as of 2013. The data shows that the goal to increase the actual foreign investments and economic growth has not been reached yet. As a result, new jobs have not been created and economic growth has not been achieved. In addition, as of the date of the analysis, in certain cases it was found at a later stage of the proceedings, for example, that the investment was not available due to the sale of the securities purchased or for other reasons.
The working group was set up as per an order of Justice Minister Tsetska Tsacheva on 15 February 2018.
Bulgaria granted some 45 fast track citizenships for investment since the start of the scheme in 2010 which requires EUR 1 million euro investment and citizenship granted after one year wait. In 2018, alone Bulgaria granted citizenship to 29 foreign investors
There were also cases of less than 300 investors in golden visa scheme of Bulgaria.
Currently Bulgaria, along with Malta and Cyprus are the only EU countries offering citizenships for investment.
