Wecome back everyone, Gustavo here with Travels to Europe, i am speaking to you from the beautiful city of Coimbra right now and today we’re going to discuss the subject of what are the easiest countries to immigrate and/or get a schengen visa for. So why am i talking about this? I’m talking about this because of the fact that a schengen visa gives you not only access to that particular country, but to all of the schengen zone, typically about 24 countries and this is also going to give you freedom of travel throughout here.
In this article we gonna list the Easiest Countries in Schengen Zone to Get Residency, that are:
- Slovakia
- Czech Republic
- Lithuania
- Spain
- Portugal
- Latvia
- Greece
Before i dive into that subject, which we will cover that you don’t have to be citizens or residents like you don’t actually have to spend much time there at all. For me personally this is an important topic, there are some places that you can get residency fairly easy that are not in the Schengen zone for instance. I’ve put a bunch of content out of Bulgaria where is pretty easy for somebody abroad to come and to get a residency within Europe. The good news is that can lead to citizenship which can then give you pretty decent citizenship and access to a bunch of the world. You can do that either by coming under a normal visa or there is an investor visa that kind of gives accelerated citizenship which can also be good.
Seven Fastest Countries to Get Dual Citizenship
A Borderless Travel Pass
Today we’re not going to talk about that because i want to focus specifically on the Schengen zone. This specifically because the Schengen zone is kind of borderless travel, once you’re in one country you can travel to all the others, so for instance, it is not uncommon for somebody to have a Schengen visa somewhere else and to live in Spain, right? Maybe the person doesn’t want to actually go through the process in Spain, although there are some programs in Spain that you may want to take advantage of. But those are not going to be the ones that you’re particularly interested in for whatever reason. This is going to be about what are the ones that you can get it pretty easily, pretty inexpensively, fairly quickly, that will give you all that travel freedom and this is a great way for you to work towards a second citizenship, like a good quality second citizenship. A second citizenship that will not only grant you a lot of views of free travel but the ability to work and live anywhere in the EU, which is kind of a secondary power that’s not reflected in a lot of the indexes, I like to kind of appreciate that, and in this time, once you’re in the Schengen zone your ability to travel around is much greater than coming from outside into that area.
What Mean to Have a Retirement Visa in Europe?
The thing we’re going to be focusing on here are at first, until the end i’ll get into like the really easy ones later, but some investment required is to do with typically either setting up a business, you have some sort of a business that’s employing or alternatively there’s some retirement visas. Now what we mean by our retirement visa is not that you’re necessarily retired, that’s not what we’re talking about here, but that you can prove that you have income to cover yourself.
Slovakia
The first that i want to mention which is perhaps one of the easiest or one of the top two easiest is Slovakia. Slovakia has a pretty easy program in terms of being able to get residency there by setting up a business, so you can set up a business and invest enough money and employ people. Most places will give you some sort of a visa, but this is a pretty easy one to take advantage of. For a fairly modest investment into your company which is money that you can actually spend and for a relatively low in terms of the cost of getting set up, the legal fees, then you can get a slovakian residency and that can carry you quite far.
Czech Republic
The number two which is pretty similar to Slovakia in terms of kind of the requirements, but i would say a little bit more challenging in other ways is you have Czech Republic. Czech Republic and Slovakia interesting used to be Czechoslovakia, have some similar programs and so there’s a reasonable path there, and both of these, by the way, are paths that lead to citizenship. If you’re willing to go through the process, it takes a number of years and you have some requirements to fulfill, but if you’re willing to go down that road these are options for you.
Lithuania
The next one to look at is Lithuania. Is pretty easy, not too expensive, you have to be willing to get yourself set up and show up and connect to the community and things like this, in terms of having a business. But for relatively little money you’re able to go and to get it.
Spain
The next one that is the one that i want to kind of really emphasize here is Spain. Spain has a couple different programs, both on the entrepreneurial side and on the retired person side. The problem i have with Spain is it’s pretty aggressive on the tax side. Spain is a little bit concerning in that regard, although i love Spain, it’s a beautiful place, there’s a great place to be during a lot of the year, the weather is good, it offers a lot. Spain is not necessarily a place that if you’re looking from a tax friendly standpoint, it’s just not so great. A lot of people maybe aren’t planning on being there the whole year anyway, so it would work for them to get something like a Slovakian or Lithuanian or a Czech Visa, and spend a bunch of the year in Spain. That would be a perfectly reasonable option for them.
Portugal
The best if you’re not talking about an investment, we’re going to go to the investments in just a second case, but if you’re not talking about an investment probably the best in terms of ease and kind of the path to citizenship is Portugal. I would say maybe our best is Portugal. In Portugal you have two basic paths that we can use, the one is this retirement path, what’s called a D7 Visa, and the other is an Investor Visa. Why do i like Portugal as compared to some of these others? Normally you have a minimum stay requirement of six months, you have to be in the Schengen zone for six months, now technically you’re supposed to be in that country, but in reality, because there’s no borders you can potentially not spend all that time in the country, and this is a beneficial thing for you from a lifestyle standpoint. If you say that are interested in the program in Slovakia but you don’t necessarily want to live there even half of the year. You can have some freedom to roam, that’s kind of the in practice versus the on paper side of it, the problem is, because you’re required to maintain your residency there at least six months you’re definitely going to be tax resident there.
If you’re tax resident there you have to look at what are the tax consequences which are not amazing, so, Lithuania is certainly better than Slovakia, i would say even Czech Republic is better than Slovakia. But in Portugal you can qualify for the non-habitual residency program which gives you a pretty good tax structure for 10 years provided your income fits into the brackets that they offer so that’s pretty cool. In my opinion that’s the best out of them, however, all of those five might be worth looking at depending on the path. The other thing about Portugal is the path to citizenship is pretty easy and that’s also really compelling.
So what’s the like “hey, I don’t necessarily want to spend the time there, i want to have the flexibility, the freedom”. Well, the easiest way is actually through these golden visa programs. The golden visa programs, if would consider to be the reverse order of what’s good, i think the worst is Spain, where you typically have to invest half a million euros and i’ve already given my comments on. It’s not bad, but if you’re doing that program i think that’s better than going these other two ways, although, there is a program that if you’re doing the entrepreneurial side you can potentially reduce your tax over about a six year period.
Latvia
The next options you can look at is Latvia. Latvia has a program where you can invest 250 000 euros. There are some really cool things you can do with this program that are not advertised, but if you’re willing to entrench yourself in the business community and be involved, you can accelerate your path to citizenship, so that’s pretty cool. Latvia also has a pretty interesting tax system so there’s some freedom there.
Greece
The next one is Greece. Greece came in a kind of undercut, a lot of the competition and that’s good, the problem that i have with Greece is that greatest path to citizenship is not so clear, although on paper it looks really good, in practice they don’t really like giving their citizenship away. This brings us back to what I think the best option right now, which is Portugal.
What is the Advantage to Choose Portugal Citizenship Program?
In Portugal you can invest as little as 280 000 euros, it does depend where you invest and so, whether that’s going to fit for your circumstances or not, sometimes it’s 350.000 could be as much as 500.000, but you can make this investment, that investment can be secured and protected and things like this. It can be in property of your choice and it can lead very easily to citizenship with very minimal stay requirements. So personally, i think that you get a nice climate, you get a country that’s pretty easy to deal with, you have some tax favorable consequences, you have an easy path to citizenship, you have a relatively low barrier to entry, in my opinion that’s kind of the best way to go. But each of these other ones offer a really quick way.
Those are at the moment probably the best ways to immigrate to the Schengen zone, to get yourself that freedom pretty quickly, pretty easily, pretty inexpensively and all potentially can lead to citizenship. That’s pretty attractive if you’re looking to go down that route for yourself, for your family, for whoever.
