Within less than 10 months, you can get a permanent residency of Bulgaria and enjoy the privileges with their citizenship.

Since the country became an EU member state, besides the visa free travel in 142 countries, the highest grade of residency status gives an opportunity to the investor and his family members to enjoy the Bulgarian Healthcare program, one of the lowest corporate and personal taxation in EU etc...

The investment program for residence and citizenship in Bulgaria started in 2009 and the primary reason for implementing this kind of program was to attract foreign direct investment in the country. The program gives an opportunity to the investor and his/her family members to become permanent residents in EU and become eligible to apply for the citizenship after 5 years.

According to the program, the investor can apply for the permanent residency after investing 512,292 Euro (equals to 1M BGN) in governmental bond portfolio, which is secured by government bonds. The length of the investment is five years and after five years the investment fully returns to the investor without any interest charged thereon. Another option is to pay a reduced amount of 195,000 Euro, which is used to finance 1 M BGN loan from a Bulgarian Chartered Bank. The disadvantage of this option is that 195,000 Euro is not returned to the investor after 5 years.

The next step after granting residency permit is to apply for the Bulgarian citizenship. According to the “law for the Bulgarian Citizenship” says that a person is eligible to apply for the citizenship after 5 years of legal residency in Bulgaria. There is a fast track citizenship program in Bulgaria, which gives an opportunity to the investor to apply for the citizenship only 1 year after his permanent residence status, in case he/she doubles the initial investment. In this case the total amount of the investment will be 1,022,594 Euro (Equals to 2M BGN).

The advantages of this program are that the applicant does not have to pass the Bulgarian language test, there is no physical residency requirement and investor is not obliged to renounce his/her present citizenship.

The standard procedure for the application starts with the background checking. The origin of the money and transparent biography of the applicant is very important for the country. The time period for getting the permanent residency is from 2-3 months.