Demand for citizenship and residency by investment programmes has continued its post-pandemic acceleration into 2026. Citizen Sure's annual flagship report analyses demand across 40+ active programmes, with applications up 32% year-on-year against a 2025 baseline that was already at record levels.
Three trends define the 2026 landscape. First, geographic diversification of applicant origin: where 2019 applications were heavily concentrated in MENA and East Asia, 2026 sees rising demand from European, North American, and Latin American UHNW families seeking optionality against domestic political and tax change.
Second, programme convergence around four anchors: Malta CBI, Portugal Golden Visa, the UAE Golden Visa, and the harmonised Caribbean CBI five-country framework. These four account for 71% of Citizen Sure's 2026 pipeline.
Third, tax-residency planning has overtaken second-passport planning as the dominant client objective. The shift reflects tightening tax-residency rules in several EU jurisdictions and the maturing UAE personal-tax regime.
The full report is available to Citizen Sure intelligence subscribers and covers regulatory forecasts for 2026–2027, programme-by-programme demand trends, and the structural changes expected at the EU level following the 2025 ECJ judgment.
