Trying to understand rules of PR & Citizenship as an investor

If you're interested in the Balkans in general, then take a look at Serbia, our neighbor. This country grants residence on the basis of a property purchase or incorporation of a Serbian company (with corporate bank account). This is a much easier path in.

It's not EU, but if you gain residence on the basis of the Serbian company, you can do some business via this entity for 2 years (amount of history required), then register a TRO (Trade Representative Office) in Bulgaria, of the Serbian company, which will then get you a D visa (and subsequent residence) here.

In general, the process for Bulgaria, and other EU countries, is a "temporary" (1 to 5 years, if less than 5 keep renewing) residence permit. Then, after 5 years, you apply for a "long term" (= permanent) residence permit. Then after x years holding the LT permit, you can apply for citizenship. In Bulgaria, x = 5.

You should note that the EU LT permit (gained in any EU country) is almost as good as an EU passport, in that it allows you to live, work, study or retire in any EU country on the same basis as EU citizens (i.e. it's a formality, just requires proof of funds, proof of address in the new country, and proof of health insurance). So perhaps you don't really need a passport. If you want to renounce your US citizenship (I doubt you do) and stop paying taxes there, then, of course, you will need your EU passport first.

Bulgaria has grounds for residence including investment, student, retiree, TRO. Some are easier than others. It does not have the equivalent of Spain's "no lucrativa" visa, which simply allows you residence on the basis of your financial independence (proof of income of 2,300 euros per month, proof of address in Spain, proof of health insurance).

So this visa, in Spain, might be an easier route into the EU. As a Spanish resident, you can visit Balkan countries, and invest in business here, if you so wish.

Generally, I am not a fan of (or expert in) "Golden Visas" or "Golden Passports" so I can't really give detailed info on them. Several countries have them. My view is that they are a very expensive way in, and only interesting if you are both very rich and very lazy. You can get EU residence for a lot less money, if you're happy to do some research, or engage a sensible immigration attorney.

"Physical" vs. "legal" vs. "fiscal"residence: the main task is to get a residence permit, then you are a legal resident of Bulgaria, Serbia or Spain. Maintaining this legal residence is a necessary (but not sufficient) requirement for obtaining the LT or the passport. You can have legal residence in several EU (and non-EU) countries. Legal residence doesn't necessarily make you a fiscal resident, but it may do. Usually it's a physical residence rule (more than 183 days per year) and/or center of your economic activities. This could be in addition to your USA fiscal obligations as a citizen.

The EU (and hence each EU country) has physical residence rules related to maintaining your legal residence, and then qualifying for the LT or the passport. You need to check these rules carefully if your end goal is a passport. Roughly, at least half your time in Bulgaria or other country will be required.

However, EU countries differ in their enforcement of such rules, and how much checking they do. Bulgaria, I believe, is one of the laxer ones. If you maintain your legal residence (your permit) then you're half way there. If you maintain a residence with bills being paid, and perhaps contribute to the social security system, then that provides further evidence of your presence in Bulgaria, even if, actually you were rather absent. Finally, EU has open borders inside the EU, hence, if you're careful, and drive rather than fly, you can be absent from a particular EU country without that having resulted in your passport being scanned/checked (i.e. your presence will appear to be from the last time you flew in, to the next time you fly out).

As well as less enforcement of physical residence rules, Bulgaria has very low property prices and cost of living, and a very low (10%) income tax rate for individuals and businesses. Also, it's just a very scenic, safe, and nice place to live/hang out. I've lived in a lot of places over the years, and Bulgaria has surprised me greatly by becoming one of my favorites. I enjoy my new life here very much, and I recommend it highly. (Also, I have a great attorney, who I'm sure can help you.)

Specifically, as to your questions:

1. You have the main requirements correct. If you meet them, you're probably 95% there. :-)

You glossed over the language requirement, but that is a key issue for many folks. If you're planning to learn Bulgarian, and get it to B2, then you're fine. For me, it's an issue, so I'd rather do it in Spain (I'm already B2 in Spanish), or Cyprus (no language requirement) instead.

If you check on the physical presence rules, you will find they exist. In Bulgaria, I believe it's at least half your time here (183 days per year) for both LT and passport. This would make you both physically and fiscally resident here. So if you're gonna claim to be here, you should probably be filing some taxes too.

Your list doesn't mention a home or social security or income tax. As noted above, the physical residence rules implies fiscal residence too. While a home/bills/social security are not required, if you want to claim presence in Bulgaria, they go a long way to supporting your claim. (I am currently filing for a renewal of my Cyprus residence per Brexit, and I am not providing flights/travel info because I was largely absent, but I am providing a bunch of receipts which show me paying electricity, internet, water and property taxes over the last few years.)

In short, there are rules, and you should plan to find out about them, and follow them. If you need or want to bend them a little, then you would be well advised to have copious evidence of your bill payments here. (Just FYI, a small studio and the bills and property taxes would be very inexpensive.) And perhaps consider a bit of driving rather than flying.

2. The path for non-EU is D visa (in BG Embassy in your country) followed by residence application in Bulgaria. One of the grounds for D visa is investment. I don't know about disadvantaged amount, and I don't think I'd recommend this anyway. But, yes, approx 300k euros investment in real estate would get you a D visa. Sofia and Plovdiv (capital and second city) have prices heading to 1,500 euros/m2 for brand new apartments (delivered unfinished as "Bulgarian standard"). So a large, nice apartment for yourself could meet the required amount. Or, I believe it's fine if the amount is split between a small apartment for your own use, and a couple of rental units. It still seems expensive to me, there are cheaper ways in for sure.

Also, perhaps 300K euros is not good value as there is a "fast track" option for a bit more: 500k euros approx. This gets your LT/PR in only 6 months, and passport in 66 months. My lawyer can do this for you, if you want. But that's a lot of money to put in a brand new country. There are cheaper ways to do this.

3. Don't know about this. But it would be better to do D visa/residence for 300k and get a property you choose, that you can live in/rent out. Or better, if you have 500k, to get on the fast track option. (The money goes in Bulgarian ETFs, so hopefully there are some you can be pretty hopeful will do OK. Personally, I wouldn't want to do it!)

Investment minimums are for the person wanting the visa / residence. So if you want it, you need 300k or 500k. You can't pool it, otherwise 100 folks would pay 3k each and fly straight over. :-)

The main thing: there are much cheaper ways to get residence in the EU, and get on a passport track (if you decide you need one). Personally, I have substantial investments in Bulgaria, but I started with a 20k apartment in Bansko (very nice little ski resort, check it out) just to get a lay of the land. If I'd been required to plunk down 300k or 500k off the bat, I would 100% have gone elsewhere!

If you're a businessman/investor with the kind of net worth to consider these options, then you would definitely be able to show 2,300 euros per month income (or the equivalent for a year = approx 30,000 euros in savings) which would get you the Spanish no lucrativa visa. The 30k is not tied, so you can use it to buy property after getting residence. Spanish is much easier to learn than Bulgarian, so the passport would be easier. As a Spanish resident you can invest anywhere in EU in whatever asset classes you want.

Alternatively, you probably have a US corporation that has been active for several years. In which case, you need a bit of paperwork (certificate of good standing, income tax statement and summary accounts) and you could register the Bulgarian TRO. That gets you the D visa and then residence. Probably less than 3k euros in attorney fees. Proof of address can be a cheap rental, an inexpensive property... or just get the lawyer to magic up a rental contract just for immigration (500 euros, I'd guess).

Finally, from a purely personal perspective, while I do love Bulgaria, I don't have a 300k (or more) property for my own use. Which is not to say that there aren't nice properties and nice locations in Bulgaria. There are, and you could easily spend that for something fancy. In fact, if you shop carefully, you can get a lot of property for your money here, and the holding cost/upkeep will be surprisingly little.

But I would prefer, for that kind of money, to be looking for something near the Mediterranean/Aegean coast in Spain (with 30k savings for the no lucrativa visa), or Cyprus (their Golden Visa was also 300k, many Chinese/Russians/Israelis jumped at it), or Tukey (residence similar to the no lucrativa, but only 6k euros or so in savings required).

> Finally, EU has open borders inside the EU, hence, if you're careful, and drive rather than fly, you can be absent from a particular EU country without that having resulted in your passport being scanned/checked (i.e. your presence will appear to be from the last time you flew in, to the next time you fly out).

Doesn't that still require being physically present somewhere else in the EU though? For folks who generally live outside EU (like me living in US), I believe all EU countries would now share EU arrival departure passport records. So even if I arrived in BG with a flight then drove out to another eU country and took a flight out from there, they would be able to see it in their database, which I am sure would be a basic step to confirm physical presence test. But your points about paying bills, rents, annual taxes etc is a good idea to build up evidence over the years.

thanks for such detailed response @gwynj. Really appreciate the effort you put in to explain the process.

> You glossed over the language requirement, but that is a key issue for many folks. If you're planning to learn Bulgarian, and get it to B2, then you're fine.

Yes. I was aware of that. For investments > 500k, language and residency requirements are fully waived.
For 300k property, they are not, but the 300k property route also takes 10 years to citizenship, so I believe, I can start learning in year 1 or year 5 and get my way to B2 in Bulgarian or spanish by year 10. I full support the wish of europeans for future citizens to learn minimum stuff about their country and culture.

Thanks for you response, many good points.

You are correct, the "Golden Passport" waives the residence and language requirements.

There are actually two tracks for this: 500k euros and 1m euros. The 500k options gets your PR/LT in 6 months, and a passport in a further 60 months. The 1m option cuts this to 6 months + 24 months. The investment is in Bulgarian ETFs and you have to hold for 78 months and 48 months, respectively.

My attorney is an expert in this, if you have the funds, and wish to pursue it.

The 300k option in property is not a fast track/golden passport. It is merely grounds for granting the D visa, and then the residence permit. Yes, you are correct, that this takes approximately 10 years, 5 with years with temporary residence, then 5 years of permanent residence, then (I'd guess) a year or so to process a naturalization application.

I think you overstate the seriousness with which EU countries check your physical residence in relation to residence permits. The data you are concerned with exists, or probably exists. Perhaps for a wanted criminal there might be some cross-border coordination. But you're only asking for a residence permit. :-)

Again, relating this to my Cyprus residence application, they asked me to submit proof of my "presence" in Cyprus, by submitting utility bills, tax payments, and bank statements. Obviously, this doesn't prove my physical residence, but they accept it as an equivalent or near-equivalent. As Cyprus is an island, it's hard to get off it without flying (it's possible, but it's a pain in the ass), so they could check my flights in/out. But that's just too much work!

If we're a continental EU country (such as Spain, or Bulgaria) then it's easier to get out by road. Maybe, just maybe, they might check your airport in/out (although I doubt it)... but they are certainly not going to check every other EU country to see if you flew out from there! (From Bulgaria you can drive to Romania, and fly from Bucharest, but you could drive onwards to Hungary, Czech Republic, Germany or France, and fly from major international airports there.)

If you just fly in, get your residence permit, then fly out again. And return only to make the next application, you'd be rather asking for trouble. But if you play along by spending a few months here every year, buy a property, pay your bills every month, pay property taxes, enroll in the social security system (I registered as unemployed, and I pay 13 euros per month), I seriously doubt they are going to conduct any kind of investigation into your exact physical presence.

You should note the LT/PR is a protected milestone, so once you acquire this, it's much harder to lose it than your initial temporary residence. So it pays to be here more in the first 5 years to make sure you get it.

But my attorney knows the rules, and how seriously they are policed. So we can easily check, if it's necessary.

Personally, I only flew over for a few days to get my residence permit, and make sure that my (non-EU) partner had a legal residence in the EU. We had absolutely no intention of buying anything here, let alone living here. But 4 years later, we're still hanging out here. So you might be pleasantly surprised by what is, officially, the poorest country in the EU.

I really enjoyed my years in San Francisco, Boston and Chicago (winter, not so much)... but education and healthcare and property are monstrously expensive. I have a much more comfortable life in Bulgaria doing nothing, than I did in San Francisco earning $200k! :-)

> Perhaps for a wanted criminal there might be some cross-border coordination. But you're only asking for a residence permit

Glad to know.

> I really enjoyed my years in San Francisco, Boston and Chicago (winter, not so much)

Any more plans to visit San Francisco? I am sure it would be great to meet and chit chat :-)

> So perhaps you don't really need a passport. If you want to renounce your US citizenship (I doubt you do) and stop paying taxes there, then, of course, you will need your EU passport first

I am assuming that does mean that acquiring BG citizenship after 5 years of D Visa and then 5 years of LT/PR (total 10 yrs) would also include relinquishing one's past citizenship.

While very inconvenient and seemingly meaningless, seems to be practised by many reputable countries including Norway and Austria, so what do i Know lol

Re: would also include relinquishing one's past citizenship.

Interesting question. I don't know for sure, as I haven't done it.

There are quite a few countries that have this condition (that you renounce your other citizenships). It sounds like a big deal, so I think it has a certain deterrent effect in people pursuing the naturalization option. You're already worried and it's at least 11 years away. :-)

But, I think, in practice, it's very hard to enforce.

Bulgaria saying you have to renounce your US citizenship doesn't make it so. If Bulgaria contacts the US President and says Mr. X is now a Bulgarian citizen, please cancel his US passport, I doubt that has any effect either.

So they are simply trusting you that after you get your BG passport, you do, in fact, go back to USA and go through whatever official process is required to formally renounce your US citizenship.

Which you probably won't. :-)

But, officially, this means, as far as Bulgaria is concerned, that you should only have one passport (a Bulgarian one). So using your US passport to subsequently enter/leave Bulgaria would be a no-no, and I suppose they'd be entitled to confiscate it. Ditto if they did a random passenger check on you and rummaged through your briefcase and found it.

This would be a pain in the ass for flying back to USA (when you are supposed to show your US passport), but I'd imagine that the US Embassy in Bucharest or Sofia would happily get you a new one when you say you lost it.

In practice, you know you should have renounced the US one. And Bulgaria knows you didn't. But everyone turns a blind eye, because it's not a big deal, and you're just minding your own business in Sunny Beach for a few months every year. But sometimes (there are many examples of this with Golden Passports) it turns out they gave it a particularly heinous Russian kleptocrat, and the press finds out, and there's a big stink which embarrasses the country/president. Then they go through the due process for stripping a citizen of their citizenship, so he can't embarrass them any more.

If (as it appears) you don't want to renounce your US citizenship, then I would reiterate that a EU PR is almost as good as an EU passport. This is because one of the cornerstones of the EU is the issue of social mobility/social integration as enshrined in the Directives on Freedom of Movement, which apply to both EU passport holders and EU PR holders. It doesn't just give you rights in Bulgaria, you can relocate (to live, work, study, retire, hang out on the beach) to any other EU country. And, like a citizenship, it's also a highly protected status, so you can't lose it and get kicked out on a whim... there has to be a bit of due process.

This is important because an EU PR is a lot cheaper, easier, and quicker to get than an EU passport. And so why put the extra time, effort and money into something you don't need? :-)

[Post deleted]

Saying it, is not the same as making it so! :-)

Here's the Bulgarian Law of Citizenship:
https://www.lex.bg/bg/laws/ldoc/2134446592

It says things too, but saying it doesn't make it so. It has to have enforcement.

Here's the guidance for US citizens, specifically, for renouncing their citizenship:

Section 349(a)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act says a U.S. citizen can renounce his or her citizenship by voluntarily “making a formal renunciation of nationality before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States in a foreign state, in such form as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State,” and by signing an oath of renunciation.

and from Wikipedia:

"United States law requires that prospective renunciants appear in person before a consular officer at a US embassy or consulate outside the United States and sign an oath or affirmation that the individual intends to renounce US citizenship. Exceptions to this rule are permitted in times of war and under special circumstances.[29][30] During the expatriation procedure, the individual must complete several documents and demonstrate in an interview with a consular officer that the renunciation is voluntary and intentional. Depending on the embassy or consulate, the individual is often required to appear in person two times and conduct two separate interviews with consular officers over the course of several months."

Additionally, it's not free: the U.S. Department of State raised the fee for renunciation to $2,350. In addition, some high-income citizens may owe a type of capital gains tax called an “exit/expatriation tax”. So maybe you want to, or intend to... and then realize you can't afford to. So you change your mind.

So it's likely to be as I previously stated: they say it's so, and this puts many people off applying. But saying it doesn't make it so.

There are only 2 options:

Before acquiring Bulgarian Citizenship
Bulgaria can't expect an American to go to the US Embassy and renounce their US citizenship BEFORE Bulgaria has formally conferred Bulgarian citizenship. That would be stupid, right?

After acquiring Bulgarian Citizenship
So what happens AFTER they confer it? They can't force the American to go to the US Embassy to renounce. Or, I suppose, they could march you there at gunpoint, but they can't accompany you inside... and you say you don't want to renounce (note it must be voluntary).

Maybe you even sign something at the naturalization ceremony that says the equivalent of "I solemnly swear that I relinquish all other citizenships at the moment I am granted Bulgarian citizenship". But this doesn't make it so either.

Of course, it's there in the contract. You said you'd renounce. And then you didn't. You broke the contract. This is actually in the Bulgarian law referenced above under "Section II. Cancellation of naturalization".  So, if it turns out that you're an undesirable, they (Bulgaria) can invoke the contract to justify rescinding the citizenship/passport. But for average folks nothing happens.

> Or, I suppose, they could march you there at gunpoint, but they can't accompany you inside... and you say you don't want to renounce (note it must be voluntary).

Lol, imagining that was very funny. good points raised. it definitely eases my concern a little bit.

[Post deleted]

So can your attorney help us with renewing residence at Gabrovo and how do we make contact. I cannot understand to contact net/rules on the expat site?