Cyprus granted 18% of Citizenships for Investment

The European Commission has published citizenship acquisition statistics on member states for the year 2017. According to the report..

• EU in total granted to over 800,000 persons in 2017, which is significantly smaller compared to 1 million citizenships in 2016
• UK nationals acquiring citizenship of another EU Member State more than doubled in 2017
• Moroccans, Albanians and Indians were the main recipients of EU citizenship in member states.

The report said Cyprus granted citizenship to 5,517 persons, and the main recipients are

• Russians – 23%
• United Kingdom – 9.1%
• Ukraine – 8.7%

Comparing these numbers with the number of citizenships granted for investment in 2017, a total of 1013 persons including family members received citizenship under the Cyprus investment scheme.

This only represents 18.3% of citizenships granted compared to total citizenships granted by Cyprus in 2017.

Also means that out of 800 citizenships granted by EU member states, Cyprus granted citizenship to only one  investor for investment in the country.