Transcription
Where Dubai wealth escapees are moving now that there's obviously a war in Iran. The Economist recently posted this article right here where expat escapees from Dubai end up. It is a gated article with a free trial, so I I'm going to save you the pain and explain to you the different countries that The Economist is arguing that expats from the UAE are moving to in order to keep their taxes low and maintain their taxes low through special tax programs.
Countries that had that have higher taxes than the UAE but offer incentives, for example, they might have a higher income tax but they have no capital gains tax like Singapore. No capital gains tax, low corporate tax. I, for example, have a company in Singapore. I'm Raphael. I run a Wealthy Expats or a company that helps you obtain second citizenship. I have four passports and I'm working on my fifth and my sixth one as well. I have multiple residencies all over the world and this is my passion is to help you get a second passport or a second residency or move abroad, optimize your tax situation.
Singapore, for example, we have a company in Singapore here at Wealthy Expats. We think it's very strategic. We do pay taxes in Singapore. It is technically a territorial based tax system but if you don't have anywhere where you're paying taxes on that income, at the end of the day, you will pay taxes for that corporate income in Singapore. But the rate itself can be considerably low. The headline tax rate is 17% but you could pay a little bit lower depending on the amount of revenue that you have. The thing with Singapore is that AML KYC requirements are insane to be frank. There is a lot of documentation. Source of funds checks are very deep and overall it can be a hassle to run a Singapore company, to have Singapore banking and to live in Singapore is very difficult to get a residency permit as well. I don't have a residency permit. Maybe I get one in the future, not planning on it right now.
Another country that they talk about is Italy. Italy has a lump sum tax program. 300,000 euros, you pay it to the Italian government and you get tax residency in a European Union country which will help you with for example your home country. If you're from the UK, you can get a residency permit in Italy through the Italian golden visa. Let's say 500,000 euros invested into an Italian company. You pay 300,000 euros per year for the Italian lump sum tax and now the UK leaves you alone because you're not moving to a tax haven. You're not moving to Paraguay. You're not moving to Seychelles. You're moving to Italy. So it makes a lot of sense and also from a lifestyle perspective, it works out well for a lot of people.
Another country mentioned is New Zealand which works really well. Some billionaires have a plan B in New Zealand. They've gotten permanent residency and also citizenship. I have a client who I helped obtain citizenship by merit in Serbia which is also something that I want to mention. A lot of millionaires from Dubai, they haven't necessarily left and they don't plan on leaving, but I've seen a rush from UAE specifically regardless of the nationality. We're getting for example Egyptians that live in Dubai, Kenyans that live in Dubai, Chinese people that live in Dubai that want to get a second passport. They want to protect themselves because there's so much uncertainty in the world that they want to have another citizenship that they can rely on. And a European citizenship, even though it's not part of the European Union, that works out pretty well in this case if you're a wealthy individual, is Serbia. We helped him obtain Serbian citizenship, and he actually has permanent residency in New Zealand. So, for him it works out pretty well as a plan B. He likes New Zealand. He has investments in New Zealand and a co-work. For most investors that are used to the Dubai lifestyle, maybe New Zealand is a bit too far. It's too separated. The flights are just too long.
The article also mentions Malta, which can be relatively tax-favorable. Also, they have a permanent residency program. It's effectively a donation with other fees, a property that you need to rent out. It's going to cost you around 150 to 200,000 euros in total, but now you have permanent residency in Malta. And obviously, if you have a European passport, if you're a German that was living in Dubai and you're looking for somewhere else, I know some Germans that have moved to Portugal. I also know some Germans that have not left Dubai in terms of their main tax residency country. Maybe they will leave for the next couple of months. Maybe they will see how the war progresses. And then later on move back. And it's a misconception that most people have moved out of Dubai. In my company, we've done hundreds of residency visas, more than a thousand visas in general in UAE when it comes to golden visas, two-year residency permits, investor visas. Now, the investor visa for 2 years for real estate, the amounts have been dropped significantly, and we've seen a lot of our clients actually switch to golden visas because they don't want to have to go to the UAE every 6 months and 95% or more of those clients, some of them have cancelled but 95% or more of those are still keeping their residency active. They have not cancelled it, maybe they've left physically but they're still going to keep it active. They're still going to keep their golden visa. They're still going to keep their company.
There's a lot less trust obviously in the UAE, in the UAE banking system, in the UAE government, there's a lot less trust, I can tell you that. There's a lot of uncertainty and doubt but it's not like most people have left. A lot of them have looked for a plan B somewhere. So for example, a German that has residency in Dubai might want to go register in Malta as a plan C or plan B again or maybe future plan A for example. The banks in Malta can be pretty terrible. Some of them have actually registered in Cyprus as well. Cyprus can also be tax favorable. Although we've seen some European clients for example from Spain that were living in Cyprus before, not really like the lifestyle in Cyprus and they've actually left Cyprus and gone to other destinations. They're looking at Greece as well which has a lump sum tax program of 100,000 euros per year. So if you don't like the 300,000 price point, you could look at 100,000 price point in Greece or Bulgaria or Romania or Poland that offer some tax incentives and some potential lump sum tax programs that these countries offer or countries like Malaysia the Republic of Georgia Panama that offer territorial based tax systems where if you make your money from abroad, for example, from a UAE company, it wouldn't be taxable as long as it's not connected to the local economy. Or countries, as I mentioned, like Serbia, where they're not aggressive in pursuing foreign structures. For example, Serbia has no controlled foreign corporation rules. So, they would not try to take your UAE company and try to tax it at the local Serbian level. They are a candidate to join the European Union, so that might change in the future. But for now, it's a relatively good system where you could have a company outside of Serbia, be a Serbian tax resident, and then the company wouldn't get pulled into the tax system if structured properly, obviously.
We've also seen a rise in US citizens who are looking for second citizenship in the Caribbean. I have St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship. I was a US citizen. And a lot of US citizens now they're looking for a plan B. They don't trust the government, they don't trust the direction, they want to have a plan B somewhere. They're getting permanent residency in Mexico. As the article mentions, a lot of people are waiting for Argentina to launch a citizenship by investment program. In my opinion, it's going to take some time for that to launch. We'll see about the price point because, for example, El Salvador has a citizenship by investment program for a million dollars in USDT or Bitcoin. It is popular, but it's not that popular just because the price is quite significant. So, a million instead of, you know, 300,000, 500,000, but that was the point. El Salvador wanted to make it exclusive, and they wanted to make it in crypto because they believe in crypto, and Bitcoin is the official currency of the country. We'll see what Argentina does. Argentina could charge a million dollars, and a lot of people would do it because it's Mercosur. It's a huge country with many possibilities. It's as far away as possible for a world war. It's a country with great relationships with the rest of the world. It's a country with solid visa-free access for the passport. And for Europeans or Canadians or Americans, it serves as a perfect plan B to be honest.
The article also mentions Turkey with their new 20-year tax exemption program that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago on my channel here. Erdogan essentially wants to give you 20 years where you pay no tax on your foreign source income. That is going to be extremely popular depending on how much time you actually need to spend in Turkey. The comments on that video were very negative. A lot of people were saying like Turkey's a horrible place to have your money. It's extremely corrupt. The currency has collapsed. You can never trust the government. Don't put any money into Turkey. Don't invest in that Those are the comments. But I do think that it's going to be extremely popular because the Dubai millionaire crowd, a lot of them will want somewhere close or relatively close where they don't need to get a residency permit in the Schengen area, for example, or a very difficult residency permit. They could even get citizenship through their citizenship by investment program, $400,000 invested into Turkey, and they can also get tax residency. It makes a ton of sense. A lot of Russians, a lot of Chinese, a lot of Indians that are living in Dubai, most likely they're going to do this. I know multiple Indians that have gotten Turkish citizenship by investment. And it's a no-brainer to also do the 20-year tax exemption.
It's hard to predict the future. It's hard to predict how governments will change their programs, their residency, their citizenship timelines. For example, Portugal changed their timeline. Italy made their citizenship by descent program harder. So, the best thing we can do is diversify and get as many options as possible. That is why our clients are getting new residencies, citizenship programs, for example, citizenship by merit, and other options so they can have as many countries to rely on as possible. I can guide you through all of that. We can do a one-on-one call. You can book it with the link in the description. I'm an expert at this and I've helped over a thousand people around the world, a thousand wealthy individuals, get residency, get citizenship in a new country. And if you want to see the options that my clients are doing specifically for getting a second citizenship, where are they putting their money in order to get another passport to protect themselves, their families, and their wealth, check out this video right here, a video I made recently on the top options for wealthy individuals. Check them out right here.