El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele recently declared that the country will provide “5,000 free passports” to talented individuals in various fields like science, engineering, medicine, arts, and philosophy. This offer essentially grants them citizenship.
According to the President, this figure amounts to less than 0.1% of El Salvador’s population, implying that granting them full citizenship rights, including voting privileges, won’t pose any significant challenges.
Bukele is confident that the contributions of these talented individuals will have “a huge impact on El Salvador’s society and future.”
The president also announced “0% taxes and tariffs on moving families and assets, including commercial value items like equipment, software, and intellectual property, to facilitate their relocation.”
It seems likely that the President will use his discretion to grant citizenship on an exceptional basis, allowing individuals of outstanding merit to become citizens on a larger scale. Bukele suggested that further details regarding this new policy would be revealed soon.
It should be noted that Bukele was re-elected as the president in February this year. The timing of this announcement closely follows Bukele’s overwhelming re-election victory in February. Furthermore, just last month, El Salvador’s Congress passed a reform eliminating income taxes on remittances from overseas, to bolster both domestic and foreign investment and revitalize the economy.
El Salvador introduced the Freedom Visa program in late 2023, garnering attention for being one of the world’s pioneering citizenship providers by investment initiatives to accept cryptocurrencies as payment for donations amounting to at least $1 million during the application process.
Despite its title, the Freedom Visa program focuses on selling citizenship rather than visas, a fact that has led many industry observers to view it as uncompetitive in the global market for citizenship by investment.
Furthermore, there is limited information available regarding the program’s structure and eligibility criteria. As of now, the Salvadoran government has not disclosed the number of investors who have paid the substantial fee for citizenship in the Central American nation.