The Passport Trap: Five Mistakes Investors Make When Buying Citizenship

Milos Stojanovic puts the problem plainly. A second passport is usually marketed as a straightforward sequence: pick a program, make the investment, collect the document. That framing gets the objective backwards.

Stojanovic is the founder of Soland, a Dubai-based firm that provides citizenship and residency services alongside private advisory work. The company is licensed by the Capital Market Authority, and it says it is the only business in the citizenship-by-investment industry holding that licence. Its clients are entrepreneurs, investors and internationally mobile families. The offering combines investment migration with international real estate and cross-border business advisory, with the stated intention of connecting those services to financial and wealth structuring.

The misconception he encounters most often is that the passport itself is the point. It is not. Investors should first work out what they want the document to make possible — expansion into a new market, diversification of assets, options for family members, greater personal flexibility — and only then look at which jurisdiction supplies it. Without that objective, the decision tends to be expensive and strategically empty.

Mistake one: choosing a program before choosing a purpose

The first error follows directly from the misconception. Investors begin comparing citizenship programs before they have decided what the document is supposed to achieve. Programs differ in cost, timeline, physical presence requirements and the rights they confer, so the comparison is real work. It is the second piece of work, not the first.

The people buying them are not interchangeable either. An entrepreneur opening a new market has different needs from a family seeking geographic flexibility, and both differ from an investor protecting assets held across several jurisdictions. For some of those cases, residency is the more appropriate instrument than citizenship. Order matters here, because a program chosen for the wrong reason is difficult to unwind once the investment has been made.

Soland's approach begins with individual circumstances and only then moves to jurisdictions and programs. The advisory team's experience runs across investment migration, international business, finance, taxation and real estate, and it works in multiple languages with an understanding that cultural expectations vary between clients. The aim, according to the firm, is to address business, financial and family interests that sit beyond the immediate immigration outcome.

Mistake two: assuming a passport opens every door

Visa-free travel is the selling point, and it is genuinely attractive. But it is not a complete measure of global mobility. Entry without a visa does not carry the right to live in a country, to work there, or to establish a business there.

The gap between travel and establishment catches people out because the marketing collapses the two. A passport that unlocks short stays across a region says nothing about the right to register a company, hire locally or remain beyond a visa window. Those permissions come from separate rules and separate applications.

The same limitation applies to finance. A second passport does not guarantee that a bank will take on a client, and it does not remove the due diligence that financial institutions are required to perform. Compliance checks exist independently of nationality.

Stojanovic suggests two questions. A business owner should ask whether citizenship actually supports the way they intend to operate internationally. A family should ask whether it creates meaningful choices around where they live, how their children are educated and what options stay open later.

Mistake three: expecting citizenship to fix a tax position

Acquiring a second citizenship does not automatically change anyone's tax position. Tax residency is determined by the jurisdictions involved and by the individual's own circumstances: time spent in a country, residential ties, business interests.

Residency and citizenship are different legal ideas, and tax systems treat them differently. A person can hold a passport from one country while being tax resident in another, and the second fact usually drives the liability.

There is a further complication. Some countries impose tax obligations on the basis of citizenship itself, which means a new passport can add exposure rather than remove it. Stojanovic's position is that immigration decisions should be taken with qualified tax and legal advice alongside them, not in isolation.

Mistake four: reading the headline price as the full cost

The advertised investment requirement is rarely the whole financial picture. Government charges, due diligence, professional fees and application expenses all add to the total, and they vary by program. They also arrive on a timetable, which means a budget built around the headline figure tends to understate the cash needed in the first year.

Where the qualifying investment is property or another asset, eligibility is the weakest reason to buy it. Investors should examine underlying value, liquidity, the holding period and the options for exit. A qualifying investment is not automatically a good one.

Mistake five: treating citizenship as a one-off transaction

The fifth error is assuming the matter closes when the passport is issued. Business interests move. Families change shape. Children's education shifts from one country to another, and regulations are revised in between. A citizenship decision that fits today's circumstances may need revisiting as personal and financial ones evolve, sometimes within a few years of the original application.

Ksenia Grishchenko, Soland's chief operating officer, coordinates the firm's areas of expertise and the client experience. Understanding what a client requires is only the beginning, she says. The harder part is coordinating specialists, jurisdictions and regulatory requirements while keeping the client's view of the process clear. Clients want continuity, and a trusted point of contact as their needs change.

The backdrop makes those questions harder to defer. Geopolitical uncertainty, shifting regulations and the internationalisation of private wealth are pushing investors to think more carefully about where they reside, how their assets are structured and where their businesses are located. A passport decision sits inside that larger set of choices rather than apart from it.

Within its regulatory permissions, Soland's services include corporate and holding structures, trusts and foundations, insurance solutions and international banking relationships. The firm intends to offer clients a more connected advisory relationship across their international affairs.

Stojanovic describes the shift as a move away from a purely transactional model. A client might arrive looking for European residency and later develop requirements that did not exist at the outset. Decisions that are connected, he argues, deserve to be considered together. Soland wants relationships that stay relevant as a client's life and business change.

The passport, in that reading, is the starting point. Post-passport advisory is the larger business — a different proposition from selling a document and closing the file.