Cyprus ranked seventh, among 12 countries all over the world, included in a survey of citizenship by investment programmes carried out by Professional Wealth Management, and reached the highest score for ‘freedom of movement’.

Cyprus has the highest raking among the four EU member states included in the Citizenship by Investment Index (CBI) complied by professional Wealth Management, which is published by the Financial Times and specializes in analyses of private banks, wealth managers and regional financial centres.

The other three EU member states included in the analyses were Malta, Bulgaria and Austria that ranked 9^th, 10^th and 11^th respectively. The five countries scoring the highest marks are in the Caribbean (see table).

The CBI is calculated according to seven ‘pillars’ – freedom of movement, standard of living, minimum investment outlay, mandatory travel or residence, ease of proceeding, citizenship timeline and due diligence. Cyprus scored 67 per cent while top-ranked Dominica scored 90 per cent.

The highest marks (out of 10) scored Cyprus in the freedom of movement (9), standard of living (8) and the citizenship timeline (8). Of the EU member states, only Malta had a higher mark than Cyprus in ease of proceeding – 8 compared to Cyprus’ 7.

On minimum investment outlay, the EU countries scored the lowest marks of the 12, presumably as the other states included in the survey required smaller amounts. Cyprus scored 2, Austria 1, Bulgaria 5 and Malta 3, whereas three Caribbean islands score 10 out of 10.

To-ranked Dominica, has one of the longest-running citizenship by investment programmes and is well-served by speedy procedures and low entry thresholds.

	COUNTRY	SCORE %
1	Dominica	90
2	St Kitts & Nevis	88
3	Grenada	85
4	Antiqua and Barbuda	78
5	Saint Lucia	76
6	Vanuatu	76
7	Cyprus	67
8	Comoros	66
9	Malta	64
10	Bulgaria	61
11	Austria	54
12	Cambodia	53