Egypt Citizenship by Investment

Five options, and the point that matters most is not the figures but which money comes back, which does not, and in what currency it comes back.

The first three require money transferred from abroad, in US dollars, and the first two are gone for good:

The real-estate and project options share a penalty clause that is rarely mentioned.

The trigger is disposing of the property before five years have elapsed from the date of purchase, or liquidating or suspending the project, or disposing of the share, before five years from the date of operating.

In that case a further USD 250,000 must be deposited at the Central Bank of Egypt. That deposit is non-refundable, and it is required in order to keep the citizenship already granted.

The last two options are deposits and are described as refundable: USD 1,000,000 for three years, or USD 750,000 for five years, both at the Central Bank.

But read how the refund works: the deposit is returned in Egyptian pounds, at the Central Bank's exchange rate announced on the date of refund, and not exceeding the rate on the date of deposit, and without interest.

Those three conditions together mean the depositor carries the whole of the currency devaluation risk and forgoes all yield over three to five years — so “refundable” here is refundable in name, not in value.

Selling the property or liquidating the project within five years requires a further non-refundable USD 250,000 into the Treasury to keep the citizenship. Applications are filed at the Reception Office of the Cabinet, located at the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones.

The outcome is Egyptian nationality, and the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones describes the law granting nationality through investment as a new path for investors. The reception office was set up so that applicants can make enquiries and file in one place.

Nationality obtained through the property or project route is not a static status. During the first five years, selling the asset or leaving the project triggers the payment described above to keep the nationality.

The project route must follow the rules and procedures of Investment Law No. 72 of 2017. Every amount under all five options must be transferred from abroad.

The authority's documents publish no adjudication period, and what they fix instead are four holding periods attached to the individual investment routes — these are the numbers that decide whether the citizenship is kept.

The route of buying real estate from the State or from public legal persons:

Disposing of that property before five years have elapsed from the date of purchase requires a further USD 250,000 to be deposited at the Central Bank of Egypt by transfer from abroad, booked as direct revenue to the Public Treasury, in order to keep the Egyptian citizenship.

The route of setting up an investment project: the same non-refundable USD 250,000 penalty applies if the project is liquidated or suspended, or if the naturalised person disposes of the project or of their share, before five years have elapsed from the date of operating — the clock runs from operation, not from subscription.

For the two deposit routes the period is in the name of the instrument: the USD 1,000,000 deposit is refundable after three years, the USD 750,000 deposit refundable after five years, both repaid without interest in Egyptian pounds at the rate announced on the date of refund, capped at the rate on the date of deposit.

The direct-revenue route of USD 250,000 carries no holding period because that money is gone from the outset. A fifth date belongs to the file rather than to the investment: the movement certificate must cover a full five years of the applicant's movements as at the application date.

The authority publishes no provision setting a minimum number of days of presence, but the file itself says that this programme assumes the applicant is resident in Egypt, and that is an indirect but readable measurement.

The list of documents contains two items carrying the same condition line, to be submitted during the residence: the official report of the applicant's medical examination, and the original document evidencing that the Investment Programme requirements have been met.

Those two are not filed with the application but while the applicant is residing, which means a real period of residence sits between application and naturalisation.

The form itself reinforces this: it has three separate fields about residence in the Arab Republic of Egypt — the date residence started, the date it ended if applicable, and the type of residence — together with two address fields kept apart for inside and outside Egypt, and a field declaring residency in other countries if any.

The limit of this measurement must be stated: the two documents read impose a duty to hold residence but set no minimum length, no number of days present per year, and no statement of which category that residence must fall under.

Anyone who needs that figure must ask the receiving office affiliated with the Council of Ministers and based at the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, and this table does not guess on their behalf.

The authority publishes no clause defining a dependant, but the file itself shows the scope, and that is an indirect yet firm measurement: the list of required documents calls for papers on only two groups besides the applicant.

The first is the spouse: a copy of the passport evidencing original nationality, copies of every passport for any other nationalities held, and a copy of the marriage contract.

The second is minor children: a copy of the passport, or the birth certificate, or the id card, one for each.

Nothing in the list addresses parents, grandparents, siblings or adult children.

Pointing the same way, the acknowledgment the applicant signs states the scope of disclosure as “me, my wife and my kids”, and the form carries a separate table requiring all children to be listed with sex, date of birth and current school, university or workplace.

That table is notable because it reaches children already in employment — meaning adult children must be declared even though the document list provides no way for them to travel with the file. Declaration and benefit are two different scopes, and conflating them is a common source of error.

A person granted citizenship under this programme receives the Egypt passport, so the figure in this cell is the figure for that passport itself.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Egypt passport reaches 43 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The official sources of the programme say nothing about tax: the citizenship unit page of the investment authority no longer carries any content, and the Ministry of Interior site has not been checked.

What follows is taken from Law No. 30 of 2023 amending Income Tax Law No. 91 of 2005, in the gazette version published by the Egyptian Tax Authority itself and readable in full.

Egyptian tax operates on residence, not on nationality. Article 3 treats income borne by an employer resident in Egypt as arising in Egypt even where the work is performed abroad, and treats rent, licence fees and royalties paid by a person resident in Egypt or by a permanent establishment in Egypt as Egyptian income.

Article 46 taxes dividends received by a resident individual whether the distribution arises in Egypt or abroad, at 10 percent, reduced to 5 percent where the securities are listed on the Egyptian exchange; dividends paid to a non-resident individual bear those same two rates.

Capital gains of a resident on listed securities bear 10 percent, while a non-resident must self-assess and pay capital gains tax within 60 days of the transaction.

One limit belongs in the record: the definition of a resident sits in article 2 of Law No. 91 of 2005, and the only version the Tax Authority publishes is an image scan from which almost no text can be extracted, so the day threshold could not be read at source and this record does not carry it.

The filing fee is USD 10,000 or its equivalent, and three features of how it is collected set it apart from most routes in this group.

The first is order: it must be paid before the application is filed, because a copy of the transfer form is document number two on the mandatory list, immediately after the citizenship application itself — without that proof the file is not complete enough to submit, rather than being payable after filing.

The second is the source of funds: the authority requires a transfer from abroad, so a payment made from money already held inside the country does not meet the requirement.

The third is the transparency of the charge, and this is the unusual part:

The application pack prints the full banking coordinates — account number 4/082/19000/2 at the Central Bank of Egypt, held for the Citizenship Applications Assessment Unit of the Council of Ministers, together with the Swift code and the IBAN — a level of disclosure most comparable programmes do not offer.

Beyond that sum, the mandatory list calls for documents that carry their own costs at home:

An original or official copy of the birth certificate, three recent identity photographs, a copy of the passport evidencing the original nationality together with copies of every other passport the applicant holds, and a signed acknowledgment listing those other nationalities.

Filing takes place at the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones, 3 Salah Salem Street, Nasr City, Cairo.