Moldova Citizenship by Investment

The sum required here is a non-reimbursable contribution rather than a recoverable investment, and that distinction governs what the figure actually means.

Under Government Decision no. 786 of 4 October 2017 on the acquisition of citizenship by investment, the minimum non-reimbursable contribution to the Public Investment Fund, in the case of a single applicant, is the equivalent of 100,000 euros.

The money does not go into a project or an asset but into the Sustainable Development Fund of Moldova, the Public Investment Fund, so the payer retains no ownership of anything afterwards.

Two points belong alongside it if the structure is to be read correctly.

First, in return for that contribution an applicant may benefit from citizenship only after strict procedures verifying the file and the applicant own good economic and financial reputation — the Ministry uses may rather than shall, so this is a necessary condition rather than an automatic exchange.

Second, this figure was not set by the state alone: the programme was developed by the Government of Moldova together with a private service provider, and the identity of that consortium and what it means are recorded in the outcome cell of this table.

The hundred thousand euro level is therefore a price co-designed with the seller, not a fee the authority set by itself. Read against its timeframe: the record carries a closed status, so this was the level while the programme was accepting applications

The outcome of this programme is Moldovan citizenship, but the machinery behind it is the part worth reading, and the Ministry of the Economy states plainly what commercial summaries tend to omit.

The programme was developed by the Government of Moldova in partnership with a service provider, namely a consortium of Henley and Partners and the Moldovan Investment Company.

This was therefore not a naturalisation route the state designed and ran by itself, but a product co-designed with the private sector, and a reader weighing who benefits from each application needs to know it.

Mechanically, the programme granted citizenship of Moldova in exchange for a defined economic contribution paid into the Public Investment Fund (the Sustainable Development Fund of Moldova).

In return for that contribution, and subject to strict procedures verifying the file and the good economic and financial reputation of the applicant, the payer may benefit from Moldovan citizenship.

Both qualifying limbs appear in the Ministry own sentence, so this was not an automatic exchange.

The implementing body is the public institution known as the Public Services Agency of the Republic of Moldova, operating under Government Decision no. 786 of 4 October 2017.

The record carries a closed status; the closing date and the terminating instrument could not be traced, because the Moldovan legal portal blocks access and the programme own portal fails to establish a connection from the verifying network

This programme is not measured by adjudication time but by sixty months, and that figure recurs on every investment branch. The Regulation requires the investment plan to be drawn for a period of at least sixty months and to be approved by the Commission.

The real-estate branch requires the purchase and uninterrupted ownership for at least sixty months of one or more properties with a total market value at the date of investment of not less than EUR 250,000.

The state-securities branch requires purchase and retention for at least sixty months at not less than EUR 250,000. And the conditions for accepting the investment carry a separate limb stating plainly that the investment may not be withdrawn or alienated for at least five years.

Monitoring runs on the same annual beat: at the end of each calendar year the Commission verifies how the investment was made and maintained together with the plan for the following year, and at the end of the five-year period it verifies that the investment is complete at the minimum of EUR 250,000.

The naturalised person must file documents evidencing that the investment is maintained by 20 January each year, on reorganisation of the company or restructuring of the investment activity, and within twenty days after the five years of investment activity expire.

The procedural deadlines are far shorter: the Commission meets so that a complete file is examined within thirty days of filing. The National Anticorruption Centre, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Information and Security Service give their opinions within fifteen days and at no additional cost to the applicant.

Decisions are communicated within ten days; and a refusal may be challenged within ten days of communication, before any recourse to the administrative court.

The Regulation imposes no residence obligation — this is a contribution-for-citizenship programme rather than a residence route — but in its place it sets a five-year duty and a monetary sanction that few summaries mention.

The duty is to keep the investment: it may not be withdrawn or alienated for at least five years, and the holder must themselves evidence that it is maintained by 20 January each year and within twenty days of the five years expiring.

The sanction sits at point 16 and it goes straight to court. Where the investment is not made or not maintained, save in cases of force majeure, the Commission issues a finding and informs the authorities competent in citizenship matters under Chapter V of Citizenship Law No. 1024-XIV of 2 June 2000.

The naturalised person is then pecuniarily liable up to the value of the investment not made or not maintained. The Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure, on the basis of that finding, sues through the courts to recover that value.

This marks the route out from many comparable programmes: the consequence of withdrawing capital early is not automatic loss of citizenship but a debt that can be litigated.

The file also shows the programme assumes the applicant is not in Moldova:

Every document goes through legalisation, notarised copies bearing an apostille, any document not in English requiring a certified translation by a translator authorised in the country of issue, and application forms M1 to M5 are bilingual in English and the state language.

The file is lodged in person or through an accredited agent at the Commission's secretariat.

The family provision here is broader than in most comparable programmes, and the supplement is set flat rather than rising with the number of people.

Government Decision no. 786 of 4 October 2017 provides that where the application to join the programme is submitted by a family member as the main applicant, the equivalent of 100,000 euros is paid for the main applicant, plus an additional 15,000 euros for each additional eligible family member.

The most striking point is who counts as an eligible family member, because the list runs to three categories rather than two: spouse, children, and parents.

Including parents is unusual — most comparable programmes admit only a spouse and minor children, while parents either have no route at all or must prove financial dependency.

The 15,000 euro figure is fixed per person and does not escalate for a second or third dependant, so the total cost of a multi-person application can be reached by simple addition rather than by consulting a tiered table.

One limit on scope: the source names the three relationships but does not state an age limit for children, nor a dependency condition for parents, so both details would have to come from the full text of Decision 786/2017, which cannot currently be opened from the Moldovan legal portal

A person granted citizenship under this programme receives the Moldova 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 Moldova passport reaches 124 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 Regulation sets no tax provision for the contribution or for the naturalised person, and that is a reading of the whole text rather than an inference:

The instrument fixes the contribution, the due-diligence criteria, the conditions for accepting and monitoring the investment, the Commission's organisation, and the fee schedule — there is no chapter on tax liability.

What is tax-related sits on the opposite side, namely the duty to prove that one is clear of tax debt before being considered, and it calls for two kinds of certificate.

The first is a certificate of no debts to the state budget and to the state social insurance budget, issued for the foreign national or stateless person, and for the commercial companies in which that person, their family members or their dependants are members, partners or shareholders.

The second is a certificate of no debts to the budget of the state whose nationality the person holds and to the local budget at any level of their last domicile, again covering both the individual and the companies in which they hold the capacity of member, partner or shareholder.

Alongside these, the file must evidence the profit obtained as a partner in commercial companies over the last five years and the income obtained as an individual over the last five years. The programme therefore does not tax the incomer, but it reads that person's tax record where they live very closely.

Annex 3 to the Decision prints a complete fee schedule, and the total is large enough that it cannot be treated as incidental. A principal applicant travelling alone pays the following, in euro:

The processing and due diligence fees are paid to the Public Services Agency at the moment of filing, then comes the passport fee. On top of that come the payments to the public service provider and to the accredited agent, the last two charged per approved principal application.

Processing fees run per accompanying person:

Due diligence fees likewise run per person:

The Commission may additionally charge costs incurred by the due diligence companies in carrying out the assessment.

The EUR 300 passport fee is per person. One further amount is not paid by the applicant but decides who may act as intermediary: an accredited agent pays an annual fee of EUR 15,000 to the Public Services Agency, pro-rated over the months remaining in the first year and in full thereafter.

Finally, a rule that belongs to the contribution rather than to the fees, but must be read with them because it changes the total for a large family outright: where a family consists of five or more persons including the principal applicant, only EUR 155,000 is paid for the whole family, instead of adding the individual amounts.