Azerbaijan attracts foreign expats, investors, businesses as a compelling destination for living, working and doing business. Among these options is obtaining residency of Azerbaijan by investment.
Residency by investment is used as a general concept to cover all and any available means of temporary or short term residency grounds, usually in a passive manner. Therefore, we can classify Azerbaijan’s residency by investment options in the following manner:
All the above specific grounds of residency are qualified to be called as “residency by investment in Azerbaijan”; however, in real economic and legal terms, only the 4th option, which is investment into domestic economy via available methods truly amounts to residency by investment. However, to use the generally accepted and understood terminology, all of the 4 investment options above lead to residency in Azerbaijan and below we explain each in more detail.
Azerbaijani Residency by bank deposit is among the mostly favored options due to its simplicity. Additionally, in practice, it is the fastest ground of obtaining temporary residence card in Azerbaijan.
To obtain 1-year temporary residence card, 100 000 AZN (around 60 000 USD) shall be deposited in local banks, for not less than one year. Early withdrawal of the deposit amount would lead to revocation of the residence permit.
After 2 years of stay under temporary residence permit, it would be possible to apply for permanent residence permit if the amount of the funds under deposit agreement is not less than 200 000 AZN. It must be mentioned that additional requirements about permanent residency application would still be applicable. You can read about permanent residency requirements of Azerbaijan from here (part PR- Permanent Residency).
Rules regarding residency by bank deposit equally apply to the residency by purchase of property equally. The minimum price of the purchased property shall be 100 000 AZN for temporary residence purposes, and 200 000 for permanent residence purposes.
Here it must be mentioned that while purchasing property, the value of land shall be omitted for the purposes of calculating the price. This is due to the fact that the land may not be owned by foreign citizens. However, any alternative solution for owning the land, in other words, even the land is controlled by the foreigner, its price would be disregarded while determining the price of the owned property.
Purchase of government securities, or investment securities of legal entities where government owns more than 51% of the shares, with a nominal value of not less than 100 000 AZN entitles the security owner to a temporary residence permit in Azerbaijan. Where the nominal value of such securities is reduced, the temporary residence permit will be revoked.
Similar requirement regarding permanent residence criteria is applicable to the ownership of securities, i.e. the nominal value of the purchased securities must be more than 200 000 AZN.
Investments contributed into domestic economy shall be minimum 500 000 AZN in order to be qualified for residency on this ground. This can include any form of investment, share purchase, capital investment or any other available methods. For the calculation of investment amount under this ground, total investment amount would be considered and in this calculation, other “investment” forms such as bank deposit, purchase of securities, property purchase may be added in order to reach 500 000 AZN. For the avoidance of doubt, this is a separate and independent ground of residency and does not cross with other grounds of residency mentioned above.
Azerbaijan does not have direct citizenship route via any form of investment. Ordinary naturalization rules of citizenship apply in all cases, which requires a minimum of 5 years of stay under permanent residency grounds, and certain testing procedures being qualified.
Azerbaijan Residency by Investment programs may be used as initial precondition as a route leading to temporary residency and then to permanent residency permission in Azerbaijan. And once permanent residency permission is granted, standard naturalization procedures for obtaining citizenship may be benefited.
For the advisory related to obtaining residency in Azerbaijan under investment please contact us:
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