On the 20th of December 2017, the office of the Regulator of the Individual Investor Programme of the Government of Malta issued its Fourth Annual report, which provides statistics for the Malta Citizenship by investment programme for the 12-month period between July 2016 and June 2017. The report highlights a number of different factors including the number of applications received, rejected and those naturalised. It also offers a comprehensive breakdown of primary citizenship, spouses, dependents and investment options.
Malta Citizenship Programme Statistics July 2016 - June 2017
The report revealed that although the programmes are still attracting a substantial amount of applications, the actual amount submitted during this period fell to 377, from the 451 applications recorded during the previous period, which is around a 17% decrease. This brings the total amount of applications since the programmes from inception up to 1,101, of the maximum citizenship quota of 1,800.
Submitted Applications for the Malta Citizenship by Investment Programme
The majority of applications received come from male main applicants which make up 79% of the total number of application. The statistics outline 9 main regions of origin for the applicants, Europe (168 applications), the Gulf Region (31 applications), Asia (81 applications), Africa (21 applications), the Middle East (51 applications), North America (18 applications), South America (4 applications), Caribbean (1 application), and Oceania (2 applications). Similarly, to the previous year, the majority of applications came from the European region, but in contrast to the previous year the number of applications from Asia and the Middle East increased, while those from the Gulf and Africa decreased, a trend which can be witnessed in other CBI programmes. 962 dependants were included in the 377 applications. On average, each applicant included three dependents in the application, similarly to previous years.
Outcome of MIIP Applications
The amount of applications which were approved, which entails that the due diligence has been positively concluded and a letter of approval in principle has been issued was 422. This constitutes a significant increase from the previous year, 241, and also from the year before that, 75. This highlights the increased efficiency of the application process. There where also a significant number of applications, 83, which were not approved during the year in question.
Naturalisations of MIIP Applications
386 applications have also reached the naturalisation stage, which is a significant increase from the amount recorded during the previous period, which stood at 137, this makes the total number of naturalised citizens till the end of June 2017, 566. The Malta IIP has a cap of 1,800 nationalisations (excluding dependents), which means a third of the spots have been filled so far.
Investments carried out by MIIP Applicants
In terms of the contributor’s property investments, the vast majority 88% (340) were leased whereas the remaining 12% (46) were purchased. The most popular localities for both being Sliema and St. Julian's and Swieqi areas. For this period this average amount spent of property purchased averaged at around €868,173.58 per property and the annual average rental value for leased property stood at €21,128.53. The amount invested in Government stocks between July 2016 and June 2017 totalled €58,371,279.83.
Malta Citizenship Programme Statistics – Contributions Collected from July 2016 to June 2017
During the period 1st July 2016 – 30th June 2017 the financial contributions amounted to €194 million to the National Development and Social Fund; €83 million to the Consolidated Fund; €16 million to the Identity Malta Agency and €13 million to the concessionaire. The total contribution by the applicant of the IIP for this period is estimated at €10,584,600,000 which is equivalent to 2.74% of the GDP.
