There is a lot of misimformation out there and misunderstanding of how to decide what second residency or passport program to apply for and in this short guide I want to give you the reader a few things to consider.
What do you want to accomplish?
You want business opportunities? A place to live? Better banking? Get it clear in your head what a second passport can do or not do. There is a lot of imfor out there that says if your a North American you will need a second passport to get secret banking and things like that.
If you want a smaller footprint and want to be way off the radar of Uncle Sam a second passport can help you with a place to live and as a travel document but as a banking I. D. I disagree, if your American at least.
A much safer and cheaper solution to getting a tax efficient account and an account that no one knows about is by having your lawyer set up a corporate account in an off the radar tax haven where he acts as your agent in all things banking and brokerage and business.
So back to your residency options.
How much privacy and imformation do you want to give to your new country in exchange for a passport?
Only you can decide that but you have many options if you want to live in Latin America. In most but not all of Central America all you need is what some call a business visa or Temp residency and then a apply for a perminant residency then last your naturalization.
To accomplish all this all that is needed is a police background check where you get wherever you lived in the States. No need for a FBI background check which can take 3 months now to get and may set off alarm bells to Uncle Sam about your true intentions to him as a local tax cow he doesnt desire for you to leave his legal jurisdiction.
So maybe you did something stupid in your past that you think or believe will disqualify you for residency? Well if your country of choice requires a FBI background check your screwed problably. I dont know some countries smoking weed is no big deal others its a deal killer!
What to do in a situation like that is apply for residency in a country that recognizes a regular police background check, why you ask is that? Because if you have legal problems in one jurisdiction then just get the police report somewhere where your indescretion will not show up.
They dont make you prove you lived somewhere in either the States or latin America to get your police check you just apply for it pay the fee then get it certified and legalized thats it! Problem solved.
How not to get scammed in this process.
First get a lawyer who knows what he is doing and the laws of his country not an easy thing to do if you dont know the laws or language of your country but it must be done if you dont want to get scammed.
First understand in Latin America they cut corners all the time to save money or increase there profit margin. Example of this in Paraguay. Say you apply for your residency your going to need to get all your documents notorized certified yadayada, and most important filed with migration where you will be expected to pay tax yer your gonna have to pay fees and have proof of paying said fees with the original peperwork not foto copies.
Well to save money and increase profit margins some lawyers pocket that money then bribe the guy at migration to file it in the computer that you paid but doesnt give you the original paper because you never paid! Anyway in the computer it says you paid but you didnt not really and thats important because if you want your passport then you will need to be Naturalized before you can apply for your passport and to do that you need proof of all fees taxes ect in original forms to prove all that and if your fixer lawyer cut corners you will not have that and then scream bloody murder that you were scammed!
Or another thing that happens is plain misunderstandings, like the lawyer forgets to tell you that you need to be Naturalized and that is an expensive process in this whole ordeal so after five years or whatever hte law is you apply then are told your just resident and need to be Naturalized please pay the fee taxes for that and you think your being scammed no its the law in most Latin countries so know that before you apply and ask the lawyer detailed questions about it and he will be happy to explain it all and in every step of the way show you all the original papers which he keeps in a folder at the office so you dont lose them for when you need them for the next step in this process.
How about this senario, you apply for your visa the retiree visa in say Costa Rica or Panama, and go through the whole gruelling process only to find out all the effort and money paid will only get you a renewable visa that they can take away at any time for any reason they want and through that whole process disclosed all your income assets ect that now they can use as leverage with you or disclose to Uncle Sam !
Well what happened is the law changed and your lawyer didnt tell you or didnt know or just misunderstood what you wanted ie; Naturalization and passport. It has happend even in Equador!
Make sure you apply for the rught visa if you want a passport and all the benefits of citizenship such as they are in Latin America that means no or low taxes and regulations that are suggestions.
Some more things to think about if you want residency, how much do you want to pay? How much do you want to invest to get this passport in time and money?
In Central America there is a place off the radar where you need only spend one day a year to satisfy your residency requirements. There is no big investment you have to make unless you want to skip the temporary residency and go straight to perminant residency in which case you will need to wire in fiddy K and when the paperwork is approves you can wire out kinda the same as Paraguay except the dollar amount is five to six K depending on what the current exchange rate is now.
So if your a broke @ss backpacker there are options where you dont need any investments or income requirements and most of the C4 countries are like that with some different variations.
What will the fees come to? Well for banking off the radar two K or less sometimes a lot less depending on bank location. Expect accounting fees with the company which will be whatever a Starbucks coffee costs you per month sometimes less again depending on location of company and location of bank.
all in all from start to finish fees for everything temp residenct to naturaliztion and a company for banking five or six K less if you dont need banking options thats it not including maintance fees for company that is if the legal man remembers to charge you as sometimes he dont. Also a lot of times fees are based on if the guy likes you if your high maintance client the fees can be steep. Just giving you the facts.
If there is any interest in this kind of article leave a comment and I will put up part 2 of this, if not cool, goodluck and thanks for correcting my spelling mistakes as Engish is my second language!