Concept
Egypt and Jordan keep their citizenship-by-investment programs apart from the Caribbean and Middle Eastern schemes. The passports of both are weak for travel, the procedures are bureaucratic, and the sums are comparable to far more convenient jurisdictions. The value here is single and quite specific: both Cairo and Amman are bound by an investment treaty with the United States, which opens access to the American E-2 investor visa. For a certain kind of client it is precisely this access that determines interest in the program, while passport mobility comes second.
Egypt: Four Routes
The Egyptian program offers four options. A non-refundable contribution to the treasury is 250,000 USD. Real estate starts at 300,000 USD, with an obligation to hold the property for five years. A business investment is 350,000 USD plus a non-refundable 100,000 USD donation to the state. A bank deposit is 500,000 USD, returned after three years in the local currency and without interest. A 10,000 USD state fee attaches to every option, and all funds arrive from abroad in dollars. From filing to the passport usually takes six months to a year.
Jordan: Eight Routes After the 2025 Reform
Jordan rebuilt its program in July 2025: eight routes replace the former three, approvals are capped at 500 a year, and the passive options are gone entirely. The treasury bonds and bank deposits that anchored the old scheme were scrapped, and the emphasis shifted to investment with real economic effect and jobs. Thresholds are counted in dinars. The floor is 350,000 JOD (about 490,000 USD) for an existing project outside Amman; a new project requires 500,000 JOD in the provinces or 700,000 JOD in the capital; buying shares and the stock-exchange route start at 1 million JOD (around 1.4 million USD) with a three-year lock-up and a 20 percent cap on any single company; and sector projects in pharmaceuticals, medicine, and logistics start at 3 million JOD. The most unusual route is tied to no sum at all: citizenship is granted for hiring 150 Jordanians in Amman or 100 in the provinces. Existing investors can qualify retroactively on a business already running. A separate real-estate regime also appeared: a 200,000 JOD new-build gives a five-year residence permit, but it does not lead to citizenship.
Why This Passport: Access to the E-2 Visa
The main reason wealthy clients look at Egypt and Jordan at all is the bilateral investment treaties these countries hold with the United States. A citizen of either may apply for the E-2 visa: it lets the holder live in the United States and run their own business there, renews without a hard ceiling on duration, and covers a spouse and children under 21. Citizens of Russia, China, or India have no direct route to E-2, because their countries are not treaty parties. A second citizenship of Egypt or Jordan removes that barrier and costs noticeably less than the Turkish or Grenadian route to the same visa. An important caveat from the NDAA FY2023: since the end of 2022, anyone who obtained citizenship of a treaty country through an investment must have held a continuous domicile in the country of that citizenship for at least three years before applying for E-2 — the rule applies equally to Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Grenada.
Alternatives: Turkey and Grenada
Other passports lead to the same E-2 visa. Turkey and Grenada are treaty countries too: the Turkish passport is issued quickly and offers wider mobility but requires from 400,000 USD in real estate, while the Grenadian one adds visa-free entry to China and the Schengen area on top of E-2. The Egyptian and Jordanian routes win in a single scenario: when what you need is the E-2 link itself on a minimal budget, and passport strength is irrelevant.
Taxes, Source of Funds, and CRS
A second citizenship does not by itself make a person a tax resident of Egypt or Jordan: both countries tax on the basis of actual residence and ties, not on the possession of a passport. The holder keeps paying where they actually live, and contested cases of dual residence are resolved by the tie-breaker of the tax treaty. The practical effect of a second citizenship is different: it surfaces in bank KYC and in CRS self-certification, where all citizenships and tax residences are disclosed. For a holder of Russian capital this means heightened attention to the source of funds — both when obtaining the passport and when opening accounts under it.
Limitations and Reputation
The passports themselves have few strengths. The Egyptian one gives visa-free or simplified entry to roughly fifty countries, the Jordanian about the same, and neither opens the Schengen area or the United Kingdom. Both programs involve serious vetting: source of funds, biography, and due diligence are studied closely. The scale remains modest: over 2018–2025 Jordan naturalized only about 560 people through the investment line, mostly from neighbouring countries, and kept the annual cap at 500 applicants; Egypt markedly tightened verification in 2025. For a holder of Russian capital all of this means heightened attention from banks and consulates to the origin of the money and to the very fact of a second citizenship.
Q/A
Is Egypt’s USD 500,000 bank deposit repaid in dollars?
No. The official programme returns the deposit after three years in Egyptian pounds at the Central Bank’s exchange rate on the repayment date and pays no interest. The applicant therefore bears currency and opportunity-cost risk even though the nominal USD 500,000 route is described as refundable.
Can Egyptian programme property be sold before five years?
Yes, but citizenship retention then has a price. The official programme requires an investor disposing of the qualifying property before five years to transfer USD 250,000 from abroad as non-refundable direct revenue to the Treasury; the original property route is not an unrestricted quick resale.
Is Jordan’s JOD 1 million stock-market route still current?
No. Cabinet changes announced on 15 July 2026 raised the new-share purchase to at least JOD 1.5 million, reduced the single-company concentration cap to 10% and restricted withdrawals or disposal for five years. The earlier JOD 1 million, 20% and three-year terms are stale.
Does an Egyptian or Jordanian investment passport give immediate E-2 access?
No. Egypt and Jordan are E-2 treaty countries, but a first-time applicant who acquired the relevant nationality through financial investment must show a continuous three-year period of domicile in that treaty country before applying. The passport alone does not satisfy the E-2 business and investment tests either.
Does a second passport itself create a new CRS tax residence?
No. CRS self-certification records every jurisdiction of tax residence and the related TINs; nationality is not a substitute for that test. A bank’s broader KYC process may separately collect all citizenships, so the passport can affect onboarding without automatically changing where the person is tax-resident.