An Opinion piece by Christian H. Kälin
Italy or Switzerland, Latvia or Portugal? Countries are stepping up efforts to attract globally mobile wealth, capital and entrepreneurial talent. Germany, however, remains largely on the sidelines. Conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, political upheaval from Washington to Jakarta and the rise of protectionism have made the world increasingly difficult to navigate for wealthy families and entrepreneurs.
Many are responding in a pragmatic way. Alongside their investment portfolios, they are increasingly diversifying their residency options. The ability to live, work and invest elsewhere if circumstances require it is no longer simply a luxury. It has become an asset in its own right.
The scale of this shift is significant. More than 80 countries now offer some form of investment migration programme, providing legal pathways to acquire residence rights or, under certain conditions, citizenship through investment.
These include EU member states such as Italy, Greece, Portugal and Malta, as well as countries in the Caribbean and Pacific. According to the European Parliament, EU residence and citizenship programmes generated more than €21.8 billion in direct revenues between 2011 and 2019.
“For wealthy German families and entrepreneurs seeking to diversify their residence and citizenship options, the implication is clear: they have to look abroad.”
Competition for wealthy migrants is therefore considerable. Yet Germany is not participating in any meaningful way.
Other countries are actively improving their appeal by making residence pathways more accessible, predictable and straightforward to navigate. Latvia offers one of the most affordable residence routes in the EU. For a family from Asia seeking residence rights for parents, children and perhaps grandparents, other jurisdictions may require investments running into the millions. Latvia’s advantage is not simply cost but in the relative clarity, efficiency and simplicity of the process.
Italy has taken a different approach. It offers new residents a flat tax of €300,000 a year for ten years, alongside an investor visa that, depending on the size of the investment, can be issued within three to four months.
Greece, meanwhile, has attracted more than 7% of its total foreign direct investment through its Golden Visa programme. Switzerland also competes internationally through its lump-sum taxation regime for wealthy new residents, reinforced by a long-established private wealth and family-office ecosystem.
Germany offers nothing comparable.
The economic contribution can be substantial. More than 6,000 millionaires moved to Italy in 2025 alone, many of them from the United States. The value they bring extends beyond the initial inflow of capital: globally mobile wealth can support further investment, business formation, local spending and broader economic activity.
Critics sometimes portray investment migration programmes as easy-access routes for questionable individuals. But governments themselves determine the eligibility criteria and can design programmes around the profiles they want to attract, whether entrepreneurs, investors or highly skilled professionals.
Well-designed programmes also incorporate rigorous due diligence, including scrutiny of applicants’ source of wealth, tax history, reputation and sanctions exposure. The issue, therefore, is not whether such programmes can be controlled, but how carefully they are designed and governed.
Germany already possesses many of the fundamentals that internationally mobile families value: strong infrastructure, legal certainty, high-quality healthcare and education, and a deep pool of skilled talent. What it lacks is a dedicated framework for converting those advantages into a deliberate strategy for attracting globally mobile wealth and entrepreneurial capital.
The consequence is that investment, tax revenues and business activity that could potentially be captured by Germany are instead flowing to jurisdictions that have chosen to compete more actively.
There is a broader irony. As internationally mobile families increasingly seek to diversify their residence and citizenship options, German entrepreneurs and families are themselves increasingly looking abroad for precisely those opportunities. Other countries have built the structures to respond to that demand. Germany, so far, has not.
Christian H. Kälin is an expert in investment migration and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Henley & Partners.
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