Salaried professionals and retirees now account for 25% of US consultation calls at Immigrant Invest, up from 15% in 2025, as political division drives demand for second passports.
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Salaried professionals and retirees now account for 25% of US consultation calls at Immigrant Invest, a Malta-based citizenship-by-investment consultancy, up from about 15% in 2025, according to data the firm shared with Business Insider.
The shift marks a change for an industry that traditionally catered to the superrich. Billionaire Peter Thiel, who obtained New Zealand citizenship in 2011, is among the high-profile names who have sought second passports. For wealthy Americans, acquiring another citizenship generally does not eliminate US tax obligations, but offers the freedom to live, travel, and work abroad.
Pavel Reshetnikov, a consultant at Immigrant Invest, said the cost of citizenship programs has stayed relatively stable, suggesting more Americans with savings are looking for a "plan B" after heightened political division in the US and global geopolitical volatility.
The growing cohort includes doctors, tech workers, academics, real estate brokers, and lawyers, as well as retirees with personal savings. The company analyzed 450 consultation calls with US-based clients between January and July 2026 and compared the results with its 2025 data from the same period. Its traditional core clientele – ultrawealthy investors, entrepreneurs, and business owners – has shrunk as a share of US consultation calls, from roughly 50% in 2025 to 40% in 2026.
Some of the most popular options among Immigrant Invest's US clients are Caribbean citizenship-by-investment programs requiring low six-figure sums. Grenada's program requires a donation of more than $235,000 to its National Transformation Fund, or a real-estate investment of over $270,000. St Kitts and Nevis requires a contribution starting at $250,000 or an investment of more than $325,000 in local real estate. Cheaper alternatives exist: São Tomé and Príncipe starts at $90,000, Vanuatu at $130,000.
Henley & Partners, one of the world's largest citizenship-by-investment advisory firms, said in its 2026 Private Wealth Migration Report that demand from US clients nearly doubled in 2025 from the previous year. Most were not planning an imminent move, according to the report. "The great majority are US-Americans living in the USA, rather than expatriates already abroad, and they have no intention of leaving, or at least not yet," Basil Mohr-Elzeki, Henley and Partners' head of private clients in the Americas, said in the report.
Immigrant Invest said that as recently as 2021, Americans in general showed little interest in its citizenship-by-investment programs, with middle-class clients particularly rare. "Five years ago, I think it was just a very, very small percentage of US clients," Reshetnikov said. "Now it's a completely different story." Demand began picking up in early 2025, around the time President Donald Trump took office, and US-based clients have since become one of its largest segments, accounting for as much as 28% of consultations in any given month.
For many of those Americans, the appeal is less about leaving the US than knowing they could in the future. "They would like to have an option and insurance for the whole family to move somewhere very quickly," Aleksandr Razinkov, who handles press relations for Immigrant Invest, said.
Second passports have not suddenly become more affordable. For a growing group of affluent American professionals, a plan B passport is something worth spending their savings on.
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