Over the past decade, interest in investment migration programs has grown substantially, yet empirical research has not followed it apace. This chapter offers an empirical overview of the field of investment migration, focusing on supply, demand, and the connective infrastructure of the market, as well as the demographic uptake and economic outcomes of several key programs. The analysis is based on five years of qualitative and quantitative research on the global market in investment migration. I first set out the defining features of CBI and RBI programs and distinguish them from neighboring – and often conflated – means for acquiring citizenship or residence. I then introduce the historical origins of the contemporary scene in investment migration globally and dissect the dynamics of the global market in investment migration, focusing on the structure supply, demand, and the connective tissue of service providers that make the market. The analysis also accounts for changes in both supply and demand over time. The third section addresses program outcomes. I highlight important methodological issues to consider when evaluating program outcomes, and I assess the uptake and economic results of key schemes. I conclude by discussing the most significant empirical development in the field in recent years: the rise to predominance of CBI and RBI programs in the Global South.

Countries are competing ever more fervently to attract the best and brightest, whether highly skilled migrant workers, students with potential, or athletes and others boasting exceptional talent. It should therefore come as little surprise that they should vie with each other to lure in the wealthy as well. This chapter introduces the key characteristics, debates, and stakes in citizenship by investment and residence by investment programs.

A substantial industry has pushed forward the market for multiple citizenships. Drawing on extensive empirical research, this chapter investigates investment migration programs in practice by analyzing their constitution and evolution within a global market. This chapter identifies the underlying dynamics of supply and demand, rethinking the literature on citizenship in three areas: inter-country differences in citizenship’s benefits, privileged access for elites, and the decisive influence of third-party actors on citizenship policy. Within this theoretical landscape, the empirical analysis unpacks how these programs emerged within a broader field constituted by immigrant investor visas and discretionary economic citizenship. It reveals how this field conditioned the development and spread of formal programs, and the roles of geopolitical inequalities, industry actors, and extraterritorial rights in this change. The conclusion shows how incorporating jus pecuniae into our understanding of citizenship revises conventional assumptions in two domains: inequality and third-party actors.