在一些欧盟国家，护照和居留签证成了一门大生意
西班牙加那利群岛的圣塞巴斯蒂安。最终有权申请西班牙居留签证，并可畅通无阻进入欧盟，这对购房者来说是一个加分项。 JAMES RAJOTTE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
When Natalia Yavorska and her husband first considered buying a holiday retreat somewhere warmer than their Ukrainian homeland, they were drawn to the Canary Islands.
娜塔莉亚·亚沃斯卡(Natalia Yavorska)和她的丈夫开始考虑在比他们的家乡乌克兰更温暖的地方购买一处度假别墅时，加纳利群岛吸引了他们的注意。
A vacation to the Spanish archipelago in 2012 left them eyeing land on the southwest coast of the island of Tenerife, and while the initial attractions were the golf courses and ocean views, the deal was sealed by a special extra that came with their purchase.
2012年一次前往这片属于西班牙的群岛的旅行，让他们看上了特内里费岛西南海岸的一块地，起初吸引他们的是高尔夫球场和海景，但最终让他们签下合约的，是这笔购买带来的额外好处。
“The fact that we could get a Spanish residence visa from buying real estate was very important, and that made it an easy decision,” said Ms. Yavorska, a 60-year-old former banker from a town near Kiev.
“我们可以通过购买房地产获得西班牙居留签证这点非常重要，让购买的决定容易了，”60岁的亚沃斯卡说，她曾是一名银行家，来自基辅附近的一个小镇。
That “golden visa” carried the right to eventually apply for a Spanish, and therefore European Union, passport, the kind of bonus that is luring a growing number of investors to high-end real estate.
这个“黄金签证”带来的权利是最终可以申请西班牙护照，也就是欧盟护照。这种额外好处正在吸引越来越多的投资者进入高端房地产市场。
Once seen as a slightly shady practice, the business of dangling visas and citizenship in front of wealthy investors has become a more common, and in some cases hugely successful, marketing strategy.
用签证和公民身份诱惑富裕投资者曾被视为是有点可疑的做法，但如今已成为一种更为常见的、而且在某些情况下非常成功的营销策略。
Ms. Yavorska and her husband, Alexander Yavorski, who own a pharmaceutical import business in Ukraine, were worried about political stability at home and saw the right to live in the European Union as “a type of insurance.”
亚沃斯卡的丈夫亚历山大·亚沃斯基(Alexander Yavorski)在乌克兰拥有一家药品进口企业，这对夫妇担心国内的政治稳定性，因此把获得在欧盟生活的权利视为“一种保险”。
“Something can always happen between Russia and Ukraine, so if you have the chance to have a visa or a second passport sitting in your drawer, you would be stupid not to take it,” she said.
“总有事情在俄罗斯和乌克兰之间发生，所以如果你有机会把一份签证或第二本护照放在你的抽屉里，你不去拿就太愚蠢了，”亚沃斯卡说。
So far, at least 14 countries have programs that offer visas or passports to foreigners who buy real estate, according to research by Henley & Partners, a British-based law firm that specializes in helping people looking such programs, and The New York Times. Montenegro will soon become the 15th, and the British overseas territory of Anguilla is planning to follow suit.
根据一家专门帮助客户调研此类项目的英国律所恒理环球顾问事务所有限公司(Henley & Partners)和《纽约时报》的调查，目前至少14个国家有为购买房产的外国人提供签证或护照的项目。黑山很快将成为第15个国家，英国的海外领土安圭拉也计划效仿。
Many more countries, including the United States and 20 of the 28 European Union members, are offering residence visas, which can often lead to passports, to foreigners willing to invest in nonproperty business ventures. These countries believe the investments will bolster their economies.
包括美国和欧盟28个成员国中的20个在内的更多国家，正在向愿意投资非房地产业务的外国人提供居留签证，这往往可以让他们最终获得护照。这些国家认为这些投资将促进国内经济。
Other countries, led by small Caribbean island nations and Vanuatu, in the South Pacific, are happy to simply sell a passport for as little as $100,000.
以加勒比海的小岛国、以及南太平洋的瓦努阿图为首的其他国家，则乐意以最低10万美元的价格出售本国的护照。
加那利群岛特内里费的Abama Luxury Residences。西班牙“黄金签证”项目的最低投资额为50万欧元。 ARUM GROUP
Analysts say that offers of passports and residency have become a big business, attracting an estimated $20 billion a year in investment.
分析人士说，提供护照和居留权已成为一门大生意，每年估计吸引200亿美元的投资。
That approach is transforming the upper end of real estate markets and reshaping the finances of some of the smaller countries, pumping billions of dollars into economies that are desperate for the funds.
这种做法正在改变高端房地产市场，并在重塑一些比较小的国家的财政，向非常需要这些资金的经济体注入数十亿美元。
At the same time, the practice is raising fears in the European Parliament and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which works to promote economic growth worldwide. They worry that the programs could assist money laundering, tax evasion and the free movement of criminals and terrorists, as well as allow wealthy Russians, Iranians and Syrians to skirt economic sanctions.
与此同时，这种做法引起了欧洲议会和经济合作与发展组织(Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development)的担忧，后者致力于促进全球经济增长。他们担心这些项目可能有助于洗钱、逃税以及犯罪分子和恐怖分子的自由流动，还可让富裕的俄罗斯人、伊朗人和叙利亚人逃避经济制裁。
There are eight countries — five small Caribbean states, Turkey and, in the European Union, Cyprus and Malta — that will hand over passports to property buyers, who are generally required to spend little, if any, time within their borders.
有八个国家只要求购买房地产者在其境内居住很少的时间（如果有要求的话），就会向他们提供护照。这些国家包括五个加勒比岛国、土耳其，以及两个欧盟成员国：塞浦路斯和马耳他。
In December, Brazil joined Dubai, which is part of the United Arab Emirates, and six European nations — Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Malta, Portugal and Spain — in extending residence visas to property buyers.
去年12月，巴西加入了迪拜（组成阿联酋的七个酋长国之一）和六个欧盟国家——塞浦路斯、希腊、拉脱维亚、马耳他、葡萄牙和西班牙——的行列，将居留签证的发放范围扩大到房地产购买者。
The rules vary for converting those visas into passports.
各国对将居留签证转换为护照有不同的规定。
Portugal requires a waiting period of five years, during which the applicant needs to spend just one week a year in the country. Spain and Latvia insist on a 10-year wait. The Latvians and Greeks require difficult language tests and several years of actually living in the country, and the Latvians insist that applicants learn the national anthem. Dubai almost never grants United Arab Emirates citizenship to foreigners.
葡萄牙需要等待五年，在此期间申请人只需要每年在该国度过一周。西班牙和拉脱维亚坚持要求10年的等待期。拉脱维亚和希腊要求申请者通过困难的语言考试，并需要在该国实际生活数年。拉脱维亚还坚持要求申请者学会唱国歌。迪拜则几乎从不给予外国人阿联酋的公民身份。
The picky passport shopper needs to consider price, each country’s tax system and the speed of its bureaucracy: Dominica is the fastest to hand over a passport, and Turkey the slowest among nations that go straight to a passport.
挑剔的护照购买者需要考虑价格、每个国家的税收制度，及其官僚机构的效率：多米尼加发放护照的速度最快，土耳其在直接授予护照的国家中速度最慢。
Passport shoppers also need to consider how much time a nation requires them to spend within its borders, and how many other countries will grant them visa-free access with their new passports. Grenada, for instance, offers passports that have visa-free access to both China and Russia.
护照购买者还需要考虑的因素包括，授予国要求他们在该国境内待多长时间，以及有多少其他国家会允许他们持新护照免签证入境。例如，持格林纳达护照可以免签证进入中国和俄罗斯。
Wealthy Chinese are by far the biggest buyers of both visas and passports, followed by Russians, experts say. There is also growing interest among French citizens eager to avoid high income taxes and Britons desperate to maintain their European Union membership when or if their country leaves the bloc.
专家说，富裕的中国人是居留签证和护照的最大买主，其次是俄罗斯人。由于渴望避免缴纳高所得税，购买护照的兴趣在法国公民中有所上升。迫切希望在英国脱欧后（如果英国最终离开欧盟的话）保持自己欧盟护照的英国人购买护照的兴趣也在增加。
“I think there will be a huge amount of activity once we know what is actually happening with Brexit,” said Penny Mosgrove, the chief executive of the upmarket real estate agency Quintessentially Estates.
高端房地产代理商Quintessentially Estates首席执行官佩妮·莫斯格罗夫(Penny Mosgrove)说，“我认为，一旦我们知道在脱欧上要实际发生什么时，将会有大量的（购买）活动。”
里约热内卢的一套公寓。巴西是向购房者发放居留签证的国家之一。
Americans are interested, too. In the five years to April 2018, 4,327 United States citizens received golden visas in Spain alone. Experts say there are two reasons for Americans’ appetite for new passports and residency visas.
美国人也有兴趣。在截至2018年4月的五年间，单是在西班牙拿到“黄金签证”的美国公民就有4327名。专家说，美国人想得到他国护照和居留签证有两个原因。
One is that the United States and Eritrea are the only countries that tax the worldwide earnings of their citizens even if they live abroad.
一个原因是，美国和厄立特里亚是仅有的两个对其公民在全球范围内的收入征税的国家，即使公民生活在国外。
Alex Marino, who heads one of the largest expatriation legal practices in the world for Moodys Gartner Tax Law, said that in the final quarter of 2016, when Donald J. Trump was elected president, there was a record spike in the number of Americans renouncing their United States citizenship. But the biggest driving force by far, he said, “is finances and taxes, rather than politics.”
满德税务律师事务所(Moodys Gartner Tax Law)办理的放弃美国国籍业务的数量在全球领先，领导该业务的亚历克斯·马里诺(Alex Marino)说，在唐纳德·J·特朗普当选总统的2016年的最后一个季度里，放弃美国国籍的美国人数量出现了创纪录的猛增。但他说，比其他理由大得多的动力“是财务和税收，而不是政治”。
Peter Vincent, a former senior prosecutor in the Obama administration who now oversees security liaison for Henley & Partners, the law firm, said another factor was personal security.
奥巴马政府的前高级检察官彼得·文森特(Peter Vincent)如今在律师事务所Henley＆Partners担任安全联络人，他表示另一个因素是个人安全。
“There are some places in the world where if your taxi or bus gets pulled up and you are carrying a U.S. passport, that is a death warrant,” he said, “so people prefer to have a second passport for safety reasons.”
“在世界上某些地方，如果你乘坐的出租车或公共汽车被拦下来，而你持有美国护照，那就是一张死刑判决书，”他说，“所以出于安全原因，人们希望有第二国的护照。”
Knight Frank, a British real estate consulting firm that operates globally, estimated late last year that 36 percent of people with more than $30 million in net assets had second passports, up from 34 percent a year earlier.
在全球经营业务的英国房地产咨询公司Knight Frank去年年底估计，拥有超过3000万美元净资产的人中，有36％拥有第二国的护照，一年前，这个数字是34％。
Christian H. Kälin, the Swiss-born lawyer who leads the British-based Henley & Partners, said the trend was also growing among the less wealthy.
总部设在英国的律师事务所恒理的领导人克里斯蒂安·H·卡林(Christian H. Kälin)是一名在瑞士出生的律师，他说，这一趋势在不那么富裕的阶层中也有所增长。
For those seeking residency visas or passports, the firm charges fees that start at about 20,000 euros, or $22,500, and can reach €500,000 for complicated programs like that of Austria, which requires nonproperty investments of at least €10 million. The firm has grown rapidly over the past decade, expanding to 30 offices around the world.
这家事务所对那些寻求居留签证或护照的人收取的费用起价约2万欧元（约合15.6万元人民币），对于像奥地利那样的复杂项目，收费可高达50万欧元，奥地利要求至少1000万欧元的非房地产投资。这家事务所在过去十年里发展迅速，在世界各地扩展设立了30个办事处。
Charlie Smith, European adviser at the New York company Concierge Auctions, which specializes in properties valued at more than $2 million, said the lure of a visa is an important marketing tool. Mr. Smith used a recent tour of China and Singapore to drum up interest in the auction of the nine-bedroom Villa San Lorenzo in Quinta do Lago, a gated community in the Algarve region of Portugal. The property was previously listed for €20 million.
查理·史密斯(Charlie Smith)是纽约房地产公司Concierge Auctions的欧洲顾问，这家公司专门经营价值在200万美元以上的房地产。史密斯说，签证的诱惑力是一个重要的营销工具。他最近在中国和新加坡进行了一系列宣讲活动，为圣洛伦索别墅(Villa San Lorenzo)的拍卖招徕客户。这处有九间卧室的房产位于葡萄牙阿尔加维地区的一个封闭式社区金塔湖(Quinta do Lago)，此前的市场标价为2000万欧元。
Mr. Smith said that he had “specifically targeted” his customer databases in China with the property because China is the strongest market for Portugal’s golden visa program. In the 12 months ended in February, 4,159 Chinese used the program, a 30 percent increase over the previous year and well ahead of second-place Brazil, with 695 investors.
史密斯说，他“明确地”以他的中国客户数据库为这处房产的目标群体，因为中国是葡萄牙“黄金签证”项目最强劲的市场。截至今年二月的12个月里，有4159名中国人使用了该项目，比上年增长了30%，远超排名第二的巴西，巴西获得葡萄牙“黄金签证”的投资者人数是695名。
圣洛伦索别墅(Villa San Lorenzo)是葡萄牙阿尔加维地区的一个封闭式社区。这个国家允许购房者在五年后将居留签证转换为护照。 CONCIERGE AUCTIONS
Some developers are making the residency programs an integral part of their plans, shaping their prices and timelines around the best way to qualify for visas. When the high-end property consulting firm Athena Advisers ran a promotion for several Portuguese developments at its London offices in March, it flew in developers from Lisbon to pitch their projects, and lawyers to explain how the investments could qualify for the golden visa program.
一些开发商正在把居留签证项目作为其开发计划中基本的一环，围绕着获得签证资格的最佳方式来确定他们的价格和时间表。当高端房地产咨询公司Athena Advisers今年3月在其伦敦办事处为几个葡萄牙开发项目做宣传时，他们为里斯本的几个开发商买机票飞来伦敦推销自己的开发项目，还请了律师来解释这些投资将如何帮助客户获得“黄金签证”项目的资格。
Over red wine and finger food, an audience of about 20 potential buyers asked questions that focused as much on the golden visas as on the likely rental and investment returns of the projects.
听众约有20名潜在卖家，他们一边喝着红酒、吃着手取食物，一边提问，问题的重点除了“黄金签证”外，还有开发项目可能的租金收入和投资回报。
Sérgio Ferreira, the chief executive of the developer Coporgest, explained how a 43-apartment project in central Lisbon had been structured to take maximum advantage of the visa system.
开发商Coporgest的首席执行官塞尔吉奥·费雷拉(Sérgio Ferreira)对一处位于里斯本市中心、有43套公寓的项目怎样最大限度地利用“黄金签证”系统做了解释。
The project, SottoMayor Premium, involves the renovation of a 19th-century building so buyers can qualify for a €350,000 threshold, rather than the normal minimum investment of €500,000.
这个名为SottoMayor Premium的项目涉及对一幢建于19世纪的大楼进行翻新，因为是老楼翻新，所以买家只需投资35万欧元，就能满足签证项目的最低门槛，而不是通常需要的50万欧元。
Unusually, some sales of the apartments, which are priced from €420,000 to €1.6 million, have been packaged as interest-paying special-purpose vehicles designed with the visa in mind.
不同寻常的是，部分公寓的销售（价格从42万欧元到160万欧元不等）被包装为专门为获得签证设计的付息的特殊目的投资。
As soon as an investor makes an initial payment of €350,000, the clock starts on the five-year waiting period for a full passport, even though the apartment might not be completed for another two or three years.
从投资者支付了35万欧元首付款的时刻开始，将居留签证变为护照所需的五年等待期的时钟就开始转起来，即使该人购买的公寓建成可能还需要两三年的时间。
João Cunha Vaz, a senior partner with the law firm Edge, briefed Athena’s clients on the visa program and several tax-reducing programs offered by Portugal, including the “non-habitual resident” option, which offers a decade of tax breaks and has been attracting French citizens and other foreigners.
律师事务所Edge的一名资深合伙人若昂·库尼亚·瓦斯(João Cunha Vaz)为Athena的客户对签证项目、以及葡萄牙提供的几个减税项目作了介绍，这些减税项目包括“非常住居民”选项。这个选项提供10年的税收减免，一直吸引着法国公民和其他外国人。
Another country that has recently developed a visa program is Brazil, which in the past saw many of its citizens moving money abroad to obtain second passports. Now, it is trying to reverse the trend.
另一个近期开始提供签证项目的国家是巴西。巴西过去曾看到许多自己的公民，为获得第二国护照将资金转移至国外。如今，该国正在试图扭转这个趋势。
Edouard Barthelemy, Athena’s manager in Rio de Janeiro, says the program is too new to have yielded results. But he is confident it will build interest in high-end properties.
Athena在里约热内卢的经理爱德华·巴特勒米(Edouard Barthelemy)表示，这个项目仍很新，还没有出成果。但他对项目会建立起对高端房地产的兴趣有信心。
Not everyone is pleased with the growth of visa programs.
并非所有人都对签证项目的增长感到高兴。
Critics say that while countries like Cyprus and Malta are reaping the benefits of handing out passports, what they are really offering is the right to live anywhere in the European Union. And they say such programs can attract shady characters.
批评人士说，尽管像塞浦路斯和马耳他这样的国家正在从发放本国护照上收到好处，但他们实际上提供的是在欧盟任意国家居住的权利。批评人士说，这种项目会吸引可疑人士。
SottoMayor Premium是位于里斯本市中心的一个43套公寓的项目，其设计初衷是为了充分利用葡萄牙的投资签证计划。
But others say that getting visas through real estate transactions involves vetting for criminal records, for instance, which is a far more restrictive process than the scrutiny faced by the million people a year who are given European Union passports through marriage or the reuniting of family.
但其他人说，通过房地产交易获得签证的过程包括审查犯罪记录，与每年通过结婚或与家人团聚为由获得欧盟签证的上百万人经受的审查相比，这个过程的限制多得多。
“Anyone who is a real security threat or a major criminal would not put themselves through that scrutiny — they have other ways to get a passport or go where they want,” said Mr. Kälin, of Henley & Partners.
“任何构成真正安全威胁的人，或有重大刑事犯罪的人都不会让自己经受这种审查——他们有获得护照、或是去其想去地方的其他方式，”恒理的卡林说。
There are tax advantages in having residence rights in countries like Antigua, Cyprus and Malta, which charge little income tax on offshore assets and do not require the investor to live in the country for any significant period.
在安提瓜、塞浦路斯和马耳他等国，拥有居留权可以带来纳税方面的好处，这些国家对离岸资产几乎不征收所得税，而且不要求投资者在该国国内居住很长时间。
Mr. Kälin was a key figure in turning the trade in passports and residency visas into an industry.
在将护照和居留签证的买卖变成一个行业方面，卡林是一个关键人物。
St. Kitts and Nevis became the first country to introduce a formal program of selling passports in 1984, the year after it won independence from Britain.
1984年，圣基茨和尼维斯联邦成为第一个把出售护照变成正式项目的国家，此前一年，它从英国获得了独立。
Mr. Kälin approached the government with an offer to revamp the program and then negotiated a visa-free access agreement for St. Kitts with the European Union’s Schengen Area, a zone comprising 26 countries without passport controls.
卡林与该国政府进行了接触，提出了改进该项目的建议，然后他与欧盟申根区为圣基茨谈成了不需要签证就能进入的协议。欧盟申根区指的是国家之间不用边境护照检查的26个国家。
That kind of access was on Natalia Yavorska’s mind when she and her husband bought land on the Canary Islands. She found many visa applications “a humiliating experience where they want fingerprints and medical tests and treat you like a refugee trying to sneak over the border.”
娜塔莉亚·亚沃斯卡和丈夫买下加那利群岛那块地时，脑子里想的就是这种准入。她发现许多签证申请是“一种羞辱人的经历，他们要你提交指纹和体检化验，把你当作一个试图偷渡边境的难民对待。”
“A passport with visa-free access to a lot of countries is just so much better,” she said.
“一本不需要签证就能进入许多国家的护照要好得多，”她说。
After St. Kitts, Mr. Kälin’s firm went on to advise Grenada and Antigua on how to design their programs, and it is now retained by Moldova, which sells passports for €140,000 rather than requiring property investment, and Malta.
圣基茨之后，卡林的公司继续为格林纳达和安提瓜就如何设计它们的签证项目提供建议，如今摩尔多瓦和马耳他也聘定了这家公司。摩尔多瓦以14万欧元出售护照，而不是要求房地产投资。
“These programs have been hugely important for those countries,” Mr. Kälin said. “They have transformed the economy in St. Kitts, been very significant in Antigua and Malta and have helped to dig Cyprus out of an economic crisis.”
“护照项目对那些国家来说非常重要，”卡林说。“它们改变了圣基茨的经济，对安提瓜和马耳他来说也一直很重要，并且帮助将塞浦路斯从经济危机中解救了出来。”
The minimum investment under Spain’s golden visa program is €500,000, which can be made up of one or more purchases.
西班牙的黄金签证项目最低投资要求是50万欧元，可以通过一次购买来满足，也可以通过几次购买来达到。
The Yavorski family passed that easily by spending about €1 million for land where they built a three-bedroom villa overlooking a golf course and the ocean.
亚沃斯卡一家通过花100万欧元买下土地轻松地过了这个门槛。他们在那片土地上盖了一幢俯瞰着高尔夫球场和大海的有三间卧室的别墅。
Maria Moreno, the head of sales at Abama Luxury Residences, a Canary Islands developer, said golden visas have become a valuable marketing tool for projects such as hers, where the Yavorskis were the first buyers.
加那利群岛的开发商Abama Luxury Residences的销售代表玛丽亚·莫雷诺(Maria Moreno)说，黄金签证对她手里的项目来说，已经成为了一个很有价值的市场推广工具，亚沃斯卡一家就是那里的首批买家。
“About 25 percent of our buyers are from outside the E.U., mainly from Russia, Ukraine, Brazil and the U.S., and four out of five apply for golden visas,” she said.
“我们的买家中有大约25%来自欧盟以外，主要来自俄罗斯、乌克兰、巴西和美国，其中的五分之四申请黄金签证，”她说。
本文最初发表于2019年5月21日。
作者：Peter Wilson
翻译：纽约时报中文网
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