Want a Visa or Second Passport? You’ll Need to Pass This Test

10 Areas Governments May Check Before Giving You Residency or Citizenship

Two weeks ago, U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who’s in charge of Britain’s travel and immigration policies, stunned the global migration community when she announced that visas would henceforth be required for travel to Britain from the Caribbean nation of Dominica, a former British colony and member of the Commonwealth of Nations. 

Dominica offers the cheapest citizenship-by-investment (CIB) program in the world—you can buy citizenship and a second passport there for as little as $125,000. Braverman said individuals who’d previously been barred from the U.K. had tried to enter on Dominica passports. In an accompanying statement, she blamed this on Dominica’s failure to conduct adequate due diligence on potential citizens. 

“Due diligence” is the process of researching a person or entity before conducting a transaction involving them. It’s meant to assess risk, potential benefit, and the viability of the deal. It’s everywhere in the modern world. Aside from immigration issues, it’s also common in finance.  

But what does it involve… and what would going through a due diligence check mean to you?  

In the United States, opening anything other than the most basic financial account requires that the financial institution learn a lot about you, especially the source of your funds. And thanks to the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, foreign financial institutions are even stricter in this regard when it comes to U.S. citizens. 

But the kind of due diligence Minister Braverman accuses Dominica of failing is even more involved. It goes well beyond financial issues… investigating your identity, your history, your associations with potential unsavory characters—even your politics.  

It’s the kind of investigation you could be subjected to if you apply for an extended residence visa or citizenship in another country. 

With attitudes toward global migration tightening in recent years, due diligence is likely to be stricter. Forewarned is forearmed, so here’s what it could involve: 

• Identity verification: You’ll have to prove your identity by producing original documents like passports, birth certificates, or other government issued forms of identity. Inability to locate an original birth certificate in the required format is one of the most common difficulties visa or citizenship applicants run into. 
• Residence history: You may have to list each location you’ve lived for your entire adult life, even if that involves many different places. You may need to provide dates, specific residential addresses, and reasons for leaving one place for another. You may be asked to provide contact details for banks, medical practices, schools, or other institutions that can confirm all this. 
• International travel history: You’ll be asked to list all the countries you’ve visited or lived in for a certain number of years—potentially even decades—prior to your application. You’ll need to provide specific dates and prove entry and exit through visa and other stamps in your passports, even if they’re long expired. That’s why it’s critical to save your old passports and not destroy them. 
• Criminal background check: Countries inevitably ask for a “police clearance” or a similar document from your home country and potentially every other country where you’ve lived for an extended period. Every country has a different approach to criminal recordkeeping, as well as the format and content it requires for these background checks. The FBI has a standard format which involves a database search of federal, state, and local police and judicial records for any evidence of arrest and/or conviction. If there’s any such record in your background, you’ll want to get the record expunged before you apply for foreign residency or citizenship. 
• Politically exposed persons/bad actors: Many countries will ask whether you have or have ever had any significant role in politics. They will also ask about relatives or associates who might be involved in any criminal, terrorist, or other controversial activity. Depending on the country, they may spend a lot of time fishing for such links. 

• Financial assessment: For anything above a tourist visa, you’ll need bank statements showing available balances and a history of deposits and withdrawals. They’ll need to be issued by the bank itself and notarized. If you’re applying for an independent means or retirement visa, you’ll need formal proof of any pension, including its duration and the monthly payouts. Unusually large deposits are always flagged. (For example, before we returned to South Africa earlier this year, I sold my wife’s car and deposited the money into our joint account. Our money transfer service froze our account until we could provide documentation for that transaction.) 
• Social integration: Some countries may try to assess your suitability for integration into the local culture. That’s rarely an issue in the Western Hemisphere or Europe but can crop up if you try to obtain long term residency in Asia. 
• Medical examination: You may be asked for a formal medical history, including any chronic conditions. You could be asked about any communicable diseases you may have had. If you’re not eligible for insurance at your destination, you’ll need to show proof of complete medical insurance coverage until you are. 
• In-person interview: Minister Braverman identified this as a problem with Dominica’s due diligence process: Applicants could apply for a passport remotely and have it sent to a post office box. That won’t be happening anymore. At the very least, you’ll be asked to attend an interview at your destination country’s embassy or consulate. Processes and standards vary amongst diplomatic missions, even from the same country. That’s why it’s essential to find out how the specific embassy or consulate where your interview will happen applies its government’s rules.  
• Confirmation from other countries: If anything in your background involves extended residency in a country other than that of your birth, you may have to obtain records for all the above from those places as well. 

Reading through that list, it’s easy to think the process is so daunting that it’s not worthwhile.  

That’s absolutely not the case! As International Living readers who have moved overseas will tell you, all this can be achieved once you understand the process, and how and where to apply for documents. 

Above all, working with experienced service providers who can help you with the process is almost always well worth the cost.  

That’s why, in the coming months, I’m going to be launching a new service exploring these issues… and which will help you find exactly the kind of people who can assist you in moving to your dream destination overseas.