Opportunities in Montenegro
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi6TYJKAahs[/embedyt]
Today we will talk about different opportunities in Montenegro.
It’s quite easy to relocate to this beautiful country. Recently they introduced a Citizenship by investment program, about which we already wrote.
There are many reasons why you’d want to consider Montenegro as a place to visit, become a resident, do business, or invest
The coastal city of Budva has more days of sunshine than Malaga in Spain or the South of France.
This country is not an EU member which has pros and cons. Pro side is that they’re also not part of Common reporting standard and automatic exchange of information and some people like this privacy. On the other hand, you will not get visa-free access to some countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia, and even the UK. You are able to travel within the EU but unable to settle there without further documentation and process.
It’s a very small country of 650 000 people. Because of this you probably won’t have great access to talent if you want to start a business locally. Especially if we are talking about the IT field specialists.
Wages are fairly low, not as low as Serbia or Bosnia but still very low in comparison to the developed countries.
Setting up a company in Montenegro
It is easy to set up a company here, taxes are very good: flat 9% plus 1% municipal tax similar to what you get in Bulgaria.
Personal taxes are also 9%, and as we mentioned there are no CFC rules here.
It’s cheap and quick to form a company here. However, banking fees are quite high.
We personally wouldn’t keep a lot of money in Montenegro. Two banks recently went under, Atlas bank and IBM bank and anyone who was keeping more than the deposit insurance amount of €50,000 in the bank risks losing out.
Real estate investment
There are lots of opportunities if you want to invest in real estate here. Prices are still low, it’s a very desirable seaside and with all the development there’s a scarcity of land that makes it easy for prices to go up and the demand for tourism definitely isn’t going to decline.
If you want to invest through Citizenship by investment program you will need to pay at least 250 000 EUR if you want the less developed area- north of the country or at least 450 000 EUR if you want to invest in the more desirable seaside. At this point in time they only have one approved project and it’s the Westin resort in the north (Zabljak town).
A big advantage of their citizenship is that they are very likely to join the EU in the next 5-10 years approximately. It’s not a crazy expensive program to get a passport, but you need to count that you’ll pay lots of fees on top of the property price.
If you don’t want to get citizenship but simply want to move here you could get a residency. You need to renew your residency every year for 5 years, after 5 years you can get a permanent residency and if you do that twice you can get citizenship.