Jordan · Citizenship by investment
Jordanian Citizenship by Investment
The programme has been substantially reformed twice. A Cabinet decision of 2 July 2025 overhauled the framework. It expanded the routes, capped approvals at 500 per year, consolidated administration under the Ministry of Investment, and phased out the passive options entirely. A further Cabinet revamp was reported by Petra, the official Jordan News Agency, in July 2026. It raised the stock-market threshold and lowered provincial business thresholds, a move meant to push capital outside Amman. The figures below reflect the July 2026 rules and are only days old, so implementing detail may not yet be published. Since inception in 2018, Jordan has granted citizenship to 681 investors.
This is the only genuine citizenship-by-investment programme in the Middle East. The July 2025 reform gutted exactly the thing that made it attractive to passive capital. What remains is an active economic-development scheme. It requires real businesses, real Jordanian payroll, and real three-year compliance verification. Citizenship can be revoked if you stop performing. Judge it as an operating commitment, not a passport purchase. Its two real selling points, territorial tax and the absence of CRS exchange, are both temporary.
Qualifying routes
This route requires JOD 1.5m in newly purchased shares in Jordanian companies, bought through a licensed broker within 4 months of Ministry of Investment approval. No more than 10% can go into any single company. The shares cannot be leveraged, mortgaged or liquidated for 5 years, and no profits can be withdrawn during that holding period. (Amounts are stated in JOD. The dinar is pegged at roughly 1 JOD = 1.41 USD.)
This route calls for JOD 500,000 in minimum paid-up capital outside Amman, compared with JOD 700,000 within Amman Governorate, and it must generate local jobs registered with the Social Security Corporation. Applicants get a 4-month grace period to finalise hiring. A 3-year temporary passport phase follows, and citizenship is granted after 3 years of verified compliance.
The total required is JOD 1m, of which at least JOD 500,000 must go into new fixed or non-current assets. You will need an expansion feasibility study and audited financials. Shares carry a 3-year restriction.
This route asks for JOD 700,000 average in fixed or non-current assets over the past 3 years in Amman, or JOD 350,000 in the provinces. You must keep 90% Jordanian staff registered with Social Security every month for 3 consecutive years. Notably, it accepts existing investors retroactively, with no fresh capital required.
There is no capital minimum here. Instead, you directly employ 150 Jordanians in Amman or 100 in the provinces, registered with Social Security for at least 1 year before and kept on for 2 consecutive years after citizenship.
JOD 3m invested in logistics, medical supplies or pharmaceutical warehousing, subject to employment quotas.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- 350k JOD
- Total landed cost
- JOD 350,000 to JOD 3m, roughly USD 495,000 to USD 4.2m at the dinar's peg of about JOD 1 = USD 1.41, depending on the route. On top of that come legal, due diligence and government fees. There is no official government fee schedule published, so treat any fee table you are quoted as the intermediary's own.
- Route type
- Citizenship by investment
- Timeline
- 3–4 years (Due diligence and approval take roughly 3–6 months. But most routes then add a 3-year temporary passport phase before citizenship is confirmed on verified compliance. This is not a fast programme.)
- Physical presence
- No physical presence requirement is specified, but the active-investment and employment conditions demand real operational engagement.
- Family
- SpouseUnmarried, widowed or divorced daughtersUnmarried sons under 24Dependent parentsFor investments above JOD 2m, sons up to age 30 can be included, along with their wives and children
- Permanent residency
- A separate real-estate residency route exists. See the Jordan property residency entry.
- Citizenship
- 3 years of verified compliance follows the temporary passport phase. Realistically, full citizenship takes 3 or more years, not months.
- Language test
- None
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- Qualifying active investment or employment creationClean criminal recordSource of funds documentation3-year compliance verification periodMinistry of Investment approval
- The passport ranks 85th globally with 50 visa-free destinations. No Schengen, no UK, no US. As a mobility instrument, it is weak. A client buying Jordan for travel freedom is making a mistake. Caribbean CBI is cheaper and stronger, and Malta or an EU route is stronger still.
- The passive routes are gone. The JOD 1m treasury bond and Central Bank deposit options were phased out in the 2 July 2025 overhaul. Any adviser still quoting a USD 1m Central Bank deposit for Jordanian citizenship is working from stale material. Historically they were largely a fiction anyway. A 2020 review found 97% of investors chose business creation or expansion over the passive options.
- Citizenship here is conditional and revocable. Breaching the investment or employment conditions triggers immediate revocation of your citizenship or residency. Maintaining headcount, holding shares and sustaining assets are ongoing obligations, not one-time boxes to check. This is a fundamentally different asset class from Caribbean CBI or Israel's Law of Return, where the status vests and cannot be stripped for non-compliance.
- Naturalised citizens face real restrictions. They are barred for 10 years from political and diplomatic office, designated public posts and State Council membership. They are barred for 5 years from municipal and village councils and trade union positions. During the temporary passport phase, you are treated as a citizen in every way except political rights.
- The urgency some intermediaries sell, telling clients that places are limited and they must act now, is marketing fiction. The cap of 500 per year has never come close to being reached. Only 681 investors have been naturalised in total since 2018, a run-rate of roughly 76–81 per year, about 15% of the cap. There is no queue.
- The applicant pool is mostly Syrian and Iraqi nationals. In practice, this is a regional programme built for Arab nationals who need a functional Arab passport, not a global mobility product.
- Jordan's non-CRS status is a depreciating asset. The country has committed to implement AEOI, automatic exchange of information, and the Global Forum's 2025 peer review found real gaps in its legal framework. These were deficiencies that fundamentally affected exchange of information, and left the tax authority unable to fully use its access powers for exchange purposes. Jordan only reached Phase 1. The confidentiality that makes Jordan interesting right now is on a clock, exactly as Israel's was before Amendment 272.
- The July 2026 revamp is only days old. What Petra reports is the Cabinet decision, not a promulgated text. No effective date or Official Gazette publication has been confirmed, and it is unclear whether the 500/year cap survives it. Reconfirm every figure with the Ministry of Investment before making any commitment.
- The 90% Jordanian-staff requirement on the existing-investment route is a serious and permanent operational constraint.
- Capital is locked up for years. The stock-market route holds funds for 5 years, with no profit withdrawals and no leverage or mortgage allowed. The share routes lock capital for 3 years.
- Regional geopolitical exposure here is real. Jordan borders Israel, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the West Bank, hosts a large refugee population, and depends on external aid. Even the dinar's USD peg is its own kind of concentration risk.
- No official government fee schedule has been published. Intermediary claims of a ~50% rejection rate and 56 restricted countries appear only on marketing sites. Neither is verified, so do not rely on them.