Jordan · Citizenship by investment
Jordanian Citizenship by Investment
Substantially reformed twice. A Cabinet decision of 2 July 2025 overhauled the framework, expanding the routes, capping approvals at 500 per year, consolidating administration under the Ministry of Investment — and PHASING OUT the passive options entirely. A further Cabinet revamp was reported by Petra, the official Jordan News Agency, in July 2026, raising the stock-market threshold and lowering provincial business thresholds to push capital outside Amman. The figures below reflect the July 2026 rules and are days old — 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, and the July 2025 reform gutted exactly the thing that made it attractive to passive capital. What is left is an active economic-development scheme: real businesses, real Jordanian payroll, real three-year compliance verification, and citizenship that can be revoked if you stop performing. Judge it as an operating commitment, not a passport purchase — and note that its two real selling points, territorial tax and the absence of CRS exchange, are both temporary.
Qualifying routes
JOD 1.5m in newly purchased shares in Jordanian companies via a licensed broker, acquired within 4 months of Ministry of Investment approval. No more than 10% in any single company. Cannot be leveraged, mortgaged or liquidated for 5 years, with no profit withdrawals during the holding period. (Amounts stated in JOD; the dinar is pegged at roughly 1 JOD = 1.41 USD.)
JOD 500,000 minimum paid-up capital outside Amman (versus JOD 700,000 within Amman Governorate), generating local jobs registered with the Social Security Corporation. 4-month grace period to finalise hiring; 3-year temporary passport phase, then citizenship after 3 years' verified compliance.
JOD 1m total, of which at least JOD 500,000 must be in new fixed or non-current assets. Requires an expansion feasibility study and audited financials. 3-year share restriction.
JOD 700,000 average in fixed/non-current assets over the past 3 years in Amman, or JOD 350,000 in the provinces. Must maintain 90% Jordanian staff registered with Social Security monthly for 3 consecutive years. Notably this accepts existing investors retroactively, without fresh capital.
No capital minimum — directly employ 150 Jordanians in Amman or 100 in the provinces, registered with Social Security for at least 1 year prior and maintained for 2 consecutive years post-citizenship
JOD 3m 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; the dinar is pegged at about JOD 1 = USD 1.41) depending on route, plus legal, due diligence and government fees. No official government fee schedule is published — treat any quoted fee table as the intermediary's own.
- Timeline
- 36–48 months — Due diligence and approval run roughly 3–6 months, but most routes then impose a 3-year temporary passport phase before citizenship is confirmed on verified compliance. This is not a fast programme.
- Physical presence
- None specified, but the active-investment and employment conditions require real operational engagement
- Family
- spouseunmarried, widowed or divorced daughtersunmarried sons under 24dependent parentsfor investments above JOD 2m: sons up to age 30, plus their wives and children
- Permanent residency
- Separate real-estate residency exists — see the Jordan property residency entry
- Citizenship
- 3 years' verified compliance following a temporary passport phase — realistically 3+ years to full citizenship, 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. Breach of the investment or employment conditions results in immediate revocation of citizenship or residency. Maintaining headcount, holding shares and sustaining assets are ongoing obligations. 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 restrictions: barred for 10 years from political and diplomatic office, designated public posts and State Council membership; barred for 5 years from municipal and village councils and trade union positions. During the temporary passport phase you are treated as a citizen except for political rights.
- The 'limited places, act now' urgency used by intermediaries is marketing fiction. The 500-per-year cap has never been remotely approached: 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 predominantly Syrian and Iraqi nationals. In practice this is a regional programme for Arab nationals who need a functional Arab passport, not a global mobility product.
- Jordan's non-CRS status is a depreciating asset. It has committed to implement AEOI, and the Global Forum's 2025 peer review found 'significant gaps' in its legal framework — deficiencies that fundamentally affected exchange of information, with the tax authority unable to fully use its access powers for exchange purposes. Jordan only reached Phase 1. The confidentiality that makes Jordan interesting is on a clock, exactly as Israel's was before Amendment 272.
- The July 2026 revamp is days old. Petra reports the Cabinet decision, not a promulgated text — I could not confirm an effective date or Official Gazette publication, and it is unclear whether the 500/year cap survives it. Reconfirm every figure with the Ministry of Investment before any commitment.
- The 90% Jordanian-staff requirement on the existing-investment route is a serious and permanent operational constraint.
- Capital is locked: 5 years for the stock-market route with no profit withdrawals and no leverage or mortgage; 3 years for the share routes.
- Regional geopolitical exposure is material — Jordan borders Israel, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the West Bank, hosts a large refugee population, and depends on external aid. The dinar's USD peg is itself a concentration risk.
- No official government fee schedule is published. Intermediary claims of a ~50% rejection rate and 56 'restricted countries' appear only on marketing sites and could not be verified — do not rely on them.