BankDepositRoute—EgyptCitizenshipbyInvestment

Advising UAE residents on second citizenship from our Dubai office.

Overview

USD 500,000 transferred from abroad into a dedicated account at the Central Bank of Egypt, held for three years, interest-free. The amount was set by PM Decree No. 876 of 2023.

The legal basis

Egypt's investment route to citizenship sits on Law No. 140 of 2019, read with Investment Law No. 72 of 2017, and is implemented by Prime Ministerial Decree No. 3099 of 2019 as amended by PM Decree No. 876 of 2023 (Official Gazette issue 9 bis, 2 March 2023) and PM Decree No. 3562 of 2023. Decree 876/2023 is the one that produced today's amounts — it cut them substantially from the earlier regime.

The programme is administered by the citizenship unit of the Cabinet (created by PM Decree No. 647 of 2020), not by the Ministry of Interior. If you are quoted different figures from the GAFI investment-authority fact sheet, note that GAFI still publishes a superseded pre-2023 sheet; we work from the Cabinet portal.

Read this before you treat it as a refundable deposit

The official Arabic says the deposit is "recovered after three years in Egyptian pounds at the exchange rate announced by the Central Bank on the date of recovery, and without interest."

Two things follow, and only one of them is in your favour.

In your favour: the conversion uses the rate on the refund date, not the rate on the day you deposited. So you are not paid out at a stale historic rate, and the nominal dollar equivalent is broadly preserved at the moment of refund. (The capping language that appears on the real estate and treasury routes — not exceeding the rate on the payment date — does not appear in the deposit clause.)

Against you: you are paid in Egyptian pounds only, never in dollars. From the refund date onward you carry the conversion cost, any capital-control or repatriation restriction, and any gap between the official and parallel rate. And you earn nothing for three years — against Egyptian inflation that is a substantial real-terms loss, which is the true price of this route.

The deposit therefore does not come back to you as USD 500,000 in dollars.

One caution: GAFI's fact sheet shows a different, superseded clause with a rate cap, alongside pre-2023 amounts. Two Egyptian government sites disagree. We work from the Cabinet portal and will put the discrepancy in writing on your file.

Before anything else: what this means for an Indian passport

India does not allow dual citizenship. Section 9(1) of the Citizenship Act 1955 says that any citizen of India who voluntarily acquires the citizenship of another country shall cease to be a citizen of India.

Acquiring Egyptian citizenship is voluntary. So your Indian citizenship ends automatically, by operation of law, on the day you acquire it. There is no Indian decision to appeal, no discretion to exercise and no way to defer it. You must surrender your Indian passport and obtain a Surrender Certificate.

You can then apply for Overseas Citizen of India status. The Ministry of External Affairs is explicit that OCI is not to be misconstrued as dual citizenship and confers no political rights. As an OCI you cannot vote, cannot hold constitutional posts, do not have equality in public employment, and cannot acquire agricultural land, farmhouses or plantation property in India.

This is a replacement of your Indian citizenship, not an addition to it. Egypt itself permits dual citizenship and requires no renunciation — the restriction is entirely on the Indian side.

Who can be included

• Spouse — not automatic, and not immediate. A spouse does not acquire Egyptian nationality as a dependant of the investor. Under Articles 6 and 7 of Law No. 26 of 1975 a foreign wife of an Egyptian acquires his nationality only if she notifies the Minister of Interior of her wish and the marriage has subsisted for two years from that notification. In practice the spouse's passport follows roughly two years later; the statute does not provide for it to be issued at the same time as the investor's.
• Children. Minor children of a naturalised person acquire the nationality with the parent, with a right to elect their original nationality within one year of reaching majority (Law 26/1975). The Cabinet's published application requirements refer only to "wives and children" and state no age limit. An "under 21" rule does not appear in the published instrument, so XIPHIAS confirms the age position on each file.
• Parents, grandparents and siblings cannot be included. There is no provision for them in any Egyptian instrument.

How long it takes — the official standard

The Cabinet publishes a staged standard:

• Preliminary examination and decision: three to six months from submission.
• Then six months of temporary residence in Egypt to execute the investment.
• Final citizenship decision: within a maximum of three months after the investment is completed.
• The Cabinet's own FAQ states the overall timeframe as six to twelve months.

There is no permanent residence requirement to hold or keep the citizenship. But the process is not fully remote: on preliminary approval you are granted a right of temporary residence in Egypt for six months in order to execute the programme. Reports during 2025 also described new in-person verification visits. No Egyptian government publication sets these out as a rule, so XIPHIAS confirms the current position with the Cabinet unit before filing, and you should plan for some travel to Egypt.

What you actually pay

Item	Amount
Deposit at the Central Bank of Egypt	USD 500,000, three years, interest-free
Returned after three years	Principal in Egyptian pounds, at the Central Bank rate on the refund date
Government application fee	USD 10,000, non-refundable, per application

Travel access — what the passport actually does

An Egyptian passport reaches roughly 50 destinations visa-free or visa-on-arrival (Henley Passport Index, 2026, which ranks it around 86th). Passport rankings are commercial indices, not government data, and they change from year to year.

Nigeria is not a visa-on-arrival destination for Egyptians: it abolished visa-on-arrival entirely on 1 May 2025 and replaced it with an eVisa.

Egypt has no EU or UK visa waiver, and this citizenship does not create one.

Egypt and the US E-2 visa

Egypt is a US E-2 treaty country, in force since 27 June 1992. It is E-2 only — Egypt is not an E-1 treaty trader country. India is not a treaty country at all, which is usually why Egypt is on the table.

One qualification. On 14 January 2026 the US State Department announced a suspension of immigrant visa issuance for nationals of 75 countries pending a public-charge reassessment, effective 21 January 2026, and Egypt is reported to be on that list. It does not touch nonimmigrant categories, so E-2 is unaffected — but an Egyptian passport is currently a poor vehicle for a US green card route. Egypt is not on Presidential Proclamation 10998's travel-ban list.

What the citizenship does and does not give you

• Political rights are deferred. Article 9 of Law No. 26 of 1975 bars a person naturalised under these provisions from exercising political rights for five years from the date of acquisition, and from being elected or appointed to any parliamentary body for ten years. The President may grant exemptions by decree.
• The citizenship can be withdrawn. The Cabinet's own FAQ confirms withdrawal within ten years where it was obtained by fraud or false statements, and within five years on conviction for a felony or an honour crime (Law 26/1975, Articles 15–16, by reasoned Cabinet decree).
• Dual nationality is permitted by Egypt, and there is no Arabic language test.
• Naturalised children are exempt from military service.

Talk to a Egypt citizenship consultant in Dubai

XIPHIAS Immigration has advised families on second citizenship since 2009, and our Dubai team works with UAE residents. We were named Best Immigration Consultant by The Times of India in 2022. Our immigration consultants in Dubai will take you through the legal requirements, costs and timeline for Egypt.

• Book a consultation
• Verify an immigration consultant
• Second passport for UAE residents

Sources

• Egyptian Cabinet — citizenship by investment portal, investment programmes
• Egyptian Cabinet — programme conditions and fees
• Egyptian Cabinet — legal basis (Law 140/2019 and implementing decrees)
• Egyptian Cabinet — citizenship by investment FAQ
• Law No. 26 of 1975 on Egyptian Nationality (Official Journal no. 22, 29 May 1975)
• Citizenship Act 1955, Section 9(1) — Government of India
• Government of India — passport surrender certificate
• Ministry of External Affairs — Overseas Citizenship of India scheme
• US Department of State — treaty countries (Egypt E-2, in force 27 June 1992)

Verified against government and primary legal sources on 30 September 2026.