In the overseas identity market, the demand for passports generally leans more towards functionality rather than residency attributes. It is usually necessary to have a passport as an intermediary link to facilitate certain plans or deployments.
Therefore, passport applicants are often more sensitive to the approval speed than to the application speed of green cards, which are more oriented towards residency attributes. However, looking at the current market, there are a few countries with reliable naturalization laws, for example:
In Turkey, from submission to receiving a passport, if everything goes smoothly, it takes at least a year, but Turkey often throws some curveballs, such as delays in assessments, which can extend the entire process to 1.5 to 2 years or even longer. Many applicants in the past few years should have firsthand experience with this.
The Caribbean countries are also about the same, generally taking a year, with Saint Lucia taking a few more months.
Grenada is slightly faster, usually obtaining a principled approval in about six months, but Grenada also has the strictest background checks and source of funds requirements.
As for Oceania, Vanuatu is quite fast, taking just a few days to process, but it's not very useful, whether for travel or other aspects.
From a functional perspective, if you need a passport that is somewhat OK for visa interviews, the application process is relatively simple, especially if the application speed is guaranteed, the newly introduced Georgian passport is one such example.
Why is the application speed of the Georgian passport guaranteed? In my previous article about the Georgian passport, I mentioned the application process. For more details, please click the link below.
Discussing the Upcoming Georgian Passport
It was mentioned that the Georgian government outsourced the investment citizenship matters to a fund company called GGF. In the investment agreement signed between the applicant and GGF, there is a clause guaranteeing the processing period:
This avoids a situation, for example, in applications in Turkey or the Caribbean, where you expect to get a passport within a year, but if the time exceeds a year and you are still in the application process, neither rejected nor approved, you can't wait any longer, or sometimes even if the passport is processed after the time limit, you no longer need it (such as procedures for international school admissions). In such projects, penalties for refunds are only related to receiving a rejection notice and have nothing to do with the processing period, unless a rejection letter is received, once an application is submitted, there is no way to refund.
In Georgia, however, if the applicant has not completed the process within six months of submission, the applicant can unilaterally withdraw the application, and GGF will refund the full donation after confirmation.
This is the only passport project I have seen over the years that guarantees application timeliness with a full refund. The key is that with certain timeliness guarantees, the functionality of this passport is also OK.
In summary: The Georgian passport is quite competitive with OK travel functionality, lower background check requirements, and a unique application speed guarantee clause!
