Two Bitcoin-friendly passports. One sovereign-Bitcoin program.
This is the honest comparison, and it is a short list. El Salvador and Vanuatu are the only two citizenship-by-investment programs in the world built for Bitcoiners, and the same firm handles both, so there is no incentive to bend it. El Salvador is the only program built around Bitcoin at the sovereign level, at $1,000,000. Vanuatu is the fast, accessible premium-tier passport at $130,000. The numbers below tell you which file is yours.
Where the three premium programs actually differ.
Five rows that matter to a Bitcoiner, set against the two passports cbi.vu compares and São Tomé as a reference. Only one line changes the answer for most buyers, and it is the first one.
Four of five rows are close. The one that is not, Bitcoin on the sovereign balance sheet, is the entire reason the Freedom Passport exists. Full figures sit on the program page, the Non-CRS page, and the tax page.
If cost is the deciding factor, that is the Vanuatu file.
We will not sell you the wrong passport. El Salvador is $1,000,000, 6–8 weeks, sovereign-Bitcoin, and Non-CRS. Vanuatu is $130,000, 30–60 days, the fastest and cheapest premium-tier route, but a CRS participant with no sovereign Bitcoin. If price is what decides, Vanuatu wins, and that file is handled at our sister site, cbi.vu.
Vanuatu is the right answer for the cost-sensitive reader. It clears in 30–60 days from a clean file, costs roughly one-seventh of the Freedom Passport, and is a long-established program. What it is not is a sovereign-Bitcoin country: it participates in the CRS, holds no Bitcoin on its balance sheet, and does not mine. If those features are not load-bearing for you, do not pay nearly eight times the price to get them. Read the full Vanuatu file at cbi.vu.
The entry-cost ladder makes the field plain: São Tomé from about $90,000, Vanuatu at $130,000, Türkiye at $400,000, and El Salvador at $1,000,000. Each step up buys something specific. The question is whether what the top step buys, sovereign Bitcoin and Non-CRS reporting, is what you are actually paying for.
Türkiye appears only to place the ladder; it is not a sell. Home-country obligations always apply, and US persons remain subject to FATCA and worldwide income reporting regardless of any second citizenship. The renunciation step, where it applies, is handled through our sister service exit.ly.
The Bitcoiner the Freedom Passport was built for.
There is one buyer for whom the $1,000,000 tier is not a premium but the point: the Bitcoiner who holds significant Bitcoin wealth, wants a Non-CRS jurisdiction that treats BTC as the settlement asset rather than a compliance problem, and for whom $1,000,000 is within range.
For that person, no cheaper program is a substitute, because no cheaper program is built around Bitcoin at the sovereign level. Vanuatu and São Tomé will give you a passport and 0% capital gains, but they will not give you a state that mines its own Bitcoin with geothermal energy, holds roughly 7,684 BTC in a public reserve, settles your contribution in Bitcoin directly to the government wallet, and stays outside the CRS reporting network. The Freedom Passport is the alignment, not just the document.
El Salvador is for the Bitcoiner who will not pay $1,000,000 for any other program, because no other program is built around Bitcoin at the sovereign level.
If that is you, the next page is the program itself: the full ledger, the legal basis under Legislative Decrees No. 918 and No. 286, and how a Bitcoin position becomes a clean file. If it is not, the honest move is cbi.vu and a $130,000 passport that does the practical job for one-seventh of the price.
Two real options. One decision.
If price decides, take the Vanuatu file at cbi.vu and keep nearly $900,000. If sovereign Bitcoin and Non-CRS reporting are what you are buying, the Freedom Passport is the only program that delivers them. Book a confidential file-read and we will scope the right one against your situation, source country and all.