North Macedonia does not publish a price for citizenship, and nobody who quotes you one can show you where the state said it. What exists is a discretionary provision in the Law on Citizenship allowing naturalisation where it represents a special national interest, including an economic one. What the European Commission recorded for the most recent years it reported on is a handful of grants: one in 2023, two in 2024, and one in 2025. And what the Commission is now demanding, in terms, is that North Macedonia abolish the scheme and repeal its legal basis.
That is the whole verifiable picture as at 23 August 2026. This page carries no threshold, no fund, no fee, no processing time and no approved project list, because we could not obtain any of those from an official source. If you want the figures that circulate elsewhere, ask whoever showed them to you for the state document they came from. That request ends most conversations about this country.
What the law actually says
The route is Article 11 of the Law on Citizenship. A foreigner who meets the conditions in Article 7, paragraph 1, points 1 and 8 may acquire citizenship by naturalisation if that acquisition represents a special scientific, economic, cultural, sporting or other national interest. The Government determines the criteria for that special interest by regulation, and the Government gives an opinion on whether the special interest exists in the individual case. The spouse of such a foreigner may also naturalise, under the conditions of Article 9.
Read what that construction does. There is no entitlement. There is a state judgment about whether admitting you serves a national interest, exercised by the Government of the day, on criteria the Government itself sets. That is a fundamentally different instrument from Egypt’s published price list or Jordan’s audited thresholds, and it should be priced differently in your own head.
The one structural relief in the text is that the provision waives the ordinary residence requirement. The European Commission describes it as allowing citizenship to be granted without prior residence requirements to individuals deemed to represent a special economic interest for the country. That waiver is the entire commercial attraction, and it is also precisely why Brussels objects.
The numbers that are real
| Year | Grants recorded | Recorded by |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 1 | European Commission, Eighth Visa Suspension Mechanism Report |
| 2024 | 2, both Turkish nationals | European Commission, North Macedonia 2025 Report and the Eighth Visa Suspension Mechanism Report |
| 2025 | 1, a national of Bosnia and Herzegovina | European Commission, North Macedonia 2025 Report |
Four grants across three years is not a program in the sense a buyer means the word. It is a discretionary power being used sparingly. The Commission’s own phrasing is that the number granted under this provision remains marginal.
The status question, answered as precisely as it can be
Is it open, suspended or closed? On the evidence we can verify, the legal basis was still in force and still producing occasional grants as at the Commission’s two most recent reports, dated 4 November 2025 and 19 December 2025. Neither document describes the provision as suspended or repealed. Both describe it as persisting.
What we could not establish today, and therefore do not assert, is whether the Government regulation that sets the criteria is currently in force, whether applications are being accepted at this moment, and whether any of the amounts circulating in the market were ever set by that regulation. Our attempts to reach the Ministry of Interior, the Government portal, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy failed at the network level rather than returning a page we could read. The Official Gazette and the Parliament site were reachable but did not surface the regulation.
An honest reading of that is: the door in the statute is open, and we cannot show you that anyone is currently standing behind it taking applications. Treat any agent who tells you otherwise as making a claim they need to evidence.
The pressure the country is under
This is the part that decides whether the route is worth pursuing at all, and it is not a rumour. It is written into two European Commission documents.
In the Eighth Report under the Visa Suspension Mechanism, of 19 December 2025, the Commission’s country recommendation for North Macedonia states that the country must abolish the scheme and repeal its legal basis, provide information on the applications already submitted under the special economic interest provision, and ensure that all such applications undergo rigorous background checks.
The same report states the general position: compliance with EU law requires that candidate countries abolish existing investor citizenship schemes and repeal their legal basis. In the North Macedonia 2025 Report of 4 November 2025, the Commission adds that the law’s implementation should not lead to the systematic granting of citizenship in return for investment, because it may be used to bypass the EU short stay visa procedure and the in-depth assessment of individual migratory and security risks.
North Macedonia is a candidate for EU accession and its citizens travel to the Schengen area visa free. Both of those things are what the Commission is protecting, and both are levers it can pull. A buyer entering this route is buying into an instrument that a body with real influence over the country’s future has formally asked it to delete.
What that means for the two things buyers actually care about
On timing, there is no published processing time, so there is nothing to plan against. On family, Article 11 provides for the spouse to naturalise under Article 9 conditions, and the ordinary rule on children of naturalised parents sits in Article 12. Beyond that, the state publishes no dependant schedule tied to this route.
On price, there is nothing. Not a low number, not a high number. Nothing we could source. That absence is the single most useful fact on this page.
How North Macedonia compares with what else you are weighing
Almost anything with a published price beats an unpriced discretionary power, if what you want is a second citizenship on a timetable.
Egypt publishes four routes, a fee and a stated six to twelve month timeline, on a portal run by its Cabinet. Jordan published a new Cabinet mechanism in July 2026 with thresholds, job counts and a defined committee route. Dominica and St Kitts and Nevis run established processing machinery. In each of those cases you can read the state’s own terms before you commit money.
The comparison worth studying, if you are drawn to Europe specifically, is Austria, which is the same species of instrument: a discretionary grant in the extraordinary interest of the state, marketed as a program by people who benefit from the confusion. Greece is a different animal again, a residence permit that is sold under a citizenship headline.
North Macedonia is neither in the EU nor in Schengen, and this page makes no claim about where its passport travels or what accession would change.
Where this page’s facts come from
| Fact | Source | Retrieved |
|---|---|---|
| Article 11 naturalisation for special scientific, economic, cultural, sporting or other national interest; criteria set by Government regulation; Government opinion on the special interest; spouse under Article 9 | Law on Citizenship of the Republic of Macedonia, consolidated text, as reproduced in the GLOBALCIT document database | 23 August 2026 |
| Provision persists; no prior residence requirement; one grant in 2023 and two in 2024; requirement to abolish the scheme and repeal its legal basis; candidate country obligation | European Commission, Eighth Report under the Visa Suspension Mechanism, COM(2025) 792 final, Brussels, 19 December 2025 | 23 August 2026 |
| Acquisition of citizenship of special economic interest allowed; two Turkish nationals granted in 2024 and one national of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2025; Commission position on systematic granting | European Commission, North Macedonia 2025 Report, SWD(2025) 753 final, Brussels, 4 November 2025 | 23 August 2026 |
Deliberately absent, for want of an official source: investment thresholds, any development fund, government or due diligence fees, processing times, application quotas, approved project lists, and any visa free travel count.
What Serka does when a client asks about North Macedonia
Usually we tell them not to start, and explain why in one paragraph rather than selling them a file. That is worth more to you than an engagement letter.
Where the enquiry is serious, the work is verification before commitment. Confirming from the state itself whether the criteria regulation is in force and whether applications are being received, before any money moves and before any agent’s fee is paid. Reading whatever terms are actually produced rather than the brochure built on top of them. And assessing what the European Commission’s stated demand means for the durability of what you would be buying.
We act as your independent lawyers on the file. We are not a licensed agent of any North Macedonian scheme, we take no commission from any promoter or fund, and we have no interest in this route existing.
If someone has quoted you a figure for North Macedonia, send it to us with the source they gave you and the name of whoever quoted it: the Law on Citizenship publishes no price, so the source is where the answer lies. Write to info@serkalaw.com or message +90 530 127 59 35.
More programs, compared on the same evidence standard: citizenship by investment programs worldwide, country by country.