Naturalisation and citizenship in Maldives

Hi Bhavna,

Im from the Maldives and i would love to answer your question by saying that unfortunately there is no way to acquire Maldivian citizenship. Even if you are married to a Maldivian or staying here for your entire life. There have been handful of exceptional cases where the president of Maldives has granted citizenship to few foreigners.

If you get married to a Maldivian and you have a child then the child will be given citizenship. But you still need to renew your dependent visa annually.

Maldives is a 100 percent Muslim country with a population of 350000 people.


Hope it answers your question

Hi Bhavna
I don't know anything apart from this information that someone Marrie with Maldivian citizen could get citizenship. I am not interested in this as people are not friendly with foreigners very hostile towards foreigners because it's all comprising of islands so residents of isolated islanders have very narrow views about other people's they try to hid their complex by acting like they are supermen and superwomen as I have observed and experience.
Regards

We should talk about this in detail.

You need to be a muslim to get a citizenship.

Pleade tell us about in detail what you mean.  As far as i know there are lots of foreigners married to Maldivians and getting along very well. Especially in small communities they are very welcoming unless that person is an arrogant person.

I think you are new in the country so don't know anything truth

I disagree with the impression that Maldivians are not friendly people. Locals are good, friendly people and as someone said above, it depends how you behave and interact with locals. I also know a couple of foreigners married to locals without any problem. Regarding citizenship, l heard from my friends that you never get citizenship of Maldives even if you marry a local. It is not a rich country with loads of money to spend on welfare system but they do have some sort of welfare system for locals, I don't know the details. They import everything from India and Sri Lanka while exports are only fish/seafood. It is not a rich country and politically not very stable. So, as far as I understand, I can not see a point in giving up your citizenship of whatever country you are from and becoming Maldivian citizen. In terms of advantage of being maldivian, I think you can buy property here and start a business here, which you can do anyways with local partnership. My overall impression about Maldives (I live in Hulhumale) is, it is a peaceful place and locals are a bit reserved i.e. don't mingle with foreigners easily, but they are friendly and nice people.