We're all familiar with the international surveys ranking Singapore as a good place to live. But according to global advisory firm Henley & Partners, Singapore's citizenship itself ranks as one of the best in Asia.

The firm claims that their Kochenov Quality of Nationality Index (QNI) is the first of its kind to objectively rank the value of every nationality of the world, in terms of the legal status it affords you to develop your talents and business.

From their QNI report which was released on Sep. 14, Singapore ranks:

• 1st in South East Asia (ahead of Malaysia and Brunei).
• 4th in Asia Pacific (behind Australia, New Zealand and Japan).
• 36th in the world overall.

Switch nationalities for great success

The study appears to be most useful for rich people looking to switch nationalities in order to make the most of their business ambitions. According to Dominic Volek, Head Southeast Asia at Henley & Partners Singapore:

"For high-net worth individuals in today’s globalized world, crucial factors such as what makes one nationality a better legal status in which to develop talents and business than another, together with travel freedom are heavily taken into account in the decision-making process for investments into foreign destinations."

For example the American billionaire Peter Thiel (who founded PayPal with Elon Musk) decided to obtain New Zealand citizenship, saying that "New Zealand is the future''.

Or for someone closer to home, Facebook co-founder and billionaire Eduardo Saverin renounced his US citizenship and moved to Singapore. He has since become a Singaporean PR.

But why Singapore so low?

The study aims to make a distinction between ranking the liveability of countries and the value of the citizenship it grants. It claims to be based on "quantifiable data" that determines a citizen's opportunities for growth and success both in the country and out of it.

While being 1st in SEA and 4th in Asia is pretty good, 36th in the worldwide ranking sounds pretty underwhelming. What's causing the discrepancy? We asked Henley & Partners for more info, and this is what they said:

"Singapore does extremely well with regards to internal factors – human development, economic strength and peace and stability, and in the following external factors – weight of travel freedom and diversity of travel freedom (Diversity meaning the number of countries Singapore can access visa-free). However, for freedom of settlement, European countries are ahead because as a member of the EU, those countries have access to settle in the rest of the EU states, whereas Singaporeans can only settle in Singapore."

So the EU-biased survey ranks EU citizens more highly, because being a member of the EU allows you to easily resettle in another EU country if you get a better job opportunity. Singapore does not have that arrangement with its ASEAN neighbours yet, which means that we rank lower on the Weight of Settlement freedom score as compared to the European countries.

Still, we did quite well on the Internal Factors ranking for things like Peace & Stability, Human Development, so that's something. You can check out the interactive QNI report at this link for more info.

Who knows, maybe this report might attract a few more millionaires and billionaires to our shores. Maybe they can buy up the empty houses in Sentosa Cove.

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Top image via Human Resources Online.