Inside Liberland: The World's Newest Nation, and Why 800,000 People Have Applied to Join It

By Gerard O’Donovan | International Coaching News

In a world where more people than ever are questioning what a country is actually for, one man decided to stop questioning and start building. I sat down over Zoom with Vít Jedlička, President of Liberland, to talk about freedom, meritocracy, and why some of the world’s wealthiest people are lining up to become citizens of a nation that isn’t yet recognised by a single one of the world’s governments.

A country founded on a single idea

Liberland was founded in 2015 on a patch of unclaimed land between Croatia and Serbia — a small, heart-shaped territory that Jedlička says was as symbolic as it was practical. His reasoning for founding a new nation at all was blunt. Traditional governments, he told me, have been the single biggest killer of people over the last century. Liberland’s founding principle is the opposite of that instinct to control: freedom to do whatever you want, provided you don’t harm anyone else.

“Countries are constructs of human minds,” Jedlička told me. “They can be changed by changing how people see them.” It’s a simple statement, but it underpins everything Liberland is trying to prove — that a nation can be built from first principles, with less bureaucracy and more trust in the people who choose to belong to it.

The merit system: earning your voice, not inheriting it

Rather than compulsory taxation, Liberland runs on a merit system. Citizens make voluntary contributions which convert into merits — a currency that doubles as voting power. The more you contribute to the nation, the more say you have in how it’s run. It inverts the usual relationship between citizen and state: instead of taxation being extracted, it’s offered, and it buys influence rather than just funding services.

It’s an approach that appears to be working financially. Jedlička says Liberland has already exceeded its original economic targets from 2015. Justin Sun — the crypto entrepreneur Liberland has named as Prime Minister, and a man Jedlička describes as worth “more than two Vaticans” — is one of roughly 30 billionaires who have applied for citizenship.

The real story: 800,000 applications and counting

This is the number that stopped me: 800,000 people have applied for Liberland citizenship. That’s not a curiosity — it’s a signal. Whatever scepticism exists about Liberland’s lack of formal international recognition, it hasn’t dented the appetite for what it represents: a low-bureaucracy, low-tax, high-freedom alternative to the passport most of us were simply born with.

There are several routes in, and Jedlička was clear that citizenship isn’t reserved for the wealthy alone:

Merits — earned through voluntary contribution and involvement in the nation’s development.

Public service — 50 days of service, currently open to EU residents.

Investment — a $25,000 contribution to one of Liberland’s development projects.

E-residency — a $450 entry point that also serves as the first step toward starting a business in Liberland.

For those who make it in, the benefits go beyond the symbolic. Citizens gain access to a global network Jedlička compares to the Freemasons — a community of like-minded entrepreneurs and investors spanning dozens of countries. The Liberland passport can already be used for identification with certain financial products, and holders can travel to roughly 20 countries on it today, a number the government is actively working to expand.

Building the physical nation

Liberland isn’t only a legal and financial construct — it’s under active physical construction. The Art Village is underway, with residential buildings taking shape, alongside a planned thermal spa comprising 30 domes. In a pragmatic touch, the spa complex will initially grant Serbian residency to those staying there, offering a stepping stone before eventual relocation onto Liberland’s own territory.

None of this has been without friction. Jedlička was candid about the ongoing challenges around Croatian border intrusions and the lack of a proper transport route into the territory — both issues his legal team is actively working through, alongside efforts to formalise open borders with Serbia.

The recognition question

Liberland has no UN member state recognition — a fact Jedlička doesn’t shy away from. But he described productive meetings with the presidents of both Croatia and Serbia, and confirmed Liberland is pursuing a permanent mission at the United Nations with a view to eventual observer status. It’s a slow, diplomatic grind, but one he treats as inevitable rather than aspirational.

Underneath the diplomacy sits a simple operating philosophy: minimise bureaucracy, automate what can be automated through blockchain, and let efficiency do the work that regulation usually does elsewhere. Jedlička’s stated target is 15% annual growth, driven by keeping taxes and red tape to a minimum.

What’s next

Liberland’s calendar is filling up. Liberpulco — its annual gathering for the freedom-minded — runs from 13 August, followed by the Floating Man Festival on 17 August, both positioned as networking opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors drawn to the project. A Liberland Chamber of Commerce is also in development, designed to organise businesses into sector-based clusters and make company registration simpler for anyone considering setting up there — a process that, like citizenship, starts with e-residency.

My take

Whatever you think of its politics, Liberland is a genuinely fascinating case study in leadership under uncertainty — a project with no roadmap to copy, built by someone willing to trade a comfortable, established life for the hard work of creating something from nothing. That’s a quality I recognise in every entrepreneur and coach I respect: the willingness to act on a belief long before the world agrees with you.

You can watch my full 20-minute conversation with Vít Jedlička — covering all of this and more — via the link accompanying this article. If Liberland’s model of merit-based citizenship and low-friction business registration is of interest, e-residency starts at $450 and is the first practical step toward both.