residency by investment

What residency by investment is Residency by investment — the golden visa — gives you the right to live in a country in exchange for a qualifying investment, without granting a passport. You get residence, usually the right to bring your family, and often Schengen or regional access — but not, by itself, a second nationality. It is the residence-first counterpart to citizenship by investment, and confusing the two is the most common mistake in this market.

Residence is not citizenship This is the distinction to hold onto. A golden visa is a residence permit; citizenship is a separate, later step, measured in years of naturalisation with its own conditions. Portugal's 2026 law, for example, lengthened naturalisation to ten years while leaving the residence permit itself intact. If a passport is your actual goal, plan for the long horizon — or look at citizenship by investment instead, where the passport comes directly.

The honest options The active choices run across regions. In the EU, the Portuguese golden visa (funds since real estate was excluded) and the Greek golden visa (real estate, no minimum stay) lead, alongside Malta's MPRP. Outside the EU, the UAE's ten-year golden visa offers a low-tax base, and Andorra a low-tax Pyrenees residence. If you were counting on Spain, note its golden visa closed in 2025 — see the Spanish golden visa alternatives.

How to judge them Because these are residences, not passports, the comparison turns on different axes than citizenship: the investment and its recoverability, the physical-presence requirement (from near-zero in Greece to a genuine annual stay elsewhere), the regional access it unlocks, and — if a passport is the eventual aim — how far it is from naturalisation. Weigh them side by side on our golden visa comparison.

Tax: residence is not automatic tax residency A recurring myth is that a golden visa relocates your tax. It does not, by itself. Holding a residence permit is not the same as being tax-resident, and leaving your current tax residency is rarely automatic — the tax outcome follows where you genuinely live and meet the residency tests, not the permit in a drawer. Read second citizenship and taxes for how this actually works.

The path to a passport Most golden visas can, in principle, lead to naturalisation after years of genuine residence — but on each country's timeline and conditions, including language and integration tests, not automatically. Treat citizenship as a possible long-term outcome of really living there, not a feature of the visa you buy. If speed to a passport matters more than living in the country, the honest answer is a citizenship programme, not a golden visa.

Before you commit Golden visas suit someone who wants the right to live somewhere — an EU foothold, a low-tax base — more than an immediate passport. Decide on your priority (presence, tax, path to citizenship), confirm the current investment, presence rules and fees with the country's authority, and use only reputable, licensed advisers (risks, scams and vetting an agent). Rank what fits you with our program finder, and see how we verify every figure on our methodology page.