European Residency in 2026: What Is Left After the Closures

This article first ran in June 2019, when a reader with capital had seven credible European options and at least two ways to buy an EU passport outright. That market is gone. Not diminished — structurally dismantled, by court judgment, domestic politics and Commission pressure, in the space of about five years.

What follows is what is actually available in August 2026, and what happened to everything else. Figures are the verified minimums carried in our programme dossiers.

What closed, and why

The single most important development is that no EU member state sells citizenship any more. Malta was the last. On 29 April 2025 the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Case C-181/23, Commission v Malta, that granting nationality in exchange for predetermined payments commercialises EU citizenship and breaches Article 4(3) TEU. Malta repealed the programme by Act XXI of 2025, gazetted on 24 July 2025.

That judgment matters beyond Malta. It establishes that the sale of EU nationality is not merely politically disfavoured but unlawful under the treaties, which forecloses any member state reviving the model. Malta has signalled a discretionary "citizenship by merit" framework for exceptional contribution. That is not an investment route, and no threshold buys it.

The residency closures ran in parallel:

• Cyprus ended its citizenship-by-investment programme in November 2020, after undercover reporting showed officials willing to assist an applicant with a stated criminal record.
• Bulgaria repealed its investor citizenship route in 2022 under Commission pressure.
• Ireland closed the Immigrant Investor Programme in February 2023, at short notice.
• Portugal removed the real-estate option from its golden visa in October 2023 — the route that had accounted for the overwhelming majority of applications.
• Spain closed its golden visa entirely on 3 April 2025, under Organic Law 1/2025.

If you are reading a comparison elsewhere that still lists Spanish or Irish investor routes, or quotes a Cypriot passport, it has not been updated in years. That is worth knowing about the source generally.

What actually remains

Portugal — Golden Visa, from EUR 500,000. Now a fund route rather than a property route: EUR 500,000 into qualifying Portuguese investment funds or venture capital, or EUR 500,000 into a business creating five or more jobs. It remains the most-used route in Europe, largely because the physical presence requirement is unusually light and the residence clock still runs toward naturalisation. Portugal's separate D7 passive-income visa requires no investment at all — proof of about EUR 820 a month in pension, rental or dividend income — and is the route most readers who are not deploying capital should be looking at first.

Greece — Golden Visa, EUR 400,000 or EUR 800,000. Greece did not close its programme; it repriced it geographically. EUR 800,000 applies in Athens, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and Attica. EUR 400,000 applies elsewhere. The EUR 250,000 entry point that made Greece the cheapest route into Schengen is gone from the prime markets. Greece also runs a retirement route with a 7% flat tax on foreign income for qualifying new residents, on EUR 2,000 a month of income and no capital requirement.

Malta — MPRP, from about EUR 98,000 in contribution plus property. Permanent residence, not citizenship. It grants Schengen free movement and does not lead to a passport. Since the MEIN closure there is no investment route in Malta that does.

Cyprus — permanent residence, EUR 300,000. The fast-track permit on EUR 300,000 in new residential or commercial property survives. The citizenship programme does not, and the two are frequently conflated by agents who benefit from the confusion.

Italy — investor visa, EUR 250,000 upward. EUR 250,000 into an innovative startup, EUR 500,000 into a limited company, or EUR 2m in government bonds. Italy's separate flat-tax regime for high-net-worth new residents — a fixed annual charge covering all foreign income — is often the more consequential part of the package for the people who use it.

Ireland — no investor route. The Start-Up Entrepreneur Programme remains, at EUR 50,000 into an innovative Irish business with a real plan attached, and the Stamp 0 route for people of independent means requires about EUR 50,000 a year in outside income. Neither is a golden visa and neither is passive.

What changed about the category, not just the prices

Three things are worth understanding beyond the list.

The residence clock is now the product. When Malta sold passports, capital bought nationality directly. It cannot any more. Every remaining European route sells time — the right to accrue years toward naturalisation under ordinary law. That makes the physical presence requirement the most important line in any programme, and the one most often glossed over in marketing. A permit that does not sit inside the standard immigration ladder accrues nothing, however expensive it was.

Real estate is out of favour. Portugal removed it, Greece repriced it upward in the cities, and Spain cited housing costs explicitly when closing. The political economy has turned against investor routes that bid up urban housing, and any programme still built on residential property should be assumed to be under pressure.

Retrospective change is now a normal risk. Ireland closed with little warning. Portugal changed its terms after applicants had committed. The correct planning assumption is that a programme's terms at the moment you apply are the terms you may get, and that the queue behind you may be closed. That argues for routes where the application converts quickly, and against ones requiring years of staged investment before status is granted.

Where this leaves a reader

If the objective is an EU passport, there is no longer a way to buy one, and anyone who tells you otherwise is describing a market that closed in July 2025. The honest route is residence followed by naturalisation on ordinary terms — typically five years of qualifying residence, sometimes more, usually with a language requirement.

If the objective is a base in Europe with optionality, the passive-income routes — Portugal's D7, Greece's retirement visa, Cyprus's Category F, Ireland's Stamp 0 — do more for most readers than the investment routes, at a fraction of the capital, because what they buy is the same residence clock.

If the objective is a second passport within a few years, Europe is not the answer and has not been since 2025. That conversation moves to the Caribbean, with the caveat that those five programmes are themselves under a European phase-out demand with a stated date of 1 June 2028.

Current thresholds for every programme mentioned here are maintained in our verified dossiers, each carrying the date it was last checked.