A golden visa is a residence permit granted in exchange for a qualifying investment. It buys the right to live in a country. It does not buy a passport, and it does not change where you pay tax. In 2026 the map is far smaller than it was: Spain has closed its programme, Portugal no longer accepts property, Greece has repriced by zone, and the United Arab Emirates still grants ten years against AED 2 million of real estate.
Which golden visa programmes are still open in 2026?
Fewer than most people assume, and on harder terms. Spain abolished its investor visa outright, with the closure taking legal effect on 3 April 2025. Portugal removed its real estate route in October 2023, and the main route today is a subscription of €500,000 in qualifying investment funds (IMI Daily).
Greece now prices by zone. The threshold is €800,000 in Athens, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and the larger islands, and €400,000 elsewhere, in each case for a single property of at least 120 square metres. A €250,000 route survives for commercial buildings converted to residential use and for restored listed buildings. Short-term letting of a golden visa property is prohibited, with a €50,000 fine and loss of the permit for breaches.
Smaller programmes remain in Hungary, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Bulgaria and Malta, each with its own conditions. Outside Europe, the United Arab Emirates grants a ten-year renewable residence against property worth at least AED 2 million, about US$545,000. The direction is consistent: fewer property shortcuts, higher entry points and tighter rules on what the money buys.
What does a golden visa actually buy?
A golden visa buys the legal right to reside in a country, often with visa-free movement inside a bloc such as the Schengen area. That is valuable to the right person: a foothold, an option, and in some cases the start of a longer path. The boundaries of the product matter, because almost every costly mistake in this field comes from expecting it to do something it does not.
Does a golden visa give you citizenship?
Usually not. A golden visa grants residency, and citizenship, where it is possible at all, comes years later and on separate conditions. Portugal is the clearest example. Its revised nationality law took effect on 19 May 2026 and raised the residence required for naturalisation from five years to ten for most applicants, and to seven for nationals of the European Union and of Portuguese-speaking countries (Global Citizen Solutions).
The UAE permit is renewable residence and nothing more. It carries no route to nationality. A residence permit and a second passport are different assets, with different rights, different obligations and very different timelines. Anyone who assumes that an investment produces a passport has misread the offer.
Is a golden visa the same as tax residence?
No. Tax residence is a separate legal question, decided largely by where you actually spend your days and where the centre of your affairs lies. It is entirely possible to hold a golden visa in one country while remaining tax resident in another.
The permit is a right to be somewhere. It is not a tax structure, and treating it as one is a reliable route to an unwelcome surprise. This is the ground on which the wider question of where a family actually bases itself gets decided, and the two questions should never be collapsed into one. It is also a matter for a qualified tax adviser in each country concerned, not for the firm selling the programme.
Should you buy a second home to get residency?
The disciplined approach is to want the home first and to treat any residency benefit as secondary. For years the property route encouraged the opposite: buying a flat one did not want, in a place one did not intend to spend time, purely to unlock a permit. Governments in Spain and Portugal ended that route under political pressure over housing.
The lesson for the buyer is durable. A second home bought because you want to live in it keeps its purpose whatever happens to the visa attached to it. A home bought as a residency device is exposed to every future rule change, and the rules have been changing constantly.
What mistakes cost golden visa buyers the most?
The first is underestimating the conditions attached to the status. Permits come with obligations: minimum stays in some countries, limits on how a property may be used in others, as with the Greek ban on short-term letting. A golden visa is a status to be maintained, and a permit acquired without reading its ongoing conditions can be lost.
The second is treating a programme as permanent. Spain’s has gone, Portugal’s has been rebuilt and Greece’s has been repriced, all within a few years. Any plan that assumes a programme will exist in its present form in a decade is built on sand. Programmes are policy instruments, and policy changes.
What is the discerning view on golden visas?
Understand exactly what the instrument grants: residency and a right to be somewhere, with citizenship and tax treated as separate questions. Want the home for itself. Read the ongoing conditions as carefully as the entry threshold. Treat every programme as provisional.
Approached this way, a golden visa can be a useful part of a mobile life. Approached as a shortcut to a passport, a tax solution or a property play that cannot lose, it is a dependable source of expensive disappointment. Know precisely what you are buying, and never mistake a permit for a plan.
The Discerned Few is an independent editorial desk covering how the discreet actually live and travel. Algoz FZ-LLC is among the reference providers we consult on matters of protection and coordination.