The short version: Fewer golden visa programs exist today than three years ago, and the survivors cost more. Europe has pushed entry prices up and pulled real estate off the menu in its most popular market. The Middle East and Latin America now offer the lowest realistic entry points. Two significant deadlines land within the next twelve months.
If you researched golden visas in 2022 and are picking the topic back up now, assume your notes are out of date. Ireland closed. Spain ended its program. Portugal removed property. Greece re-priced by postcode. Here is where things genuinely stand.
Portugal: still open, but property is gone
Portugal remains the best-known European program and the most misunderstood. The real estate route was eliminated in October 2023 and has not returned. What remains is principally a subscription of around €500,000 into qualifying investment funds, or roughly €200,000 into donation-type contributions to arts, heritage or research.
The bigger change is at the far end. Portugal's nationality reform extended the residence period before naturalisation from five years to approximately seven for EU and CPLP nationals and ten for everyone else. The five-year passport story that made Portugal famous no longer describes the program.
Realistic budget: €500,000 investment plus fund subscription fees, legal costs and government charges.
Greece: the same program at three different prices
Greece replaced its flat threshold with a zone-based model. Expect roughly €800,000 in Athens, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and other high-demand areas, with a minimum property size of about 120 square metres. Regional zones sit near €400,000, and restoration of listed heritage buildings can qualify at around €250,000.
One rule deserves emphasis because it breaks a common business case: properties acquired through the golden visa cannot be let on short-term rental platforms. Penalties include substantial fines and revocation of the permit. If your plan was to offset the cost with holiday lettings, Greece has closed that door.
Realistic budget: €250,000 to €800,000 depending on location and property type, plus roughly ten per cent in taxes and fees.
Panama: the cheapest permanent residency, until October
Panama's Qualified Investor Visa is unusual in granting permanent residency almost immediately rather than a temporary permit that must mature. The real estate threshold is $300,000, and it is scheduled to rise to $500,000 on 15 October 2026. Alternative routes run at $500,000 in securities or a $750,000 bank deposit.
For anyone weighing Panama seriously, the calendar matters more than the comparison. A $200,000 difference in entry price arrives on a fixed date.
Realistic budget: $300,000 before mid-October 2026, plus closing costs and government fees.
United Arab Emirates: no tax, no path to a passport
The UAE grants renewable long-term residence visas — commonly five or ten years — linked to property purchase or business investment, with property thresholds typically starting around AED 2 million. There is no personal income tax, and the administrative process is fast by global standards.
The trade-off is permanence. UAE residency is renewable but does not lead to citizenship, so it functions as a long-term base rather than a route to a second passport.
The Caribbean: citizenship, not residency
St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada and St Lucia sell citizenship outright. Following a regional agreement to stop undercutting one another, donation minimums settled at approximately $200,000. Processing typically runs six to twelve months and requires no residence.
These are the right product if a travel document is the actual objective. They are the wrong product if you want somewhere to live.
Latin America: lower thresholds, longer runway
Several Latin American countries operate investor residency categories at entry points well below European levels — frequently in the $150,000 to $300,000 range — alongside pension-based and passive-income categories that require no lump-sum investment at all. Timelines to permanent status tend to run around three years, and many of these countries tax only locally sourced income.
The trade-off is administrative: processing can be slow and paperwork-heavy, and you should budget for competent local counsel rather than assuming a smooth online process.
Which deadlines actually matter right now?
15 October 2026 — Panama's real estate threshold moves from $300,000 to $500,000.
Ongoing — Portugal's nationality reform continues to work through implementation; anyone counting on a specific naturalisation date should verify the current position before committing.
Rolling — Greece has revised its thresholds twice in recent years, and further adjustment is widely expected.
How to compare these programs on a like-for-like basis
Comparing headline thresholds across programs is close to meaningless, because the thresholds buy structurally different things. Portugal at €500,000 into funds, Greece at €800,000, €400,000 or €250,000 depending on zone, and Panama at $300,000 rising to $500,000 in October are not four prices for one product. They are four different products.
A fair comparison normalises on four axes:
Total five-year outlay, not the entry threshold — investment plus fees plus carrying costs plus renewals, for your actual family size.
Recoverable versus sunk capital. A fund subscription or property purchase is capital you expect to see again. A donation is not. Two programs at the same nominal figure can differ by the entire amount.
Days required on the ground. The difference between a program requiring a week a year and one requiring genuine relocation is the difference between a hedge and a life change.
Where it terminates. Permanent residency, citizenship, or indefinite renewal with no destination.
Run those four columns and the ranking usually reorders. The cheapest entry ticket is rarely the cheapest outcome.
The Costa Rica option most roundups leave out
Global roundups tend to skip Costa Rica because it does not market itself as a golden visa jurisdiction, but the investor route is directly comparable and materially cheaper than the European options. The investor category sits at $150,000, well below Portugal, Greece's mainland tiers and Panama's post-October figure.
Two further routes widen the field for applicants who do not want to deploy capital at all. The pensionado route qualifies on roughly $1,000 per month of lifetime pension income, and the rentista route on roughly $2,500 per month of guaranteed income. For a retiring couple with pension income, these can deliver a similar practical outcome to an investor visa without tying up six figures.
The timing point matters as much as the threshold. Costa Rica's Law 9996 investment window is tied to a July 14, 2026 deadline, and the pre-2021 threshold was $200,000 — a reminder that the $150,000 figure is itself the product of a temporary incentive rather than a permanent setting.
What happens between announcement and enforcement
Every threshold change creates a transition window, and the rules governing that window are where applicants gain or lose the most money. Three questions decide your position:
What act locks your terms? Signing a purchase agreement, transferring funds, and filing a complete application are three different moments. Programs differ on which one freezes your entitlement, and the gap between them can run months.
Are pending files judged under old or new rules? Some transitions protect anyone who has filed. Others protect only those already approved.
Do renewals fall under the new threshold? Usually not, but this is the assumption most worth verifying in writing rather than inferring.
Panama's October change is the immediate live example: the practical question is not whether $300,000 is better than $500,000, but precisely what you must have completed before the date to be assessed at the lower figure.
Programs worth approaching with extra caution
Openness is not the same as durability. A few patterns should slow you down regardless of how attractive the numbers look:
Programs under active international pressure. Where a program's visa-free access is the main draw and that access is under review elsewhere, you are buying an asset someone else can devalue.
Very new programs without a track record. No history of renewals means no evidence of how the authority behaves when circumstances change.
Programs marketed primarily through commission-driven intermediaries. Heavy promotion often signals a supply problem rather than an opportunity.
Routes where the qualifying asset only exists because of the program. Developments built exclusively for visa buyers tend to have no natural resale market once the program moves on.
Frequently asked questions
Which program is cheapest overall?
On headline price, Latin American investor categories and Panama before October are the lowest realistic entries. On total cost including taxes, fees and carrying costs, the ranking often shifts — Greece's roughly ten per cent transaction load is a good example.
Which is fastest to permanent status?
Panama, which confers permanent residency at the outset. Most other programs issue temporary permits that mature over three to five years.
Do any of these still lead to an EU passport in five years?
Not reliably. Portugal was the standard answer and its timeline has been extended. Treat any five-year EU passport claim you encounter in 2026 with real scepticism.
Can I hold more than one?
Yes. There is no rule against holding residency in several countries, though each carries its own renewal obligations and potential tax consequences.
Can I switch programs partway through?
You can always start a new application elsewhere, but you rarely carry anything with you. Time accrued toward permanence, documents already filed and fees already paid generally do not transfer between countries. Switching means restarting the clock, which is why the initial choice deserves more scrutiny than it usually gets.
Do any of these require me to give up US or Canadian residency?
No. Holding foreign residency does not by itself affect your status at home. What can change is your tax position, if you spend enough time abroad to trigger residency tests, and your reporting obligations, which typically expand rather than contract. Treat those as separate questions from immigration status.
How many of these can I hold at once?
There is no global limit, and some investors deliberately hold more than one. The practical constraints are cost, the physical-presence requirements of each program competing for the same calendar, and the compliance burden of reporting multiple foreign asset holdings. Two is manageable for most people; more than that usually costs more than it hedges.
What is the realistic minimum to get into any credible program?
Below roughly six figures of committed capital the credible investor options thin out quickly. If your budget sits under that, the more productive question is whether an income-qualified route — a pension or rental-income category rather than an investment category — reaches the same destination. For many retirees it does, at a fraction of the cost.
The right answer depends on whether you are optimising for price, speed, tax treatment, or an eventual passport — those four goals rarely point to the same country. We are happy to map your priorities against the current programs in a straightforward consultation.
General information only, not legal or tax advice. Program terms change frequently; verify current requirements with qualified counsel before committing funds.