Golden Visas That Ended: Spain, Ireland, UK and More

Which golden visas have ended

As of 2026, the golden visa landscape looks very different from the one most online guides describe. A wave of closures driven by housing-affordability politics, money-laundering concerns, and pressure from the European Union has removed several of the highest-profile programs from the market. The headline event is Spain: the Spanish golden visa, which granted residency in exchange for a real estate purchase of EUR 500,000 or more, was abolished by Organic Law 1/2025 and stopped accepting new applicants on April 3, 2025. Spain was one of the most popular programs in Europe, so its closure reshaped the entire sector and pushed demand toward Greece, Portugal, and Italy.

Spain is not alone. Ireland closed its Immigrant Investor Programme in February 2023. The United Kingdom scrapped its Tier 1 (Investor) visa in February 2022. The Netherlands abolished its wealthy-foreigner investor residence scheme in 2024. Two more programs ended in a narrower way that confuses many readers: Cyprus and Malta each shut down their citizenship-by-investment schemes (the so-called golden passports) while keeping their residency programs open. And Portugal - still very much open - removed the real estate route that defined it for a decade. This page sorts the genuinely closed programs from the partially changed ones, and points each closure toward a still-open alternative. For the full picture of what remains available, see the golden visa hub.

The table below is the quick-reference master list. Each program is marked ENDED or STILL OPEN as of 2026, with the date of the key change. The sections that follow explain each one in detail, including the political reason behind the closure and where investors are now directed instead.

Spain: abolished April 2025

The Spanish golden visa is the most important closure of the current cycle. Introduced in 2013, the program offered residency to non-EU nationals who invested in Spanish assets, most popularly through a real estate purchase of at least EUR 500,000. It became one of the busiest investor-residency routes in Europe, attracting buyers from China, Russia, the Middle East, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with the bulk of investment concentrated in Madrid, Barcelona, Malaga, and the Balearic Islands.

That concentration is precisely what killed it. By 2024 the Spanish government had framed the golden visa as a driver of housing speculation and unaffordability in exactly the cities where ordinary residents were being priced out. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced the intention to scrap the program, and it was formally abolished through Organic Law 1/2025. The closure took effect on April 3, 2025. From that date, no new golden visa applications - through real estate or any other qualifying asset class - are accepted.

Only transitional rules remain. Applications already submitted before the cutoff continue to be processed under the old framework, and existing golden visa holders keep their residency and can renew it under the terms in force when they were granted. But for anyone considering Spain in 2026, the program is closed: there is no longer any way to buy residency in Spain through investment. Investors who wanted Spanish-style Mediterranean residency are now generally directed to the Greece golden visa, which remains open and real-estate-based, or to Portugal and Italy. See the golden visa hub for a side-by-side comparison of the remaining options.

Ireland, the UK, and the Netherlands: fully closed

Three other major programs closed entirely in the years before Spain, and none of them has been replaced. Ireland's Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP), which required investments in the hundreds of thousands of euros into Irish enterprise or endowment, closed to new applications in February 2023. The Irish government cited concerns about the program's value and oversight. There is no successor investor-residency route in Ireland today, so non-EU nationals seeking Irish residency must use standard work, business, or family channels instead.

The United Kingdom scrapped its Tier 1 (Investor) visa in February 2022. The Tier 1 route had allowed wealthy applicants to gain UK residency by investing GBP 2 million or more, and it was closed amid security and transparency concerns, including scrutiny of the source of applicants' funds. The UK did not replace it with another investor visa. The closest current option is the UK Innovator Founder visa, but that is a fundamentally different product aimed at entrepreneurs building a genuine, innovative, scalable UK business, not at passive investors. It requires an endorsed business plan rather than a lump-sum investment, so it does not serve the same audience the Tier 1 route did.

The Netherlands abolished its investor residence scheme in 2024. The Dutch program for wealthy foreigners had required an investment of well over EUR 1 million and had attracted very few applicants over its lifetime, which made it an easy target when the government reviewed it. With its closure, the Netherlands has no golden visa. Across all three countries, the practical message for 2026 is the same: these routes are gone, and applicants who want EU or UK residency by investment now look to the remaining open programs in Greece, Portugal, Italy, Malta, and Cyprus. The golden visa hub tracks which of those still accept new applicants.

Romania: proposed but never launched

Romania belongs in a special category because it never actually had a golden visa to close. A residency-by-investment program was floated and discussed around November 2025, generating a round of speculative coverage and a number of premature guides treating it as though it were live. The proposal was cancelled and the program was never launched.

As of 2026, Romania has no golden visa. Any service marketing Romanian residency by investment is describing a program that does not exist. This is a useful reminder that the investment-migration space attracts a lot of forward-looking marketing: programs are announced, debated, and sometimes abandoned before a single application is ever accepted. Treat a program as real only once it has a legal basis and is actually accepting applicants. When in doubt, run the program against the golden visa hub, which only lists routes that are genuinely open as of 2026.

Cyprus: golden passport ended, residency still open

Cyprus is the most misunderstood case on this list because it ran two separate programs and only one of them ended. The Cyprus citizenship-by-investment scheme - the golden passport that granted a full Cypriot and therefore EU passport in exchange for a large investment - was terminated in 2020. It was scrapped after a series of abuse scandals and undercover reporting that showed passports being sold to applicants who should have failed due-diligence checks. Under heavy EU pressure, Cyprus shut the citizenship route down. That golden passport is gone and is not coming back.

What did not end is the Cyprus permanent residency program. This is a residency route, not a citizenship route, and it remains open in 2026. It typically requires a qualifying real estate investment and lets approved applicants and their families hold Cypriot permanent residency. So the accurate statement is nuanced: Cyprus ended its golden passport but kept its golden visa for permanent residency. Anyone whose goal was a fast EU passport from Cyprus is out of luck, but anyone seeking residency can still apply. For the residency details and current thresholds, see the Cyprus and Bulgaria golden visa guide.

The Cyprus story is a clean illustration of a distinction that runs through this whole topic: citizenship by investment (CBI) and residency by investment (RBI, the true golden visa) are different products with different rules and different political fates. CBI schemes - which sell passports - have come under the most intense scrutiny and have been the most likely to be shut down. RBI schemes, which sell residency, have generally proved more durable. Confusing the two is the single most common error in out-of-date golden visa content.

Malta: citizenship struck down, residency still open

Malta follows the same pattern as Cyprus but with a more recent and more dramatic ending. Malta operated a citizenship-by-investment scheme that granted Maltese - and therefore EU - citizenship to investors who met financial and residency conditions. The European Commission challenged it as incompatible with EU law, arguing that selling EU citizenship undermined the genuine link a member state is supposed to require before naturalising someone. In April 2025 the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled against Malta and effectively struck the scheme down. Malta's golden passport, like Cyprus's, is finished.

But Malta's residency program, the Malta Permanent Residence Programme (MPRP), is still open in 2026. The MPRP grants permanent residency - not citizenship - to applicants who meet its investment, property, and contribution requirements, and it was not affected by the EU Court ruling, which targeted citizenship specifically. So once again the precise statement matters: Malta's citizenship-by-investment scheme ended in April 2025, while its MPRP residency program continues. For the current MPRP requirements and how it compares to other surviving programs, see the Malta golden visa guide and the golden visa hub.

Portugal: still open, but no more real estate

Portugal is the program most often described incorrectly, because the answer is genuinely split. The Portugal golden visa is still open in 2026 - it accepts new applicants and remains one of the most popular routes in Europe. But the real estate option that made it famous ended in October 2023 under Law 56/2023. For roughly a decade, the headline way to get a Portuguese golden visa was to buy property, often a EUR 500,000 apartment or a discounted EUR 280,000 rehabilitation property in a low-density area. That property route is now closed. You can no longer qualify for the Portugal golden visa by buying residential real estate.

What remains are the non-property routes. The most common surviving option is an investment into a qualifying Portuguese investment fund (commonly EUR 500,000), and there are also cultural and other contribution routes. These continue to grant the same residency-to-citizenship pathway Portugal is prized for, which is why the program is still considered a strong choice despite the loss of the property option. The change is purely about how you qualify, not about whether the program exists. For the current qualifying routes and thresholds, see the Portugal golden visa guide.

This is the second half of the misinformation problem flagged at the top of this page. A large share of golden visa content still presents Portuguese property as a qualifying investment, sometimes in the same breath as the now-abolished Spanish program. Both of those statements are wrong as of 2026: Spain's program ended entirely, and Portugal's property route ended in October 2023. The fund and cultural routes are the live paths in Portugal, and any advisor steering you toward a Portuguese property purchase as a golden visa qualifier is working from outdated information.

Which golden visas are still open in 2026

With so many closures, it helps to state plainly what survives. As of 2026, the still-open European programs most often used as replacements for the closed ones are Greece, Portugal (fund and cultural routes only), Italy, Malta (MPRP residency only), and Cyprus (permanent residency only). Greece in particular has absorbed much of the demand that previously went to Spain, because it remains a real-estate-based residency program in a sunny Mediterranean EU member state, which is exactly the profile most Spain applicants wanted.

Below is a quick mapping from each closed program to the alternative investors are most often pointed toward. None of these substitutions is automatic - thresholds, tax treatment, and physical-presence rules differ from one country to the next - so treat the mapping as a starting point and confirm the specifics through the golden visa hub before acting.

• [+] Replacing Spain: the Greece golden visa - still real-estate-based, still open, Mediterranean EU residency
• [+] Replacing the property dream in Portugal: Portugal's surviving fund and cultural routes - same citizenship pathway, no property
• [+] Still want Malta or Cyprus: the Malta MPRP and Cyprus permanent residency remain open (residency, not citizenship)
• [+] Italy: its investor visa remains open as a further EU alternative
• [-] Spain, Ireland, UK, Netherlands: no investor-residency route exists in 2026 - do not expect a like-for-like replacement
• [-] Romania: never launched - not an option despite the 2025 proposal
• [-] EU passports by investment: Cyprus (2020) and Malta (2025) citizenship schemes are both gone, so fast CBI inside the EU is effectively over

How to avoid out-of-date and scam offers

The single biggest practical risk in 2026 is not a bad program - it is a closed program being sold as though it were open, sometimes innocently from stale content and sometimes deliberately as a scam. Because the sector moves fast, web pages, brochures, and even some advisors lag the law by a year or more. Spain and the Portugal property route are the two most commonly misrepresented offers, followed by the Cyprus and Malta citizenship schemes. Before you engage with any provider, run a short due-diligence checklist.

1. Confirm the program is currently accepting new applications, not merely processing legacy cases. Ask for the legal basis and the date of the most recent change.
2. Distinguish citizenship by investment from residency by investment. If someone offers an EU passport from Cyprus or Malta by investment, that is a closed route and a red flag.
3. For Spain, treat any current golden visa offer as invalid - the program ended April 3, 2025 and only pre-cutoff cases continue.
4. For Portugal, confirm the qualifying route is a fund or cultural contribution, not real estate. Property no longer qualifies.
5. Verify the advisor or agent is licensed and check independent sources. Be cautious of pressure to transfer large sums quickly, which is a classic warning sign covered in our visa rejection and red-flags guide.
6. Cross-check the program against the golden visa hub, which only lists routes open as of 2026.

A legitimate provider will welcome these questions and will be transparent about which programs have closed. Anyone who insists that Spain is still available, that Portuguese property still counts, or that an EU passport is for sale from Cyprus or Malta is either badly out of date or actively misleading you. The due-diligence failures that lead to refusals and lost deposits are the same ones that show up across the investment-migration world, and our guide to common rejection reasons walks through the documentation and source-of-funds traps to avoid.