Greece Golden Visa compared with Portugal, Italy and Malta: costs, timelines and citizenship routes

Greece suits investors who want the lowest overall entry cost of the four routes (a €350,000 fund, or €400,000 for real estate), no obligation to spend time in the country, and the broadest family inclusion of the four programmes: adult children up to 24 and both sets of parents without having to prove financial dependency. Portugal suits investors who would rather not hold Greek property and who value a very light physical presence rule of seven days a year, though they now face a materially longer route to citizenship after the May 2026 reform. Italy suits investors who want an approval-before-you-invest process, no minimum stay to renew the permit, and a shorter overall citizenship timeline than Portugal's new rule, provided they are prepared to spend real time in the country once they target that outcome. Malta suits investors who want one-time, indefinite permanent residence rather than a renewable temporary card, at roughly double Greece's entry cost.

There is no single winner across all four criteria. An investor prioritising low cost and family breadth lands on Greece; one prioritising minimal physical presence and no real estate lands on Portugal; one prioritising flexibility and a lower financial bar lands on Italy; one prioritising permanence over renewal lands on Malta.

The table above compares the routes as they stand today. Figures for Greece are set under Law 5038/2023, Article 100, as amended by Law 5100/2024, Article 64, and Law 4251/2014, Article 20B for the financial routes. Portugal's figures follow AIMA's Article 90-A framework and Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026. Italy's figures follow Article 26-bis of Legislative Decree 286/1998. Malta's figures follow the Malta Permanent Residence Programme Regulations. All are point-in-time and should be re-checked before an application, since Greek, Portuguese and Spanish rules have each changed within the past two years.

None of these four programmes grants citizenship. Each grants a residence status, and the four statuses are not equivalent to each other.

Greece issues a five-year residence permit, renewable indefinitely as long as the qualifying investment is maintained. It carries no obligation to live in Greece unless the holder later wants to naturalise. Portugal's Authorisation of Residence for Investment Activity (ARI) is a two-year permit, also renewable, but Portugal removed its direct real estate purchase route through Lei 56/2023 in October 2023; property is no longer a qualifying investment there. Italy's Investor Visa produces a two-year residence permit that renews in three-year blocks with no cap on the number of renewals. Malta's Permanent Residence Programme is different in kind rather than degree: it grants permanent residence from the outset, not a temporary status that must be repeatedly renewed, although the physical card itself is reissued every five years.

A residence permit under any of these four routes allows the holder to travel within the Schengen Area for up to 90 days in any 180-day period when outside the issuing country. It does not by itself create a right to work in every route: Greece's Golden Visa specifically excludes the right to take employment or run day-to-day management of a company, permitting only passive roles such as shareholder or non-executive director. Portugal's ARI, Italy's Investor Visa and Malta's MPRP each allow employment or self-employment once the residence permit is issued.

If your Greek investment plan depends on the exact property zoning around Athens, Thessaloniki or the islands, the Greece Golden Visa programme page sets out the current tiers by municipality in more detail than fits in a comparison article.

Greece's thresholds are the most frequently misquoted in this comparison, because three distinct products all reference €250,000. Under the current statute, ordinary real estate purchase has only two tiers: €400,000 in most of the country, and €800,000 in the Municipality of Athens, Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and islands with a population of 3,100 or more. The €250,000 figure applies only as an exception route, for converting a qualifying industrial building into a residence or restoring a listed heritage property, and separately as the Startup Golden Visa, a capital contribution to a business registered with Elevate Greece. It is not a general low-cost regional tier, and a property agent quoting €250,000 for an ordinary house outside those two exception categories is describing a different, non-qualifying transaction. Financial routes range from €350,000 for qualifying Greek mutual fund units to €800,000 for listed Greek securities, with company capital contributions, government bonds and bank deposits at €400,000 to €500,000 depending on the specific instrument.

Portugal's remaining routes are a €500,000 investment fund held for at least five years, a €500,000 contribution to research activity, a €500,000 business investment creating five jobs over three years, job creation of at least ten positions with no minimum capital, or a €250,000 donation to an approved artistic or cultural heritage project. None of these involves buying property directly.

Italy asks for €500,000 in shares of an existing Italian company or an eligible Italian investment fund, or €250,000 into a registered innovative start-up. Investments cannot be combined or split across two routes, and under Italy's approval-first model the applicant secures a Nulla Osta, a certificate of no impediment, before committing the funds, so the capital is not at risk if the committee declines the case.

Malta's MPRP requires either a property purchase from €375,000 or a long-term rental from €14,000 a year, plus a government contribution of €37,000, an application fee of €60,000 (with a further €7,500 per adult dependant), and a €2,000 donation to an approved non-governmental organisation. Applicants must also hold total assets of at least €500,000, of which €150,000 must be liquid, or an alternative €650,000 with €75,000 liquid.

The advertised minimum investment is rarely the full cost of any of these programmes. In Greece, a real estate purchase carries a property transfer tax of 3.09% of the purchase price, notary fees of roughly 1% to 2%, a government application fee of €2,000 for the main applicant, €150 per additional family member, and a €16 per-person permit fee. A €400,000 purchase therefore typically brings total government and transaction costs to somewhere in the region of €420,000 to €430,000 before legal fees, excluding the separate professional fees any applicant should budget for.

Portugal's fund route commonly totals around €510,000 to €520,000 once application fees of a few hundred euros per applicant, fund management charges, and a Portuguese tax number and bank account are added to the €500,000 investment. Italy's costs beyond the €250,000 or €500,000 investment are comparatively modest at the government level, since the process runs through a single Nulla Osta and Questura filing rather than a property purchase, though legal and advisory fees should still be budgeted separately. Malta's all-in entry cost for a single applicant purchasing the minimum-value property runs to roughly €474,000 once the €37,000 contribution, €60,000 application fee and €2,000 donation are added to the €375,000 property purchase, before any dependant surcharges.

Greece includes the applicant's spouse, children under 21 automatically, and both the applicant's and the spouse's parents, with no requirement to prove the parents are financially dependent. A child who reaches 21 while on the programme moves to an autonomous "bridge" permit that runs until age 24. Portugal includes a spouse, children under 18, children aged 18 to 26 if unmarried, university-enrolled and financially dependent, and parents, with parents over 65 included automatically and those under 65 required to show dependency. Italy includes a spouse and dependent children and parents through its family reunification track, without Greece's blanket parent inclusion. Malta includes a spouse, unmarried dependent children up to 29, and parents or grandparents of either the applicant or the spouse, provided they are not in full-time employment.

For an investor who wants to bring both sets of ageing parents into one application without assembling dependency evidence, Greece is the most permissive of the four. For an investor whose adult children are past their mid-twenties, none of the four routes will cover them as dependants, and each requires a separate, independent application once a child ages out.

Greece and Italy both allow the holder to keep and renew the permit without spending any minimum time in the country each year, provided the qualifying investment is maintained. Portugal requires an average of seven days a year, in practice 14 days across each two-year renewal cycle, and absences beyond six consecutive months (or eight non-consecutive months) must be reported to the immigration authority. Malta's MPRP has no minimum stay requirement at all, consistent with its status as a permanent rather than renewable permit.

None of these light presence rules should be confused with the separate, much stricter presence test each country applies if the holder later wants to become a tax resident or apply for citizenship; those thresholds are covered below.

Greek law caps the decision period at two months once a complete file reaches the competent authority, but practical processing has recently averaged 10 to 12 months from application to card issuance, with a Temporary Residence Certificate typically issued within days to a few weeks in the meantime that allows the applicant to remain in Greece while the permit is finalised.

Portugal's AIMA has a substantial application backlog. Provider marketing sometimes cites roughly 12 months, but realistic current timelines run 18 to 36 months from application to residence card issuance, even though the underlying residency rights begin on approval rather than on the physical card being printed.

Italy's process is comparatively fast to the visa stage: the Nulla Osta committee decides within 30 days, the consulate stage typically adds one to two months, and the investment must be executed within three months of the confirmed entry date. Malta's government agency targets a processing window of roughly four to six months from submission to the in-principle approval that precedes the final residence certificate.

None of these programmes grants citizenship directly, and each attaches a materially different naturalisation path to its residence status. In Greece, an investor who chooses to genuinely live in the country can apply for citizenship by naturalisation after seven years of continuous residence, defined as at least 183 days a year, and after separately obtaining EU long-term resident status around the five-year mark. The application also requires a B1-level Greek language certificate and a written and interview-based civics test, and takes a further one to three years to decide once filed. Simply holding the Golden Visa without spending real time in Greece does not count toward these seven years.

Portugal's naturalisation rules changed materially on 19 May 2026. Under Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026, the qualifying residence period is now ten years for most nationalities, or seven years for citizens of Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) member states or the EU, up from a uniform five years previously. Applications already filed with the immigration authority on or before 18 May 2026 keep the prior five-year regime; anyone filing after that date faces the longer period. Naturalisation also now requires proven knowledge of Portuguese language, culture and history, civic knowledge of the constitution, and a formal declaration of adherence to democratic rule-of-law principles.

Italy requires ten years from the first residence card, with at least 184 days a year of genuine presence and a B1 Italian language certificate, separate from the five-year, 184-day EU long-term residence status that becomes available earlier. Malta's Permanent Residence Programme does not itself lead to citizenship. Malta's ordinary naturalisation process, separate from the MPRP and outside the scope of this comparison, requires a minimum of five years of continuous residence together with the standard legal conditions; an applicant who wants to explore that route should treat it as a distinct legal question from the MPRP application itself.

For an investor whose primary goal is eventual citizenship rather than a standing residence card, Greece's seven-year timeline is currently the shortest of the four, ahead of Italy's ten years and Portugal's new ten-year (or seven-year CPLP/EU) rule, though all three require genuine physical presence rather than a nominal filing.

None of these residence permits automatically makes the holder a tax resident. Tax residence generally follows from spending more than 183 days a year in the country, or, in some jurisdictions, from establishing a habitual home there. A Greek Golden Visa holder who stays under 183 days a year in Greece remains outside the Greek tax net; one who crosses that threshold becomes a Greek tax resident and may separately qualify for the non-dom flat tax regime of €100,000 a year on foreign income, a status that is distinct from the Golden Visa and requires its own qualifying conditions. Portugal's fund-route investors who limit their presence to the seven-days-a-year minimum typically remain non-resident for Portuguese tax purposes. Italy's substitutive tax regime allows new residents to elect a flat €300,000 a year on foreign-source income (for those becoming tax resident from 1 January 2026 onward), an option only relevant once the holder has become an Italian tax resident. Malta's MPRP does not, by itself, create a special tax regime; investors seeking Malta's remittance-based tax treatment need a separate qualifying route.

Tax residence questions depend on an applicant's full personal circumstances and should be confirmed with a qualified tax adviser in the relevant country before relying on any of the figures above.

Each of these programmes carries risks beyond the headline investment figure. Greek Golden Visa property cannot be let on short-term platforms such as Airbnb under the current rules; only long-term lets of six months or more are permitted, and breaching this restriction can lead to revocation of the permit and financial penalties. Both the real estate and financial-instrument routes in Greece, Portugal and Italy expose the investor to ordinary market risk: a fund can lose value, and a property can be harder to sell than expected, particularly given the resale restrictions that generally apply while the residence permit remains linked to that specific asset; the length of that hold and what happens to the permit if the property is sold afterward vary by case and are worth confirming with legal counsel before purchase. Realistic rental income and property-management arrangements for a Golden Visa property also vary by asset and location, and are best assessed with My Golden Visa alongside a specific listing rather than assumed from a national average. Spain's 3 April 2025 closure under Organic Law 1/2025 is a direct illustration that a currently open route can end with limited notice, and Portugal's own removal of its real estate route in 2023, followed by the May 2026 naturalisation change, shows that even an open programme's terms can shift materially between the day an investor first researches it and the day they file. None of the four governments guarantees approval; every application remains subject to due diligence, source-of-funds checks and the relevant authority's discretion.

Greece tends to suit an investor who wants the lowest realistic entry cost among the four EU routes still open, values no minimum stay requirement while keeping open the option of a seven-year citizenship path later, and needs to bring both sets of parents into a single application without assembling dependency paperwork. It also tends to suit an investor who is comfortable owning Greek property directly, including the resale and short-term-letting restrictions that come with it, rather than holding a fund unit or making a donation.

An investor who does not want to own property, and who can accept spending only seven days a year in the country while still building toward eventual citizenship, is often better served by Portugal, bearing in mind the longer naturalisation period that now applies. An investor who wants the lowest financial bar of the four programmes, an approval-before-you-invest structure, and no minimum stay to renew the permit, while being prepared for genuine presence once they target citizenship, is often better served by Italy. An investor who wants a status that does not need repeated temporary renewal, and who has the larger budget the Maltese programme requires, is often better served by Malta's Permanent Residence Programme. An investor already committed to a Spanish relocation should note that the investor visa route no longer exists; Spain's remaining options run through its general immigration regime rather than an investment-based residence permit.

If you are weighing the Greek route against one of these alternatives for your own circumstances, a side-by-side consultation is usually more useful than working through the thresholds alone, since family composition, target citizenship timeline and property preferences change which programme fits.

Every investor's family composition, tax position and target timeline are different, and the figures above change as each country updates its rules. If you want to work through how the Greek route compares with Portugal, Italy or Malta for your specific situation, it is worth talking it through directly with My Golden Visa before committing to a property or fund.