Are you a remote worker or online business owner?
Several countries in Europe also offer residency pathways via passive income (also known as retirement visas, or ‘residency by independent means’).
This could be a good fit for you if you have passive income from overseas rentals, dividends, investments, royalties, or pensions.
Countries currently offering residency by passive income include:
- Portugal
- Luxembourg
- Austria
- Greece
- Malta
- Italy
- Spain
Can ‘digital nomad’ visas be used as a pathway to citizenship?
Several EU countries, including Estonia and Croatia, have introduced digital nomad visas, responding to the recent wave of remote working triggered by the pandemic. Even though this is an exciting development, it’s not useful for people aiming for citizenship.
Most digital nomad visas have a finite lifespan (typically 6 months to 1 year). As you can’t renew them beyond this, digital nomad visas can’t be used to stay in the country long enough to become eligible for citizenship.
The Portugal Digital Nomad Visa is an exception. It’s a good fit for remote workers with salary who want to live full time in Portugal.
Benefits of residency by passive income
- Become resident in a country without the need for a large upfront investment
- Natural fit for digital workers, online entrepreneurs and those with rental income or pensions from abroad
- Accessible to anyone who can create the required passive income levels – for example, with an online business
- Affordable income levels in different countries, starting from just 1,000 EUR per month (in Portugal)
Get residency with passive income
We’ve done extensive research on all passive income residency pathways across the EU.
Portugal’s D7 passive income residency route is one of the most flexible available in the EU. We recommend it for most people, unless you have a strong preference for a country other than Portugal.
If you’d prefer to save time and stress by hiring a professional to handle the whole thing for you, we can help via our trusted network of immigration lawyers, carefully selected for their reliability, extensive experience and high success rates.