International Business Immigration Programs

The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program remains the largest of the international business immigration programs by capital deployed. Under the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act of 2022 the minimum investment is US$1,050,000, reduced to US$800,000 for a targeted employment area (rural or high-unemployment) or an infrastructure project. The investment must create at least 10 full-time jobs for qualifying US workers and remain invested for not less than two years, and the investor receives two years of conditional permanent residence before filing to remove conditions.

Two points matter for timing. First, the statute provides for automatic inflation adjustment of these amounts beginning 1 January 2027, applying to petitions filed on or after that date; no adjustment has yet taken effect. Second, 32 per cent of the annual EB-5 allocation is reserved – 20 per cent for rural areas, 10 per cent for high-unemployment areas and 2 per cent for infrastructure. In the August 2026 Visa Bulletin all three set-asides were current for every country, while the unreserved category showed a final action date of 1 December 2016 for mainland China and was unavailable for India for the balance of the fiscal year. For Chinese and Indian investors the set-asides are the practical route, though the Department of State has warned that retrogression may follow.

Executive Order 14351, signed on 19 September 2025, created a “Gold Card” process. It is not a new visa category – creating one requires an Act of Congress. Instead, an unrestricted gift to the Department of Commerce under 15 U.S.C. 1522 of US$1 million by an individual, or US$2 million by a corporation on an individual’s behalf, is treated as evidence of eligibility under the existing EB-1 extraordinary ability and EB-2 exceptional ability and national interest waiver categories. USCIS has created Form I-140G with a filing fee of US$15,000 per person, and each spouse and child requires a further US$15,000 fee and a further US$1 million gift.

The programme’s legal foundation is thin: there is no proposed or final rule in the Federal Register, only a Paperwork Reduction Act clearance for the form, and the executive order faces an active Administrative Procedure Act challenge in the District of Columbia on which no merits ruling has issued. Volumes are small. In a sworn filing in April 2026 the government stated that since the programme opened in December 2025 it had received 338 requests, of which 59 had actually resulted in a filed petition. A separate “Platinum Card” at US$5 million, promising limited relief from US tax on non-US income, exists only as a published waitlist; it has no executive order, no form and no statute, and the tax treatment it advertises would require congressional legislation.

The Portuguese residence permit for investment activity remains open, but only through non-property routes: EUR 500,000 into qualifying non-real-estate collective investment undertakings, EUR 500,000 for scientific research, EUR 500,000 into share capital of a Portuguese company combined with creating five permanent jobs, EUR 250,000 for artistic production or cultural heritage, or the creation of at least ten jobs with no capital minimum. The research, cultural and job-creation minimums fall by 20 per cent in low-density territories, which is where the EUR 200,000 cultural figure frequently quoted online comes from.

The significant 2026 change is not to the visa but to naturalisation. Organic Law 1/2026, in force from 19 May 2026, raised the legal residence requirement from five years to seven years for citizens of EU member states and Portuguese-speaking countries and ten years for everyone else, added a self-sufficiency requirement, and made language, history and civic knowledge subject to formal testing. Applications already pending on that date remain governed by the previous rules.

Greece operates tiered thresholds under Law 5100/2024. A qualifying property purchase must be EUR 800,000 in Attica, the Thessaloniki regional unit, Mykonos, Thira and islands with more than 3,100 inhabitants, and EUR 400,000 elsewhere, in a single property with at least 120 square metres of main space. A EUR 250,000 tier applies to the conversion of commercial premises to residential use, and to the purchase of a listed building for restoration. Short-term letting of qualifying property is prohibited, with administrative fines of EUR 50,000 and EUR 150,000 and revocation of the permit. There is no minimum stay requirement.

The Italian investor visa under Article 26-bis of Legislative Decree 286/1998 requires EUR 2 million in Italian government securities, EUR 500,000 in capital instruments of an Italian company or a venture capital fund operating in Italy, EUR 250,000 in a registered innovative start-up, or a EUR 1 million philanthropic donation to a public-interest project. Venture capital funds became eligible in December 2024. Applicants using the EUR 500,000 or EUR 250,000 routes must still document at least EUR 1 million in available and transferable funds. The programme is suspended for Russian and Belarusian nationals.

Hungary’s guest investor residence permit, operating since July 2024, now has two routes: EUR 250,000 in investment units of a real-estate fund registered with the Hungarian central bank, held for at least five years in a blocked securities sub-account, or a EUR 1 million donation to a higher education institution maintained by a qualifying public-interest asset-management foundation. The permit runs for up to ten years and is extendable by up to ten more. The EUR 500,000 residential property option in the 2023 legislation was deleted at the end of December 2024, before it ever opened.

Latvia grants temporary residence for up to five years for EUR 250,000 in qualifying built real estate plus 5 per cent of the value to the state budget, EUR 50,000 or EUR 100,000 in company share capital depending on company size, or EUR 280,000 in subordinated liabilities with a Latvian credit institution. The government securities route was repealed in April 2026. A new Immigration Law adopted in June 2026 was referred back to parliament by the President and is not in force; anyone relying on the real-estate route should confirm it remains available at the time of applying.

Cyprus grants immigration permits under Regulation 6(2) of its Aliens and Immigration Regulations for EUR 300,000 in a first-sale residential property, other commercial real estate, the share capital of a Cyprus company employing at least five people, or units in a Cyprus collective investment organisation. Secured annual income of EUR 50,000 is required, plus EUR 15,000 for a spouse and EUR 10,000 per dependent minor child. Note that this is a residence permit only: the separate Cyprus citizenship by investment scheme was repealed in December 2025.

Malta’s Permanent Residence Programme remains open and was restructured in 2025. The current requirements are a EUR 60,000 administration fee for the main applicant plus EUR 7,500 per non-exempt dependant, a EUR 37,000 government contribution, a EUR 2,000 donation to a registered non-governmental organisation, and either the purchase of property from EUR 375,000 or a lease from EUR 14,000 a year anywhere in Malta or Gozo. Applicants must show EUR 500,000 in assets including EUR 150,000 in financial assets, or EUR 650,000 including EUR 75,000 in financial assets. The former Malta-versus-Gozo and owned-versus-rented distinctions have been abolished.

The UAE Golden Visa is granted for ten years to investors with capital of at least AED 2 million, or ownership of an establishment paying at least AED 250,000 annually in taxes, and for five years to real-estate investors purchasing property worth at least AED 2 million, including mortgaged property from approved local banks and off-plan property from approved developers. Entrepreneurs qualify at a project value of AED 500,000 with certification from a UAE auditor, the emirate authorities and an accredited incubator. Separate categories cover exceptional talent, outstanding students and humanitarian and frontline service.

Applicants should note that in July 2025 the Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs and Port Security publicly denied reports of a nomination-based lifetime golden visa for particular nationalities at a fee of AED 100,000, stating the claims had no legal basis and that applications must go through official government channels only. Many of the occupational categories circulating online do not appear on the federal government’s own list.

Malaysia My Second Home now has four tiers, each requiring a fixed deposit denominated in US dollars and a compulsory property purchase made after approval: Silver at US$150,000 and property from RM 600,000 for a five-year pass; Gold at US$500,000 and RM 1 million for fifteen years; Platinum at US$1 million, RM 2 million and a one-off participation fee of RM 200,000 for twenty years; and a special economic zone tier for Forest City, Johor, at US$65,000 or US$32,000 depending on age, for ten years. Only the Platinum tier permits employment or business. All tiers require 90 cumulative days a year in Malaysia and bar resale of the property for ten years.