Spain Golden Visa: what
changed and what’s next

On 3 April 2025, the Spanish government officially suspended the Golden Visa programme for new real-estate-based applications. The move came after months of political debate about the programme’s impact on housing affordability in cities like Barcelona and Madrid, where property prices had risen sharply and local residents were being priced out of central neighbourhoods.

The suspension applies specifically to the real estate investment route. Applications that were already filed and in process before the cut-off date were honoured and continue to be processed. Existing Golden Visa holders can still renew their permits under the original terms, provided they maintain the qualifying investment.

It is important to understand the scope of the change. The Golden Visa programme itself still technically exists for other investment categories — significant capital investments in Spanish companies, government bonds, or business projects of general interest — but these routes were rarely used by private buyers and carry their own complexity. For all practical purposes, the route that mattered to property buyers is gone.

The Spanish government has not indicated a timeline for reinstating the programme, and political commentary suggests the suspension is intended to be permanent. We advise clients not to plan around a reopening. Instead, look at the alternative residency routes below, or simply buy because you want to own a home in Spain — which remains entirely possible without any visa at all.

Spain introduced the Golden Visa in September 2013, during the aftermath of the financial crisis, as part of Law 14/2013 to attract foreign investment and stimulate the property market. The programme was simple by European standards: invest at least €500,000 in Spanish real estate — one property or several, residential or commercial — and receive a renewable residence permit for yourself and your immediate family.

The permit granted the right to live and work in Spain, travel freely across the 27-country Schengen Area, and access the Spanish public healthcare and education systems. Crucially, there was no minimum physical residency requirement. You could visit once a year to renew your card and spend the rest of your time wherever you liked. This made it especially attractive to buyers from the Middle East, China, Russia, and Latin America who wanted a European foothold without committing to full-time life in Spain.

Renewal was straightforward: maintain the €500,000 investment (you could sell and reinvest, but the total value had to remain at or above the threshold), and your permit would be renewed first for two years, then for five-year periods. After five years of holding the permit, you became eligible for permanent residency, and after ten years you could apply for Spanish citizenship — though Spain generally does not permit dual nationality, so most non-EU holders chose to keep their permanent residency instead.

Over the programme’s twelve-year run, Spain issued roughly 14,000 Golden Visas, with the Costa del Sol, Barcelona and Madrid being the three dominant purchase locations. In the Marbella area alone, the programme underpinned hundreds of transactions annually at the upper end of the market. Its closure marks the end of an era, but not the end of international buying on the coast.

The headlines in April 2025 were dramatic. “Spain Kills Golden Visa,” read one UK broadsheet. Property forums lit up with predictions of a price correction in Marbella, Estepona and Benahavís. Twelve months later, those predictions have not materialised. Average prices per square metre on the Costa del Sol rose by approximately 6–8% through 2025, and the first quarter of 2026 shows no sign of reversal.

The explanation is structural. Golden Visa buyers accounted for a meaningful but modest share of total transactions — roughly 5–8% of international purchases in the luxury segment, depending on the year and the source you trust. The overwhelming majority of international buyers on the Costa del Sol purchase for lifestyle reasons: the 320 days of sunshine, the international schools, the golf, the two-and-a-half-hour flight from most European capitals. These motivations have not changed.

Supply constraints have also played a role. Prime coastal land between Estepona and Marbella is finite, building licences take twelve to twenty-four months to issue, and the best new-build projects sell out before completion. Demand from Northern European buyers — Scandinavian, British, Dutch, Belgian and German families — remains at or near record levels. Middle Eastern and North American buyers who previously used the Golden Visa have simply switched to alternative residency routes or decided they do not need residency at all.

Our view is straightforward: if you are buying on the Costa del Sol because you love the lifestyle and the value proposition, the closure of the Golden Visa changes nothing about the property itself. The sunshine, the infrastructure, the international community, and the long-term capital growth trajectory are all intact. Residency is a separate question with its own solutions.

This is the single most important point in this guide and the one most frequently misunderstood: non-EU nationals can freely purchase, own and sell real estate in Spain with no restrictions whatsoever. There is no minimum spend, no cap on the number of properties, no requirement to live in the country, and no connection between property ownership and immigration status.

The only administrative requirement is an NIE — the Número de Identificación de Extranjero — which is a nine-character tax identification number issued to all foreigners who have financial dealings in Spain. An NIE is not a visa. It is not a residency permit. It is simply the number the Agencia Tributaria uses to track your tax obligations. You will need it before you sign the arras (private purchase contract), open a Spanish bank account, or sign the public deed at the notary.

You can apply for an NIE at any Spanish consulate or embassy in your home country, or in person at a Policía Nacional comisaría in Andalucía. Allow two to six weeks through a consulate, or a few days if you apply in person in Málaga or Marbella. Your independent lawyer can handle the application for you with a notarised power of attorney, which is the approach most of our international clients take.

Once you own the property, your ongoing obligations as a non-resident owner are modest: an annual Modelo 210 imputed-income tax return (even if you do not rent the property out), the annual IBI local property tax, and community fees if the property is in a complex with shared areas. None of these require you to be resident in Spain or to hold any visa. Your gestor or fiscal representative can handle all of them remotely.

Non-resident property owners in Spain are subject to several recurring taxes, none of which are onerous but all of which must be filed on time. The main one is the IRNR — Impuesto sobre la Renta de No Residentes — which is Spain’s non-resident income tax. If you do not rent the property out, you still owe an annual imputed-income tax calculated as 2% of the cadastral value (or 1.1% if the value has been revised recently), taxed at 19% for EU/EEA nationals or 24% for everyone else. On a typical Costa del Sol villa with a cadastral value of €400,000, the annual bill might be €1,500–2,000. Your gestor files this via Modelo 210 each year.

If you do rent the property, you declare the actual rental income instead. EU/EEA residents can deduct allowable expenses (mortgage interest, repairs, insurance, community fees) before applying the 19% rate. Non-EU residents, unfortunately, are taxed on gross rental income at 24% with no deductions — a meaningful difference that is worth factoring into your investment model.

The IBI (Impuesto sobre Bienes Inmuebles) is the local property tax, equivalent to council tax or property tax in other countries. It is levied by the municipality based on the cadastral value and varies by town. In Marbella, expect roughly 0.4–0.7% of the cadastral value annually. Estepona and Benahavís have similar ranges. The bill arrives once a year and can be direct-debited from your Spanish bank account.

Spain also has a wealth tax (Impuesto sobre el Patrimonio) that applies to non-residents on their Spanish assets above €700,000 (after an additional €300,000 deduction for a primary residence, which non-residents typically cannot claim). The rates are progressive, from 0.2% to 3.5% in Andalucía. In practice, the combined effect on a single property worth €1–2 million is modest, but it is worth modelling with a Spanish tax advisor before you buy, particularly if you hold other Spanish assets or are considering multiple properties.

We have worked with hundreds of non-EU buyers since the Golden Visa suspension, and our advice falls into two camps depending on the buyer’s priorities.

If residency was your primary motivation: look at Portugal’s Golden Visa (which has pivoted away from residential real estate but still accepts commercial property and fund investments) or Greece’s programme (which recently doubled its threshold in popular areas to €800,000 but remains active). Both offer a legitimate path to Schengen residency through property. Alternatively, explore Spain’s non-lucrative or digital nomad visa — both are well-established routes with clear requirements.

If you want the Costa del Sol lifestyle: buy anyway. The property market is independent of the visa programme. You do not need a visa to own, enjoy, renovate, furnish or even rent out a home in Spain. You can visit on a standard 90-day Schengen tourist stay (or 180 days if your country has a bilateral agreement), and many of our clients split their year between Málaga and their home country without needing formal residency at all.

The Costa del Sol offers something that no visa programme can replicate: 320 days of sunshine, world-class golf and gastronomy, an established international community, direct flights to 200 European cities from Málaga airport, and property that — over any five-year period in the last decade — has appreciated meaningfully in real terms. Those fundamentals do not change because a visa programme closes.