Spain's investor residence visa (the Golden Visa) — every route, not only property — was abolished by Ley Orgánica 1/2025 of 2 January (final provision 21), in force since 3 April 2025. Buying property gives no right of residence at any price. Applications filed before that date are decided under the old rules, and permits already granted keep their validity and can be renewed under them. The repeal followed a parliamentary process that began with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's announcement in April 2024.
Nothing investment-based remains: the repeal eliminated the entire investor-residence category — government bonds, bank deposits, equity stakes and business-project routes fell together with property. The residence routes described on this site are the Non-Lucrative Visa, the Digital Nomad Visa and the Entrepreneur Visa. The Beckham regime is a tax option that can sit on top of a work-based route; it is not a route itself. Andalusia's tax position — 100% relief on wealth tax, limited above €3,000,000 of net wealth while the solidarity tax is in force, and 99% relief on inheritance between close relatives — is unchanged by the repeal.
This is the current state of the law as of late 2026, with the caveat that immigration and tax positions should always be confirmed with a qualified Spanish lawyer before commitment.
Spain introduced the Golden Visa in September 2013 through Ley 14/2013, on support for entrepreneurs and their internationalisation. The headline provision: a non-EU national who acquired Spanish real estate valued at €500,000 or more — debt-free on that amount — qualified for a renewable residence permit. Family members travelled on the same authorisation, and there was no obligation to live in Spain.
In April 2024, Pedro Sánchez announced the government's intention to abolish the real-estate route. The official rationale was housing affordability: ministers argued that foreign investment visas were inflating prices in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga and the Balearics. Critics — including the PP opposition and most of the property sector — countered that Golden Visa volumes were a fraction of total transactions in those markets, and that the structural housing shortage was a planning-and-supply problem rather than a demand problem.
The repeal is in Ley Orgánica 1/2025 of 2 January, the law on the efficiency of the justice service, published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado on 3 January 2025. Its final provision 21 emptied Articles 63 to 67 of Ley 14/2013 — the investor-residence articles, for property and the capital routes alike — and the law entered into force three months after publication, on 3 April 2025.
In 2026, the position is settled. Neither property purchase nor any other investment grants residency: the investor-visa category was repealed in its entirety with effect from 3 April 2025.
What is still marketed abroad as a "Spanish Golden Visa" no longer exists in any form. The permits that remain under Ley 14/2013 are the non-investment ones — entrepreneurs with qualifying business plans, highly-qualified professionals, intra-company transfers and researchers — alongside the Non-Lucrative and Digital Nomad visas above. Anyone selling a 2026 "investment residency" for Spain is selling something that was repealed.