Where the Programme Stands in 2026
The Spanish golden visa as most buyers knew it — a residency permit tied to a minimum €500,000 real-estate purchase — no longer accepts new applications. The property route was formally closed on 3 April 2025, when Royal Decree-Law 1/2025 came into force. Applications submitted before that date continued through the pipeline and some are still being resolved, but the window for new property-based filings is shut.
This is worth stating plainly because a good deal of content circulating online still describes the programme in the present tense, as though the €500,000 threshold remains available. It does not. Spain's government, under consistent pressure from housing advocates and aligned with similar policy shifts across Portugal and Ireland, decided that tying residency to high-value residential purchases was contributing to price distortions in markets like Madrid, Barcelona and the Costa del Sol. Whether or not that causal link was ever well-evidenced is a separate debate. The policy outcome is not.
What remains of the golden visa framework in 2026 are the non-property routes: investment of €1 million in Spanish company shares or bank deposits, €2 million in Spanish government bonds, or the creation of a business project deemed of general interest — typically assessed on job creation or technological contribution. These routes are still open and still grant the same two-year initial permit, renewable in three-year cycles, with the same path to permanent residency after five years.
What the Property-Route Closure Actually Means
For the buyer who was planning to purchase in, say, La Zagaleta or Sierra Blanca primarily as a residency mechanism, the calculation has changed. The property purchase itself remains entirely legal and unrestricted — there is no impediment to a non-EU national buying a €3 million villa in Cascada de Camoján. The change is that the purchase no longer triggers a residency right.
This matters differently depending on the buyer's nationality and circumstances. For buyers from the United States, United Kingdom, or Gulf states who want a European base but not necessarily full-time residency, the visa question was often secondary to the asset itself. Many of these buyers will continue purchasing on the Costa del Sol on the same basis as before — a property they use, hold, and eventually sell or pass on. The residency conversation shifts elsewhere.
For buyers from markets where a Spanish residency permit carried meaningful practical value — certain non-EU nationalities for whom Schengen access is more constrained — the closure is more consequential. These buyers need to look at alternative routes and accept that the simplicity of a single property transaction no longer delivers the residency outcome.
From what we observe in our register and through conversations with buyers at the €1.5 million-and-above level, demand on the Costa del Sol has not meaningfully contracted since the closure. The buyers active in zones like the Marbella Golden Mile or Benahavís are, by and large, not buying primarily for the visa. They are buying for the asset, the climate, the infrastructure, and in many cases a genuine intention to spend substantial time in Spain.
Alternative Residency Routes That Remain Open
The non-property golden visa routes mentioned above are the most direct comparison, but they require liquid capital in a different form. A €1 million share investment or €2 million in bonds is a different kind of commitment than real estate, and carries different risk and liquidity characteristics. Some buyers find this straightforward; others, particularly those whose wealth is concentrated in property, find it less natural.
The more commonly discussed alternative in 2026 is the Digital Nomad Visa, introduced under the same 2022 Startups Law that originally modernised parts of Spain's investor visa framework. This is income-based rather than asset-based: applicants must demonstrate remote employment or self-employment income from outside Spain, meeting a threshold currently set at 200 percent of the Spanish minimum wage — roughly €2,700 per month at current rates, though the precise calculation involves some variables. It grants a one-year initial permit, extendable to two, and can transition to a longer-term residency.
For buyers who are genuinely location-flexible in their work and who were considering a Costa del Sol base anyway, this route has gained traction. It requires demonstrating ongoing income rather than a capital position, which suits some profiles better than others.
The Non-Lucrative Visa remains available for those with sufficient passive income or savings to demonstrate self-sufficiency — the threshold is approximately €28,800 per year for a single applicant, plus supplements for dependants. It prohibits working in Spain, which excludes many, but for retired buyers or those living on investment income it functions well. Processing times through the Spanish consulate in the applicant's home country vary considerably.
For EU nationals, of course, none of this applies. The residency question simply does not arise.
The Costa del Sol Market in Context
It is worth being precise about what the golden visa actually represented in volume terms on the Costa del Sol. The programme, over its roughly twelve-year existence from 2013 to 2025, issued somewhere in the region of 14,000 to 15,000 visas in total across Spain, with real estate accounting for the large majority of those. The Costa del Sol was a significant geography within that total, but the programme was never the primary engine of premium property demand here. The buyer pool in Marbella and its surrounding municipalities has always been driven predominantly by lifestyle, tax considerations, schooling, and the straightforward attractiveness of the coast.
The zones that feature in our working catalogue — La Zagaleta, El Madroñal, Nueva Andalucía, Puerto Banús, Sotogrande — were not built on golden visa demand. They were built on a longer and more structural attraction that predates the programme and will outlast its property route. What the closure removes is a subset of buyers for whom residency was the primary motivation and the property was the instrument. That is a real segment, but it is not the defining segment at this price level.
Pricing in the €1.5 million to €5 million band on the Costa del Sol has remained firm through the first half of 2026. Supply in the most constrained areas — hillside positions in Sierra Blanca, frontline golf in Zagaleta, reformed townhouses in Marbella's historic centre — has not expanded materially, and demand from northern European, Middle Eastern, and American buyers has held. The macro context matters: Schengen access, Mediterranean climate, mature international school provision, and a relatively stable Spanish tax regime for new residents under the Beckham Law all continue to function as pull factors independent of any visa programme.
What Buyers Should Be Doing Now
The most practical observation for a buyer at the €1.5 million level considering a Costa del Sol purchase in 2026 is this: separate the property decision from the residency decision and address each with the appropriate professional.
The property transaction itself — sourcing, due diligence, negotiation, conveyancing — proceeds on the same basis as always. An experienced local lawyer, a NIE obtained before exchange, financing pre-arranged if relevant, and a clear understanding of the costs involved: ITP at 7 percent in Andalucía for resale property, AJD at 1.2 percent for new build, plus notary and registry fees. None of that has changed.
The residency question requires a qualified immigration lawyer who works specifically in Spanish residence permits. The alternatives described above — non-property golden visa routes, Digital Nomad Visa, Non-Lucrative Visa — have different eligibility criteria, processing timelines, and implications for tax residency. Tax residency is particularly consequential: spending more than 183 days in Spain triggers Spanish tax residency, which has significant implications for worldwide income and assets. The Beckham Law offers a flat 24 percent rate on Spanish-source income for qualifying new residents for up to six years, but it has its own conditions and is not automatic.
These are not questions a property agent should be answering. They are questions for a lawyer and a tax adviser working in coordination, and the sequencing matters — ideally addressed before the property is purchased, not after.
A Closing Observation
The golden visa property route was, in the end, a relatively blunt instrument: it attached a bureaucratic benefit to a transaction threshold, and in doing so attracted a buyer type whose primary interest was the permit rather than the place. The buyers who remain active on the Costa del Sol at the €1.5 million level and above are, for the most part, not those buyers. They are people who want to be here — for sustained periods, in a serious way — and who are building a life around the property rather than the paperwork. The reform clarifies that distinction rather than creating it. The coast itself has not changed, and the reasons people choose it have not changed. The administrative path to being here legally has simply become, for some nationalities, more considered work.