Spain abolished its Golden Visa programme on 3 April 2025. From that date, no new applications for residence by property investment have been accepted. The four other Golden-Visa investment routes (€1M in Spanish public debt, €2M in commercial debt, €1M in shares of Spanish companies, €1M in a Spanish bank deposit) had already been retired earlier in the legislative process.
For Marbella, this changed something — but less than the headline suggests.
What the Golden Visa Was
Introduced by Law 14/2013, the Spanish Golden Visa granted a residence permit to non-EU citizens making a qualifying investment in Spain. The property route required €500,000 in unencumbered Spanish real estate. The visa granted residence (with rights to live, study and work in Spain), unlimited Schengen-area travel, and a path to citizenship after ten years.
It was politically contested almost from the beginning. Critics argued it inflated the urban housing market (Madrid and Barcelona in particular) without commensurate public benefit, and that it created a low-friction route for opaque capital.
In 2022 Portugal closed its equivalent programme. In 2023 Greece tightened. By 2024 the Spanish socialist-led coalition government had announced its intent to follow. The abolition took effect on 3 April 2025.
Who Used It in Marbella
On our measure, approximately a third of buyer enquiries to the desk between 2014 and 2024 referenced the Golden Visa explicitly in the first communication. The cohort was disproportionately from Russia, China, the United States, and the United Kingdom (post-Brexit).
But the residence-by-property mechanic was not the principal reason these buyers were buying. For the €5M+ upper register, the Golden Visa was a useful side-benefit, not a deciding factor. For the €1.5M to €3M band, it was a more meaningful share of the decision — and that band has cooled measurably in the volume of cross-border transactions since April 2025.
The €5M+ Marbella register, by contrast, has been broadly unaffected. Those buyers were never buying for residence; residence followed, and now follows by a different route.
The Four Routes That Remain
Spain has four active residence routes that may apply to a Marbella buyer.
The Non-Lucrative Visa is the residence route for buyers with passive income. The applicant demonstrates approximately €32,000 per applicant per year of stable passive income (the exact figure indexes to IPREM, the public-income reference). The visa prohibits work in Spain — it is designed for the retired-and-investor profile. Renewable, with a path to long-term residence after five years.
The Digital Nomad Visa is the residence route for buyers with remote-work income from non-Spanish employers. Introduced in late 2022, it requires approximately €2,760 per month of remote-work income, a clean criminal record, and a contract with a non-Spanish employer. The headline benefit is access to the Beckham Law option — a 24% flat tax for the first six years of Spanish tax residency.
The Beckham Law itself is not a visa but a tax régime. It applies to employees moving to Spain who have not been Spanish tax resident in the previous five years and who become employed by a Spanish employer (or by a non-Spanish employer through the Digital Nomad route). The first six years of Spanish tax residency are taxed at a 24% flat rate on the first €600,000 of Spanish-source income — materially below the standard progressive rates that reach 47% above €300,000.
The Entrepreneur Visa is the residence route for buyers prepared to establish an innovative business in Spain. The applicant submits a business plan to ENISA (Empresa Nacional de Innovación) for endorsement. Once endorsed, the visa is granted for two years, renewable. The route is more demanding than the others, but it remains genuinely available for principals with operational businesses they can locate in Spain.
What Changed Operationally
For the Marbella property advisory specifically, three changes have stuck.
First, the conversation order with buyers has reversed. Pre-April 2025: residence first, residence-eligible property second. Post-April 2025: residence by a non-property route, then a property purchase that does not need to clear the €500K Golden Visa threshold. The decoupling has been productive — buyers can now choose the property purely on residence quality rather than visa-eligibility threshold.
Second, the volume in the €1.5M to €3M band from non-EU buyers has fallen materially. The Spanish socialist coalition has stated, in policy briefings, that this is the intended effect.
Third, the €5M+ upper register has been broadly unaffected. Those buyers were never visa-driven. They were Marbella-driven — the climate, the language, the schools, the air corridor to Northern Europe, the security profile, the established expatriate community. None of that depended on the Golden Visa, and none of that has changed.
What to Tell a Buyer Considering Marbella in 2026
The narrative of the previous decade — buy property, get residence, two birds, one stone — does not work in 2026. It needs to be replaced with a more accurate model.
If residence is the goal: the Non-Lucrative, the Digital Nomad, or the Beckham Law route, with property as a separate decision. The Beckham Law is materially the most powerful of the three for buyers who can structure as employees of a Spanish or remote-work employer.
If property is the goal: the residence question is uncoupled. Buyers from outside the EU can still purchase Marbella property without restriction; only the residence rights have changed.
If both are the goal: the routes can be combined. A Digital Nomad Visa applicant can purchase Marbella property in parallel, qualify for Beckham Law treatment on Spanish-source income, and live in the residence. This is the most common pattern we see in 2026 — and it is a cleaner structure than the property-led Golden Visa it replaced.
The desk works alongside Garrigues, Cuatrecasas, Pérez-Llorca and Uría Menéndez for visa and tax counsel. Introductions are made when the buyer profile and the visa route are clearly matched. We do not give visa advice ourselves — that is the lawyer's work — but we make sure the lawyer is engaged early enough that property and residence decisions move in step.