The single most damaging error a visa site can make is to advertise a residence-by-investment program that no longer exists — Spain’s golden visa was abolished in 2025 yet is still listed as live all over the internet. So before adding refusal reasons and fixing renewal data for Greece, Malta and Cyprus, we checked the most important question first: are these programs actually open in 2026, and at what price? We verified all three destinations’ long-stay routes against the official government portals on 2026-06-22.
Greece Golden Visa: open, but the price now depends on where you buy
Greece’s Golden Visa is open and popular — but Law 5100/2024 (in force since 1 September 2024) replaced the old flat €250,000 entry point with a tiered, location-based structure designed to cool demand in the hottest markets:
- €800,000 in high-demand zones — Attica (including Athens), Thessaloniki, Mykonos, Santorini and any island with more than 3,100 residents — for a single property of at least 120 m².
- €400,000 in all other regions of Greece, again for a single unit of at least 120 m².
- €250,000 only for special routes: converting a commercial property to residential, or restoring a listed/protected building.
- Properties bought through the scheme can no longer be let on short-term (Airbnb-type) rentals.
The residence permit is valid for five years, renews indefinitely while you keep the investment, and carries no minimum-stay requirement. We confirmed the program is open, marked it renewable, and added the refusal grounds that actually matter for investor cases — see the Greece Golden Visa page.
Malta: the MPRP is open — and it grants permanent residence
Malta’s Permanent Residence Programme (MPRP), run by the official Residency Malta Agency under Subsidiary Legislation 217.26, is open and unusual in that it grants permanent residence from the outset (evidenced by a residence card renewed every five years). It is an assets-plus-contribution model, not a pure property purchase:
- Net assets of at least €500,000 (including €150,000 in financial assets), or at least €650,000 (including €75,000 in financial assets).
- A qualifying property — bought at the minimum value, or rented at a minimum of €14,000 per year.
- A government contribution and administrative fee, plus a mandatory €2,000 donation to a Maltese NGO.
- Four-tier due diligence — the MPRP is open to third-country nationals only.
See the verified Malta Permanent Residence Programme page. Malta also runs a Nomad Residence Permit — and we corrected a detail there: it can be renewed up to a maximum of four years (one year plus three renewals), not the three years our data previously stated.
Cyprus: no golden passport — but real residence routes remain
Cyprus is the cautionary tale. It ended its citizenship-by-investment ("golden passport") scheme in 2020, and you should be deeply suspicious of any site still selling one. What Cyprus does offer is ordinary residence routes — and a quirk worth knowing: Cyprus is an EU member but is not yet in the Schengen Area (accession is targeted for late 2026), so it issues its own national visas.
- Category F permit — long-term residence for people of independent means (typically retirees) with secured income from abroad; no working in Cyprus.
- Cyprus Digital Nomad Visa — for remote workers earning at least €3,500/month net, renewable up to two years.
- Fast-Track Business Activation permit — work and residence for staff of registered foreign-interest companies.
How we keep this honest
This post accompanies a data correction. We verified that the Greece Golden Visa and Malta MPRP are open (and recorded their current 2026 thresholds), confirmed Cyprus carries no investment-citizenship route, set the renewable flag on ten Greece/Cyprus/Malta residence permits, corrected the Malta Nomad Residence Permit’s maximum duration, and added source-backed refusal reasons to every program reviewed, on 2026-06-22. This follows our earlier correction when Spain abolished its golden visa. Our full method is in the Editorial & Data Standards.