Golden visa cost and time in 2026: what the official sources actually publish

The premise, narrowed

A cross-programme table of "golden visa cost and time" is a standard artefact of investment-migration marketing, and it rests on two figures that governments largely do not publish: a total all-in cost, and an average processing time. This article does not reproduce either. What follows is built only on what first-party government and agency pages state, checked on 4 October 2026, and where no figure exists the absence is recorded as the finding.

Eleven routes below publish a minimum capital figure on an official page. Four routes that are routinely listed as open are not, and the reasons are given. Of the eleven, only four publish any duration for an initial decision or qualification stage, and two of those durations belong to a sub-stage rather than to the process as a whole. No government in this set publishes a decision time for Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, Malta, Türkiye, Hong Kong, Québec, Italy end-to-end, or St Kitts and Nevis.

Two conventions govern every number here. "Official cost" means the investment threshold the authority itself publishes plus the government-set fees stated on the same page. It is not a total: legal fees, agent fees, tax, exchange and funding costs are published by nobody and are therefore excluded rather than estimated. "Official time" means a duration the page states for the initial decision or the qualification stage. A visa validity period, a renewal deadline, an applicant-side deadline, or a committee stage inside a longer process is labelled as what it is.

Routes that confer residence

Portugal — AIMA, Authorisation of Residence for Investment (Article 90-G/A)

The Portuguese authority publishes this as an authorisation of residence for investment activity. Two of its capital routes are stated verbatim on the AIMA page: a transfer of capital of €250,000 or more applied in artistic investment or support for the production, recovery or maintenance of national cultural heritage; and a transfer of €500,000 or more for units in non-real-estate collective investment undertakings whose maturity, at the time of investment, is at least five years, and of which at least 60% of the investment value is realised in commercial companies seated in Portugal.

No decision time is published on this page.

Greece — Ministry of Interior, change of use to residence

Greece's Ministry of Interior publishes the investor residence permit by change of use, at the initial granting stage. The applicant must hold, in full ownership and possession, real property whose principal spaces are being converted to residential use, with a minimum acquisition value at the time of acquisition of €250,000.

This page does publish a duration: a completion deadline of 50 days. That figure is the initial issuance deadline for this change-of-use subtype. It is not a general processing guarantee for Greek investor residence, and it should not be carried across to the programme as a whole.

United Arab Emirates — u.ae, Golden Visa

The UAE government portal states a minimum capital of AED 2 million, and in the same investor cell refers to property ownership or contribution to an establishment paying at least AED 250,000 annually in taxes.

No decision time is published. The 10-year and 5-year figures on that page are validity periods, not processing times.

Cyprus — Civil Registry and Migration Department

Cyprus's Civil Registry and Migration Department publishes immigration permits for investors as a permanent residence route. The applicant must invest at least €300,000 in one of the listed investment categories.

This is one of the few pages that states an examination period: approximately two months, starting from the submission date of the completed application.

Malta — Residence Malta, Malta Permanent Residence Programme

Malta's open investor route is the Malta Permanent Residence Programme, published by Residence Malta. It is permanent residence. It is not citizenship.

The property requirement is met either by renting a qualifying residential property in Malta, including Gozo, at a minimum annual rent of €14,000, or by purchasing a qualifying residential property at a minimum value of €375,000. The qualifying property must be retained for a minimum period of five years. As part of the application, applicants pay a non-refundable administrative fee of €60,000 and a Government contribution of €37,000, and a fee of €7,500 applies for each adult dependant, excluding the spouse.

No numeric time is published. The page says applicants are guided through a structured application process with decisions communicated within a reasonable timeframe.

Thailand — Board of Investment, Long-Term Resident (Wealthy Global Citizens)

The Thailand Board of Investment publishes the Long-Term Resident visa, Wealthy Global Citizens category. The threshold is investment in Thailand of at least USD 500,000 in the applicant's name, which can be in one or a combination of the listed forms.

The published duration is 20 working days for notification of the qualifications endorsement result, with the page noting that processing may take longer if additional documents are requested. That is the endorsement stage. It is not visa issuance, and no issuance time is published.

Hong Kong — Immigration Department, New Capital Investment Entrant Scheme

Hong Kong's Immigration Department publishes the New CIES. The applicant makes an investment of not less than HK$30 million net, or the equivalent in foreign currencies, in permissible investment assets to which he or she is absolutely beneficially entitled.

No initial decision time is published. The timing sentence on the page concerns extension of stay, and states that actual processing time is subject to the specific circumstances of individual applications and the number of applications received at the time.

Canada — Québec Investor Program

Québec publishes this as a permanent immigration route for business immigrants. Applications may be submitted at any time, and there is no maximum number of applications to be received.

The financial requirement is stated as a pair: no later than 120 days following the date on which the Ministère requests it, the applicant's financial intermediary must make a five-year term investment of CDN $1,000,000 and make a financial contribution of CDN $200,000 to Investissement Québec Immigrants Investisseurs inc.

No government decision time is published.

Routes that confer citizenship

Türkiye — Investment Office, citizenship by investment

The Investment Office of Türkiye publishes two figures for the acquisition of Turkish citizenship by investment. The property route is the acquisition of property worth a minimum of USD 400,000 or equivalent foreign currency, with a title deed restriction on its resale for at least three years, as attested by the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change. The deposit route is depositing a minimum of USD 500,000 or equivalent foreign currency in banks operating in Türkiye, on condition that it is not withdrawn for at least three years, as attested by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency.

No decision time is published. The widely repeated USD 600,000 deposit figure is contradicted by this official page and is not reproduced here.

St Kitts and Nevis — Citizenship by Investment Unit

The Citizenship by Investment Unit publishes three qualifying routes and a full fee schedule.

Under the Sustainable Island State Contribution, the minimum contribution is US$250,000 for a main applicant or a family of up to four members, with US$25,000 for each additional dependant under 18 and US$50,000 for each additional dependant aged 18 or over. Due diligence fees are US$10,000 for the main applicant and US$7,500 for each dependant aged 16 or over.

Under the real estate route, US$325,000, resaleable after seven years, is paid to the developer for each main applicant; alternatively US$600,000 or more, depending on the specific development, for full ownership. Under the Public Benefit Option, US$250,000 is invested in a unit of an Approved Public Benefit Project, paid to the Unit.

Post-approval fees are published as US$10,000 for the main applicant, US$15,000 for a spouse, US$10,000 for any qualified dependant under 18 and US$15,000 for any qualified dependant aged 18 or over; the process page summarises post-approval fees as ranging from US$10,000 to US$25,000 depending on dependants.

No numeric decision time is published. The Unit also states that applications cannot be submitted directly to it, and that for reasons of national security and public safety applications from citizens of Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Russia are not accepted.

Four routes commonly assumed to be open that are not

Spain. The nationality-by-investment route was closed and abolished. Any figure still circulating for it describes a route that no longer accepts applicants.

Malta citizenship by investment. The investor limb was deleted from the law by the Malta Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2025 (Act XXI of 2025), with effect since 24 July 2025. What remains open in Malta is the MPRP residence scheme described above. A Maltese passport obtained through investment is not an available outcome, and the MPRP figures must not be presented as a citizenship price.

United Kingdom. The gov.uk page for Tier 1 (Investor) states: "You can no longer apply for a new Tier 1 (Investor) visa." The £2 million figure associated with that route is an extension-eligibility condition, not an open-application threshold.

Japan. The Highly Skilled Professional status carries no investment threshold at all; it is a points-based work and residency qualification, not an investment visa. The JPY 30 million figure widely attached to Japan belongs to a separate status, Business Manager, whose Ministry of Justice page states that capital of ¥30 million or more is required. Japan's Ministry of Justice does publish priority handling for Highly Skilled Professionals — aimed-at durations of within 10 days for pre-entry screening applications and within 5 days for residence screening applications from receipt — but these are stated as targets for priority processing, not as a service standard, and they are attached to a route with no capital requirement.

Structural differences that change real cost and real time

Published thresholds are not comparable in the way a single league table implies, because the sequence of payment differs.

In St Kitts and Nevis the investment is made after the decision, not before it. The Unit's own process steps are explicit: an applicant waits for the CIU to process the application including a comprehensive due diligence check, and upon successful completion receives an approval-in-principle letter; the investment is made once that letter is issued. Capital is therefore committed only at the back end of the process, with due diligence fees and, later, post-approval fees falling either side of it. In most of the residence routes above the investment must be in place before or as the application is made, which is a different cash and risk profile even where the headline number is smaller.

Holding periods extend the commitment beyond the application. Türkiye requires a title deed restriction on resale for at least three years on the property route and a non-withdrawal condition of at least three years on the deposit route. Malta requires the qualifying property to be retained for a minimum of five years. Portugal's fund route requires a maturity of at least five years at the time of investment. St Kitts and Nevis permits resale of the US$325,000 real estate interest after seven years. These are lock-up terms on the official page, not market conventions.

Some published durations measure the wrong clock. Québec's 120 days is an applicant-side deadline: it runs from the date on which the Ministère requests the investment, and it governs when the financial intermediary must act. It says nothing about how long the government takes. Italy's 30 days is a committee sub-stage: the result of the Committee's assessment is issued within 30 days on the Investor Visa for Italy portal, which also carries the caveat that the page contains an overview of the different application phases and might not be fully up to date. The threshold published there, €250,000 in an Italian innovative startup, is one of four listed options. Greece's 50 days and Thailand's 20 working days are, respectively, an initial issuance deadline for one subtype and a qualification endorsement notification period.

Currency is the last obstacle to any cross-programme arithmetic. The published figures are set in euros, US dollars, UAE dirham, Hong Kong dollars, Canadian dollars and Turkish-dollar equivalents. No conversion is offered here, and none should be performed without checking which currency the authority will actually accept on the day of payment.

What to verify before you commit

Pull the primary page yourself and read the threshold sentence in full, in the authority's own words, rather than a summary of it. For each route, confirm three things on that page: the exact qualifying amount, the identity of the body that receives or attests it, and any lock-up attached to it.

Ask the authority, in writing, whether a decision or endorsement time is published at all, and in what unit — working days, calendar days, or months from which event. If the answer is that no time is published, treat every average you have been given as an estimate with no official source.

Separate the four distinct clocks that get conflated: the government's decision time, the applicant's own deadline to act, the validity period of the visa once granted, and any internal committee or endorsement stage. Confirm which one a quoted figure belongs to.

For citizenship routes, confirm the legal basis as it stands on the date you act, not as it stood when a summary was written. The Maltese investor limb was removed by a named statute on a named date; that is the kind of change that renders a published schedule obsolete overnight.

Finally, obtain the fee schedule from the authority and check which fees are refundable and which are not. Malta's €60,000 administrative fee is stated on the official page as non-refundable. Where a page does not say, assume nothing and ask.