As Malta Golden Passport Likely Ends, Demand For Golden Visa Rises
A high court ruled that Malta must stop its golden passport program but its golden visa program is still in place.
Golden passport and visa programs offer high-net-worth individuals a fast track to citizenship or residency in exchange for substantial investments. Often seen as a gateway to global mobility, these programs provide access to visa-free travel, tax benefits, and enhanced security. However, they are not without controversy, with critics arguing they promote inequality and pose risks of misuse.
The recent declaration by the highest EU court that the Malta golden passport program is illegal has caused a stir. More generally, it's essential to know that:
A golden passport or golden visa program is the name commonly given to Citizenship-by-Investment (CBI) plans that offer a fast track to residency or citizenship to wealthy individuals from third countries who invest money in a country. The amount varies from country to country. For example, Latvia's golden visa is one of the most accessible, offering a golden visa in exchange for €50,000 of investment.
The difference between a golden passport and a golden visa is that passport programs offer immediate citizenship. In the EU, countries mainly offer golden visas that provide residency with a possible path to citizenship in a few years.
Malta is often cited as one of the best programs. For example, the 2025 Global Citizenship Program Index, run by Henley and Partners, residence and citizenship by investment advisors, placed Malta first for the tenth year.
The highest court in the EU has decreed that Malta violated European law in its golden passport program, known formally as Malta's Exceptional Investor Naturalisation (MEIN). The EU Commission said the country was "commercializing" EU citizenship and acting against the reciprocity of other member states. Cyprus ended its golden visa program in 2021 and Bulgaria in 2022.
Via a statement, the Maltese government said it is reviewing the legal implications, and the country must likely end its golden passport program or, as it says, bring it in line with the principles outlined in the judgment. If not, further legal action or financial penalties are possible.
However, companies such as Global Citizen Solutions, an investment migration consultancy firm, expect Malta to uphold the program's conditions for applications in process. Patricia Casaburi, its CEO, adds that "applicants who submitted their files prior to the ruling did so under a valid legal framework."
Global Citizen Solutions also states that those individuals who were granted citizenship via the MEIN process will remain full citizens of Malta and the EU. "The recent ruling by the ECJ does not apply retroactively and does not invalidate citizenships that have already been granted," says Casaburi.
While the ruling impacts Malta's golden passport, Malta's Permanent Residence Programme (MPRP) is a golden visa program that offers permanent residency rights to applicants. It remains fully operational and unaffected by these rulings, per advice from Global Citizen Solutions. This program operates within a different legal framework that continues to be available.
In Global Citizen Solutions' new report, Global Residency and Citizenship by Investment, highlighting trends in investment migration, Caribbean nations led in the rankings for Citizenship by Investment. In the EU, Greece and Malta led the golden visa residency by investment program.
Detractors have long argued that golden visa and golden passport schemes are complicated for several reasons. Critics say these programs promote inequality and are exclusive, creating a two-tier system where wealthy individuals can "buy" rights and privileges unavailable to ordinary citizens. The program, they add, undermines the principle, particularly in the EU, that everyone should have equal access to citizenship and residency.
In 2022, then-Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said, "EU values are not for sale."
Money laundering and organized crime are often linked to golden visa and golden passport programs. For this security reason, many countries, such as the U.K. and Ireland, stopped these programs at the outbreak of the Ukraine war so that Russian nationals could not acquire EU citizenship through these programs. In March 2022, Malta said it too had suspended the processing of Russian and Belarusian nationals.
Outside of the EU, these schemes have been associated with tax evasion and providing sanctuaries for unscrupulous individuals. There is also an economic lens that makes these programs complicated; the invested capital is thought, by some, to benefit a small elite rather than the broader population, and a hotter political potato is that these programs can sometimes inflate real estate prices, meaning that local housing becomes less affordable for residents. For this reason, the golden visa program in Spain ended in April 2025.
The European Court of Justice (CJEU) ruled that Malta's program "amounts to the commercialization of EU citizenship," which undermines the principles of solidarity and mutual trust between member states. The court also argued that EU citizenship should not be treated as a commodity and must involve a "genuine link" between the applicant and the granting country.
The Guardian reported in 2021 that ultra-high-net-worth individuals who didn't have links to the country and had only spent a few weeks there were granted citizenship in Malta. It also reported that many new residents' properties were empty, implying that they had become residents to obtain nationality and free movement across Europe.
There are many advocates of visa and passport investment programs. Before the EU court decision, Prime Minister Robert Abela told the Times of Malta that the MEIN program was safe and beneficial to the country—the Maltese government said that the program has generated more than €1.4 billion in revenues for the government since 2015.
Casaburi, CEO of Global Citizen Solutions, says that "these programs remain legitimate and distinct legal pathways that fall squarely within member states' sovereign competencies regarding residency rights."
She added that individuals "met stringent eligibility requirements, including a residency period in Malta, contributed meaningfully to national development, and successfully passed what is widely regarded as one of the most rigorous due diligence processes globally."
Henley and Partners clearly state that the "trajectory of investor migration remains firmly upward and the ECJ ruling will not change that", and it is likely to increase demand, if anything.
Its Group Head of Private Clients, Dominic Volek, adds that demand from high-net-worth individuals is growing rapidly, "driven by persistent geopolitical uncertainty, rising fiscal pressures in key markets, and a sharpened focus on legacy planning and family security." Its most extensive client base is North American families.
Both Henley and Partners and Global Citizen Solutions expect clients to follow a dual strategy to investment through residency and citizenship, where families seek EU residence rights, with citizenship in reputable third countries. Volek says they anticipate "clients combining EU residence rights with non-EU citizenship options to diversify access and mitigate regulatory or reputational risk. Jurisdictions that offer robust due diligence, clear legal frameworks, and mobility-enhancing benefits—such as Austria (merit-based), Greece (residence and merit-based citizenship), the UAE (residence and citizenship by investment), as well as the Caribbean nations and the first climate-supporting citizenship program in Nauru—will continue to attract strong interest."
In a broader context, Henley and Partners say there are 100 countries worldwide with investment migration legislation—over 60 of these have active programs, with around 30 attracting most applicants.
The company fully expects more to begin or expand because it believes it is a win-win situation; host nations have a vital injection of capital and talent, and offer stability and opportunity for applicants. The U.S., Canada, UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore, and New Zealand are all expanding opportunities, and in that sense, Volek believes the EU is "pulling up the drawbridge when they can least afford to do so."
Whether or not the EU is missing a trick to increase its coffers is a moot point now that the ECJ jas ruled that EU passport options are unfavorable.
Golden passport and visa programs remain polarizing, balancing the promise of economic growth for host nations with concerns over fairness and security. What is clear, though, is that these schemes will continue to operate, regardless of the ECJ ruling on the Malta golden passport program, and indeed, many believe they will continue to grow in popularity.
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