Golden Visa Minimum Stay Requirements: The Days You Must Spend, Country by Country (2026)

Residence-by-investment is marketed on the investment and lives or dies on something cheaper: minimum-presence rules. Renewals, permanence and eventual citizenship all hang on whether you spent enough days in the country, and the thresholds vary wildly. As with everything in this space, programmes change abruptly: Spain's golden visa closed to new applicants in April 2025, a useful reminder that this table has a shelf life. Updated 10 August 2026.

The headline comparison

• Portugal: the famous low bar, 7 days in the first year, then 14 days in each subsequent two-year permit period keeps the permit alive, which is why Portugal's programme (now investment-fund based, the property route having closed in 2023) remains the choice of people not ready to relocate. Verify current rules with AIMA, the agency that replaced SEF.
• Greece: formally no minimum stay to keep the permit, the most absentee-friendly design in Europe, though investment thresholds rose sharply and vary by region.
• Other programmes each set their own floors, and elective-residence style visas (like Italy's ERV or Portugal's D7) typically expect far more genuine presence than investor routes.

The citizenship catch

Minimum-stay rules keep the permit; they rarely satisfy the citizenship path on their own. Portugal's five-year naturalisation timeline, the programme's deepest appeal, runs on lawful residence years rather than heavy presence, but language and connection requirements still apply, and rules here have been politically volatile. Greece's citizenship, by contrast, requires substantial genuine residence that a zero-stay permit never builds. Anyone whose plan ends in a passport should model the citizenship requirements, not just the renewal ones.

The tax boundary

Minimum days keep you under tax residency as much as above renewal floors: 183 days in Portugal or Greece brings worldwide taxation the same as for anyone else (see the Portugal and Greece guides). Golden-visa holders therefore often run a corridor: enough days to renew, few enough to stay non-resident, in each of several countries. That is a multi-rule counting problem.

Corridor counting

The Days Monitor iPhone app handles exactly this shape: minimum and maximum custom rules per country (7-day floors, 183-day ceilings, Schengen 90/180 for the rest of the area), automatic logging, and exportable evidence for renewals. Download it on the App Store.

Sources

• AIMA, Portuguese migration agency (accessed 10 August 2026)
• Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, visas (accessed 10 August 2026)

This article is general information, not legal, tax or immigration advice. Immigration rules change frequently and are applied to individual facts; verify current requirements with the official sources linked above and take advice from a qualified professional before making decisions.