Spain closed its golden visa to new applicants on 3 April 2025, so the head to head that most articles still publish measures EB-5 against a route you can no longer take. Permits granted before that date keep renewing under the old rules. This page sets out what the Spanish program offered while it lasted and what an investor can still do there now. Both are then measured against the American option, which asks $800,000 for a project that creates ten US jobs and ends in a green card for the whole household.
What did the Spanish golden visa actually buy?
Ley 14/2013 created it, and property was the door almost everyone used. Half a million euros of Spanish real estate, unencumbered on that first €500,000. Two heavier doors existed for people who preferred paper: €2 million in Spanish government debt, or €1 million in shares of a Spanish company or a deposit at a Spanish bank.
Renewals were light. A single trip to Spain during each permit period was enough to keep the card alive, and the required period grew longer over the years rather than shorter. That is why so many buyers never actually moved.
Citizenship was the weak point. Naturalization in Spain requires ten years of genuine legal residence, cut to two years for nationals of Ibero-American countries and a short list of others, and that clock measures real presence rather than possession of a card. A buyer who flew in twice a year for a decade never came close to a Spanish passport. Spain also refuses dual nationality outside that Ibero-American group, so a successful applicant normally renounces the passport they arrived with.
The EB-5 bargain: $800,000 and ten jobs
EB-5 asks $800,000 when the project sits inside a Targeted Employment Area and $1,050,000 when it does not. Capital has to be genuinely at risk. It also has to produce ten full time jobs for qualifying US workers, counted per investor. That job requirement has no European equivalent at all. USCIS sets out the framework on its EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program overview.
Approval of Form I-526E, Immigrant Petition by Regional Center Investor opens the way to two years of conditional permanent residence for the investor plus a spouse and any unmarried children under 21, once a visa number is available and the family either adjusts status inside the country or collects visas at a consulate. Form I-829 removes the conditions at the end of that period. Naturalization opens five years after the card is first granted, and the conditional years count toward it.
Two dates now matter more than the price. Regional center authorization runs to 30 September 2027, and any petition filed by 30 September 2026 is grandfathered so it stays adjudicable even if Congress lets the authorization lapse. The first inflation adjustment to the $800,000 figure falls due on 1 January 2027.
Do not confuse EB-5 with buying a condo in Florida
Searches for eb5 real estate and eb5 florida real estate usually come from people who assume the two are a single transaction. A $900,000 apartment in Miami creates no jobs, supports no petition and buys no status. Owning American property has never given a foreign national the right to live in the United States.
Most regional center offerings do involve construction. Your money enters a new commercial enterprise. That entity lends it to a developer, and an economist counts the jobs the development spending supports using a model USCIS accepts. An investor who wires $800,000 into a Miami hotel deal through a regional center ends up owning units in a fund that owns a loan, and the security behind that loan is the developer's project rather than any apartment the investor could occupy or resell. Nobody gets a key.
Spain worked the other way round. The deed was the whole qualification, and nobody asked about employment.
One consequence follows from that difference. Under EB-5 the project can underperform and you may still keep the green card, provided the capital stayed at risk for the required period and the ten jobs materialized. Under the Spanish rules the asset stayed yours, yet it was frozen for as long as you wanted the permit.
How does each status tax you?
A US permanent resident becomes a US tax resident on the first day of the card, taxed on worldwide income wherever they happen to live. The IRS states the rule plainly on its page about determining an individual's tax residency status. Foreign accounts crossing $10,000 in aggregate get reported to FinCEN through the report of foreign bank and financial accounts. FATCA sits on top of that.
A Spanish golden visa carried none of this for a holder who stayed under 183 days a year, because Spanish tax residence attaches to presence and to the center of economic interests rather than to the permit.
That gap is the honest cost comparison. Half a million euros in Madrid without tax residence was a lighter lifetime commitment than $800,000 plus permanent US filing, and the same arithmetic applies to the Portuguese route and the Greek program, both of which are still open.
Count the days you must actually spend there
Spanish golden visa holders could live wherever they liked. Green card holders cannot. Extended absence invites a finding that permanent residence was abandoned, and USCIS describes its expectations under maintaining permanent residence. A reentry permit buys up to two years abroad and solves nothing beyond that.
Families who want a European base and an American one often end up looking at a treaty route instead. Our comparison of the E-2 treaty investor visa covers that trade in detail, including the reason an E-2 never becomes a green card on its own.
What is left in Spain after the repeal
Nothing took the golden visa's place. Spain repealed the investor route without legislating a successor, so money alone no longer buys Spanish residence, which is exactly what the repeal was designed to achieve after years of political argument about housing costs in Madrid and Barcelona. What remains are three ordinary permits that already existed alongside it, none of them an investor route.
The non lucrative visa suits somebody living on passive income who accepts that it forbids work inside Spain. The digital nomad visa, created by the 2022 startup law, fits a remote employee of a foreign company, and qualifying holders can elect a special regime that taxes Spanish employment income at a flat 24 percent up to €600,000. An entrepreneur visa still exists for business plans certified as being of general economic interest. That certification is no formality.
Your choice comes down to one question
Do you want to live and work in the United States, or do you want optionality in Europe at the lowest possible cost? An investor whose children will attend American universities, or whose business already sells into the American market, should take the EB-5 route despite the price and the queue. Somebody who wants Schengen access and a holiday base with no tax entanglement should look at the EU programs that survived, and should read our overview of investor programs worldwide before wiring anything.
One warning to finish on. These programs shut with very little notice. Spain proved it in 2025, Portugal removed its property option in 2023, and a route that exists on the day you sign a subscription agreement may be gone by the time your funds clear.