Portugal Golden Visa vs the D7
One asks for €500,000. The other asks for about €11,000 a year of passive income. They are not competing products — they suit two different people, and the difference is not money.
Before you spend €500,000
You may not need a Golden Visa at all.
Portugal's D7 asks for €11,040 a year of passive income instead of €500,000 of capital — the same ten years to citizenship, but you have to actually live there.
Golden Visa
€500,000
of capital
Into a qualifying investment fund, exposed to its performance.
About 7 days a year in Portugal.
D7 — passive income
€11,040
a year of income
€920 a month of pensions, rent, dividends or interest. No capital at risk.
You have to live there.
Golden Visa
D7 — passive income
What it actually is
Golden Visa
Residence by investment
D7 — passive income
Residence by passive income
The financial test
Golden Visa
€500,000 into a qualifying investment fund
D7 — passive income
€920 a month of passive income — €11,040 a year
The D7 threshold is indexed to the Portuguese minimum wage and rises most Januaries. Pensions, rent, dividends, royalties and interest qualify; salary does not.
Adding your family
Golden Visa
Spouse and dependants included in the investment
D7 — passive income
+50% for a spouse, +30% for each dependent child
A couple with two children needs roughly €1,932 a month, or €23,184 a year.
Also required
Golden Visa
Nothing beyond the investment and due diligence
D7 — passive income
Around 12 months of income held in a Portuguese bank, plus a property owned or rented in Portugal
Time you must spend in Portugal
Golden Visa
About 7 days a year, on average
D7 — passive income
You have to live there
The legal mechanism is an absence limit: no more than 6 consecutive or 8 non-consecutive months away during the permit period. In practice renewal expects roughly 16 months of the first 24 spent in Portugal. Sources differ on how to express this as a day count, which is why the absence rule is quoted rather than a number.
Permanent residence
Golden Visa
After 5 years
D7 — passive income
After 5 years
Citizenship
Golden Visa
10 years — or 7 for EU and CPLP nationals
D7 — passive income
10 years — or 7 for EU and CPLP nationals
Changed by Lei Orgânica 1/2026, in force for applications filed from 19 May 2026. It replaced a universal 5-year rule. Both routes now run the same clock — but on the D7 you must be living in Portugal throughout it.
Capital at risk
Golden Visa
€500,000, exposed to fund performance
D7 — passive income
None — it is an income test, not an investment
Who it genuinely suits
Golden Visa
Someone who wants the option, and does not intend to move
D7 — passive income
Someone who intends to actually live in Portugal
The only question that decides it
Do you want to move to Portugal, or do you want the option to?
If you genuinely intend to move, take the D7 and keep your €500,000. If you want the option without rearranging your life, the D7 cannot give it to you at any price — you would lose the permit.
Since May 2026 both routes take the same ten years to citizenship, seven on an EU or CPLP passport. What separates them is what they ask of you in the meantime.
Sources
Thresholds move. The D7 income test is indexed to the Portuguese minimum wage and changes most Januaries. Reviewed September 2026; check the position before relying on it.
Only one of these two routes pays a commission, which is why you rarely see them side by side. Reviewed September 2026; the D7 income test is indexed to the Portuguese minimum wage and moves each January.
What changed in May 2026, and why it matters more than the price
Until 2026 the D7 had a genuinely powerful argument: the same Portuguese citizenship after five years, for a fraction of the capital. Lei Orgânica 1/2026 removed it. Naturalisation now takes ten years for most nationalities and seven for EU and CPLP nationals, and the clock runs from the issue of your first residence permit rather than from application.
Both routes now run the same clock. The Golden Visa's presence requirement was left unchanged, so it reaches the same citizenship on roughly seven days a year while the D7 requires a decade of actual residence. If the destination is a Portuguese passport and you do not want to relocate, the cheaper route stopped being the shortcut.
That cuts the other way too. If you were always going to move, none of this is a cost — you would be living there anyway, and the D7 gets you the same outcome without committing half a million euros to a fund.
Which one fits?
Thirty minutes, no obligation, and if the answer is the D7 you will be told so — it is the outcome that earns nothing here.