The Smart Way to Lock in EU Residency—Without Leaving Home

Want a plan B if things go south in the US? Well you’d better start planning now… because things are changing fast.

Six years ago, Americans barely registered in the migration “market.” Said market was almost exclusively the domain of high-net-worth individuals from middle-income countries seeking expanded travel access and thus better passports.

Today, that status quo has been turned upside down: Americans now dominate the client books of a number of major migration consultancies.

That’s because American motivations for moving abroad have changed radically. In 2019, 65% of Americans looking for a second residency or passport were concerned about travel freedom. Few were worried about domestic political stability.

Today, the biggest single driver is concern about unrest or military conflict in the United States, followed closely by the desire to move assets out of the country.

I see this in my workhere at International Living, especially in crafting my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint. The evidence shows up in the types of residency options people seek.

Just a few years ago, most people looking for a foreign residency were ready to move, or very close to it. Most of them sought a passive income visa, like Portugal’s D7 or Greece’s Financially Independent Persons status.

For them, the transaction is simple: if you have enough monthly passive income, you can move abroad with little trouble.

The problem is that on that passive income status, you must move abroad. In Europe, at least, there aren’t any passive income visas that allow you to spend less than six months a year in the country. That’s by design: countries want your spending, and arguably more importantly, your taxes, which are triggered by spending 183 days a year in the country.

However, in mid-2025, through consulting with my clients, I detected a shift. Once people realised they had to move abroad right away on a passive income visa (or on a digital nomad visa), they asked for other options. How, they wanted to know, can I get permission to live in Europe without having to do so until I’m ready?

Before I explain how to do that, let’s consider why someone would want to be in that position.

Between a quarter and a third of the people who consult with me are still working in some capacity. Most have jobs that require their physical presence. Moving abroad right away isn’t an option.

But it’s a sign of the times that such people want to be able to do so at the drop of a hat: the classic “Plan B.” Just like people from middle income countries who acquired residency rights were second citizenship elsewhere in case staying at home became untenable, Americans are looking for the security of knowing they can flee the country at a moment’s notice.

And for Europe at least, there’s only one way to do that: a golden visa.

Not too long ago, golden visas were all about buying residential property. The most famous was the Portuguese permit, which gave you five-year renewable residency rights if you bought a home worth at least €250,000. You didn’t have to spend much time in the country. If and when things at home became untenable, you packed your bags and headed to Portugal. In the meantime, you rented out your property there on the Airbnb market and made a lot of money.

Those days are gone. It’s still possible to get residency through real estate investment in several EU member states, but it’s becoming more expensive, with more additional requirements. (Most importantly, few countries allow you to put your investment property on the short-term rental market). Instead, European countries are pushing golden visa applicants towards investments with benefits for their entire economies, not just their property markets.

That’s why, today, if you want European residency without having to use it until you need it, you’ll be asked to invest in some sort of business. The outcome of your investment must be jobs and/or technology transfer. We’re not talking about starting a new restaurant or a boutique, either. We’re talking startups, preferably in a technology sector.

The problem is that few people have the resources or knowledge to do that. They might be willing to invest in a promising business venture, but they have no idea how to find one. It’s a bit like the old residential property visas, which required expert help in the target country to find suitable properties.

The good news is that just as immigration specialists in Europe folded real estate operations into their offerings to accommodate that, today they’re starting to do the same thing with business investment.

Instead of logging onto an immigration agent’s website and looking at qualifying properties, today you might get access to a list of qualifying investment opportunities. Some of them might be looking for skills transfer and a bit of a hand on role investor, but most of them are just happy just to get a cash injection. The key thing is that the business has qualified with the government’s immigration program as a suitable investment for golden visa purposes.

Qualifying business investments for golden visas are often far lower than property-based visas. Several desirable European destinations will give you a five-year renewable residency permit with little or no physical presence requirement in exchange for a €100,000 investment in a start-up company. By contrast, the lowest priced residential investment that will get you into Europe is around €250,000.

So how does one find these opportunities and pursue them? The starting point is to join my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint.

Over the last several years, I’ve built and maintained a deep network of immigration specialists, tax advisors, and on-the-ground service providers across Europe and beyond. I stay in close contact with them, tracking how residency and investment rules shift in real time—and translating those changes into clear, usable guidance for International Living readers.

Inside my Global Citizen Prosperity Blueprint, I show you how these programs actually work today, where the realistic opportunities still exist, and how people like you can position themselves to secure European residency and long-term options—often without having to relocate full-time right away.