Does buying a home give residency or citizenship in Portugal, Spain or the UK? (2026)

Does buying a home give residency in Portugal, Spain or the UK?

No. In all three, a home bought there gives no right to live there. Portugal and Spain used to offer residence permits to people who invested in property, the so-called golden visas, and both have ended them:

	Property route	Ended	Law
Portugal	Residence permit for investment by buying property	No new applications from 7 October 2023	Lei 56/2023, article 42
Spain	Investor visa and residence permit, including buying property	Removed from 3 April 2025	Ley Orgánica 1/2025, final provision 21
UK	None

Each country has other routes, such as work, family or study visas, with their own conditions, which this guide does not cover.

Can you still get a Portugal golden visa by buying property?

No. Lei 56/2023 of 6 October 2023, the “Mais Habitação” housing law, stopped new applications for the investment residence permit (autorização de residência para atividade de investimento) under the routes in Lei 23/2007, article 3(1)(d), sub-paragraphs i), iii) and iv): a plain transfer of capital and the two routes based on buying property (article 42(1)). Article 53(d) repeals those sub-paragraphs. The law came into force on the day after its publication (article 55), so from 7 October 2023.

The investment routes that remain, such as funds that are not real estate funds or a company that creates jobs, now carry a condition: they “não se podem destinar, direta ou indiretamente, ao investimento imobiliário”, they cannot be directed, directly or indirectly, into real estate investment (Lei 23/2007, article 3(5), as amended by article 44).

People who already had a permit kept some rights:

• permits granted under the old rules can still be renewed, and family reunification permits too (article 42(2) and (3));
• on renewal they become residence permits for immigrant entrepreneurs, with a minimum stay of 7 days in the first year and 14 days in each later two-year period (article 42(5));
• applications already waiting for a decision on 7 October 2023 stayed valid (article 43).

Does buying property in Spain still give a golden visa?

No. Ley Orgánica 1/2025 of 2 January 2025 emptied articles 63 to 67 of Ley 14/2013, the articles on visas and residence permits for investors, which included the route for buying property in Spain (final provision 21). The law entered into force three months after its publication in the official gazette on 3 January 2025 (final provision 38), so the change applies from 3 April 2025.

Two transitional rules, added to Ley 14/2013 by the same provision:

• investors and their family members who applied before that date can receive the visa or permit under the rules in force when they applied;
• visas and permits already valid keep their validity for the time they were issued for, and renewals are decided under the rules in force when the first permit was granted.

Does the UK give a visa for buying property?

No. None of the UK’s visa routes, listed on GOV.UK by work, study, family, settlement and protection, is based on buying a home. The UK’s investor visa, Tier 1 (Investor), closed to new applications at 4pm on 17 February 2022 (Statement of Changes in Immigration Rules CP 632, explanatory memorandum), and GOV.UK confirms that a new Tier 1 (Investor) visa can no longer be applied for. The right to live in the UK comes from immigration status, not from owning a home there.

Can buying property lead to citizenship?

No. The golden visas that Portugal and Spain ended were residence permits, not citizenship. Citizenship by naturalisation is a separate process under each country’s nationality law. In Spain, the Civil Code requires ten years of legal residence in general, with shorter periods for some groups (article 22); the test is years of residence, and owning property plays no part in it.

Does buying a home make you tax resident?

Not by itself. Each country’s income tax test looks first at time spent in the country:

	Main test	Where a home comes in
Portugal	More than 183 days, in a row or not, in any 12-month period starting or ending in the year (IRS Code, article 16(1)(a))	A shorter stay counts if, on any day of that period, the person has a home there in conditions that suggest they intend to keep and occupy it as their habitual residence (article 16(1)(b))
Spain	More than 183 days in the calendar year (IRPF law, article 9.1.a)	Not a test; the other test is the main base of the person’s activities or economic interests (article 9.1.b)
UK	183 days or more in the tax year (statutory residence test)	Having the only home in the UK for 91 days in a row, and spending at least 30 days in it, is one of the automatic tests; otherwise days are weighed with ties such as work or family (GOV.UK)

So owning a home counts for something only in Portugal and the UK, and only alongside time spent there. England’s stamp duty uses its own day count, separate from the income tax test (SDLTM09880).

What does residency change in the buying costs?

Tax residence, not a visa, is what the purchase taxes look at. In Portugal, a buyer who is not tax resident pays IMT at a flat 7.5%: €24,900 in tax on a €300,000 home, against €12,942.04 for a resident buying their own permanent home. In England, a buyer who has not spent 183 days in the UK pays 2% on top of stamp duty. Spain charges residents and non-residents the same. The moving abroad section shows what changes before and after a move, and the non-resident buyers section compares the three countries.

What this guide does not cover

• Other visa routes (work, retirement, family, study, digital nomad) and how to apply.
• Portugal’s nationality law, and the details of naturalisation in either country.
• Investment routes that do not involve property.
• Income tax, capital gains tax and the year of a move.

Work out what a buyer pays in Portugal before becoming resident