Golden Visa fund investment option: comparing Greece, Portugal, and Hungary

Investment funds are becoming a preferred route under Golden Visa programs. In Portugal alone, approvals rose from just 7 in 2019 to 352 in 2023, with over €125 million invested that year. This growing trend reflects broader shifts in investor priorities and government policy.

1. Real estate restrictions have redirected demand

Countries such as Portugal and Hungary have removed real estate from their Golden Visa programmes, while Greece has significantly raised its minimum investment threshold. These changes have redirected demand toward fund-based options.

In response, governments and asset managers are offering specialised funds focused on sectors like green energy, AI, and tourism — aligning with both national economic goals and modern investor values.

2. Predictable capital exit

Exiting a direct property or business investment depends on market timing and finding a buyer, which can take months and involve inspections, listings, and legal procedures.

In contrast, while fund units must be held for a minimum period, they often allow for smoother exits through planned redemptions or secondary market mechanisms — offering more predictable liquidity once the lock-in period ends.

3. Professional diversification

Fund portfolios are managed by licensed professionals and typically spread across multiple sectors and asset types. This diversification reduces risk and removes the burden of individual asset selection, offering investors a hands-off alternative to managing physical property or business.

4. Generating passive income

Many other Golden Visa routes require non-refundable contributions or active business involvement. In contrast, funds are designed to generate passive returns.

Investors not only secure residency but also retain the potential to earn income during the holding period — allowing their capital to remain productive without day-to-day engagement.

5. Transparency and investor protection

Funds approved for Golden Visa participation must comply with strict financial and legal standards. They operate under clear frameworks for eligibility, reporting, and investment governance. This adds transparency and reduces uncertainty.

While fund-based residency is available in Greece, Portugal, and Hungary, each country sets distinct legal, geographic, and sectoral requirements that directly impact investor outcomes. The comparison below outlines how much you need to invest, where your capital can go, which fund structures are permitted, and what investment strategies dominate in each market.

While Greece’s Golden Visa program is best known for its real estate route, investment in qualifying funds is becoming a strong alternative — offering the same residency benefits with fewer ownership burdens and more diversified capital allocation.

Unlike direct property purchases, fund participation eliminates the need to manage, maintain, or resell a specific asset. Investors gain exposure to professionally managed portfolios and benefit from reduced concentration risk across multiple sectors.

Investment threshold — €350,000

The minimum investment for Golden Visa eligible funds is €350,000 — below the €400,000 or €800,000 thresholds now applied to most property purchases. The lower €250,000 tier is restricted to renovation projects, often with complex approval procedures and resale constraints.

Eligibility

To qualify for the Greece Golden Visa program, a fund must:

• maintain a minimum net asset value, NAV, of €3 million;
• be managed by a company licensed by an EU-recognised capital market authority;
• be established in Greece or another EU country, but invest exclusively in Greece;
• use a Greek-based custodian bank to hold investor funds and ensure local compliance.

These safeguards are designed to ensure transparency and regulatory oversight at every stage, reducing legal and counterparty risks for foreign investors.

Fund types

Two types of funds qualify under the Greek Golden Visa:

1. Mutual Funds, which must invest solely in financial instruments listed on regulated Greek markets — including domestic equities, corporate bonds, and sovereign debt.
2. Alternative Investment Funds, AIFs, which are restricted to Greek real estate, covering residential, commercial, or hospitality assets.

Minimum holding period — 5 years

To retain residency, fund units must be held for a minimum of 5 years. Early redemption or exit from the investment may result in loss of resident status.

Among the five investment routes available under Portugal’s Golden Visa, fund investment has become the most popular. This route requires a minimum of €500,000 in qualifying fund units and offers flexibility, diversification, and strong regulatory oversight.

Investors can allocate their capital across multiple eligible funds, as long as the total investment meets the €500,000 threshold. This flexibility — not available in the Greek or Hungarian programmes — allows applicants to tailor portfolios by risk, sector, or strategy.

Fund strategies

Portuguese funds span a wide spectrum of strategies. Many focus on foundational sectors — such as infrastructure, energy, agriculture, and hospitality — aligned with government development priorities. Others operate in higher-growth or niche segments, including technology, data centres, football management, and digital assets.

Eligibility

All funds must be managed by licensed companies under the supervision of the Portuguese Securities Market Commission, CMVM. Compliance with EU-level Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer regulations is also mandatory. 

To qualify for the Portugal Golden Visa program, a fund must:

• invest at least 60% of its capital in Portuguese companies;
• avoid residential real estate in Lisbon, Porto, and other high-density urban areas, where such investment is explicitly prohibited under Golden Visa to prevent market distortion.

Fund types

Most eligible vehicles are closed-end funds, which follow a defined lifecycle: capital is raised, deployed, managed, and divested over a fixed term, typically 8 to 12 years. These funds are illiquid by design — units cannot be redeemed before maturity — but offer structured, exit-driven returns.

Open-end funds are less common but available. These continuously issue and redeem units at net asset value, NAV, allowing for rolling entry and exit. While they provide greater liquidity, they often cap exposure to higher-risk or shorter-duration strategies.

Minimum holding period — 5 years

To maintain residency, fund units must be held for at least 5 years.

In practice, however, most closed-end funds have longer life cycles. Investors commit capital for 8—12 years, with exit possible only after assets are sold and returns distributed.

Yields — 2 to 20% per year

Portuguese Golden Visa funds vary widely in structure and ambition. Understanding how risk maps to expected return is essential:

1. Low-risk funds invest in diversified, stable sectors — often government-aligned. They prioritise capital preservation and may deliver steady returns around 2—5% per year.
2. Medium-risk funds target sectors with higher growth potential. These typically aim for 5—10% annual yields, balancing opportunity with moderate volatility.
3. High-risk funds pursue aggressive strategies in areas like startups, crypto, or single-asset exposure. With targeted yields of 10—20%, they demand a tolerance for illiquidity, delayed exit, and elevated downside risk.

In this spectrum, investors must weigh long-term residency goals against their own return expectations, liquidity needs, and risk appetite. The Portugal fund route offers unmatched diversity — but extracting its value requires careful portfolio construction and regulatory alignment.

In Portugal, subscription and maintenance fees are built into the fund unit price, so investors don’t pay them separately

Hungary offers two investment routes under its Golden Visa program, one of which is via licensed investment funds. With a minimum threshold of €250,000, it is currently the most affordable fund-based residency option in the EU.

Eligibility

All Golden Visa funds must be pre-approved by the Hungarian government. The full list of licensed funds is published by the National Bank of Hungary and regularly updated. In addition, these funds are bound by EU regulatory standards, including strict Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer obligations.

To qualify, funds must allocate at least 40% of capital to Hungarian real estate — including residential developments, logistics centres, hotels, and commercial properties. The remaining portfolio may include bonds, debt instruments, collective investment schemes, and derivatives. This blend supports a conservative strategy focused on capital stability rather than aggressive growth.

Yields — up to 6%

Authorised funds are positioned as low-risk vehicles. Annual returns are capped at 6%, with most funds designed to preserve principal rather than maximise yield. This makes the Hungarian option appealing to risk-averse investors seeking predictable outcomes.

Exit options

The statutory minimum holding period for fund investments is 5 years, but real-world liquidity is more limited. At present, only two funds are available: one is open-ended, offering redemptions at fixed intervals, and the other is closed-ended, with a 20-year maturity and no early exit mechanism.

Eligibility requirements for applicants

Main applicant. Across all three Golden Visa programs — Greece, Portugal, and Hungary — baseline investor criteria are consistent. Applicants must be over 18, possess a clean criminal record, and prove a legal, verifiable source of income.

Hungary adds one procedural condition: investors must either rent or purchase real estate to register a local address before submitting the application.

Family members. All three programs allow investors to include close family members — namely, spouses or partners, dependent children, and parents — but the scope and thresholds differ.

Residence permit validity

Hungary offers the longest initial residence permit — 10 years — but it can only be renewed once. Children over 18 are granted shorter 3-year permits, renewable for another 3 years.

Greece grants 5-year permits with unlimited renewals, giving investors long-term security without frequent administrative burdens.

Portugal takes a more fragmented approach, issuing permits in 2-year increments. Although this requires more frequent renewals, it aligns with the country’s flexible stay requirements.

Stay requirements

For maintaining Golden Visa residency, none of the three programmes impose physical presence requirements — except Portugal, which mandates 7 days per year.

However, for investors targeting citizenship, residency obligations change significantly:

• Greece and Hungary require applicants to reside in the country most of the year throughout the naturalisation period;
• Portugal, by contrast, maintains the 7-day-per-year rule even for citizenship eligibility — making it the most lenient option for globally mobile investors seeking a second passport.

Additional Golden Visa costs

Investors must also factor in application fees and health insurance. Health coverage costs around €300—400 per person, while application fees vary by country: €110 in Hungary, €605 in Portugal, and €2,000 in Greece.

Portugal also charges a Golden Visa residence permit issuance fee of €6,045 per applicant.

Hungary imposes an additional administrative fee of €65,000 for a family of up to four, plus €10,000 for each extra dependent starting from the fifth and €15,000 for each child over 18.

Golden Visa investors are taxed on dividends and capital gains earned from qualifying funds. None of the countries levy a wealth tax on fund investments. However, tax treatment varies significantly depending on the country and whether the investor is a tax resident there.

Greece

A uniform 15% withholding tax applies to both dividends and capital gains from Golden Visa-eligible funds, regardless of tax residency. This tax is withheld at source, meaning investors typically do not need to file a Greek tax return unless they earn additional Greek income. No social contributions apply to fund investments.

Tax residency remains key. To avoid double taxation, investors should ensure a tax treaty exists between their home country and Greece. These treaties often allow Greek withholding taxes to be credited or exempted in the investor’s country of residence.

Portugal

Portuguese tax residents must declare all fund income in their annual tax return. Depending on their income bracket, returns are taxed progressively between 12.5 and 48%.

Non-residents benefit from deferral: as long as fund earnings are reinvested and not distributed, no Portuguese tax applies during the holding period. When income is eventually paid out, it is subject to a 28% withholding tax. This rate may be reduced under a double tax treaty. Non-residents are only required to file a Portuguese tax return if they receive Portuguese-source income.

Hungary

All investors are subject to a flat 15% tax on income from fund units. Hungarian tax residents must also pay a 13% social contribution, bringing the effective tax rate to 28%.

Non-residents are taxed only at the flat 15% rate. Filing is not required unless Hungarian-source income is received separately.

1. Reliable Plan B

A residence permit in the EU offers a long-term safety net in times of political instability, economic uncertainty, or personal transition. It allows investors and their families to relocate on short notice, live and work legally within the EU, and maintain access to stable healthcare, education, and banking systems — even if circumstances change in their home country.

2. Visa-free movement across Europe

Golden Visa holders enjoy unrestricted travel throughout the 29 countries of the Schengen Area. There's no need to apply for short-term visas — a valid residence card allows effortless movement for business, leisure, or family visits.

Each country also serves as a gateway to its region:

• Greece — Athens is a major flight hub with extensive connections across Europe and the Mediterranean. Frequent ferries link the mainland to the Greek islands and Italy, offering scenic maritime routes;
• Portugal — Coastal highways from the Algarve lead seamlessly into Spain, enabling road trips toward Andalusia and the Costa del Sol;
• Hungary — Budapest sits in the heart of Central Europe — a few hours’ drive from Vienna, Bratislava, and Zagreb — ideal for overland travel within the region.

3. Favourable business environment

Each programme connects investors to a favourable business climate — but with different strengths.

Portugal combines policy stability with strategic sectors. In 2025, it climbed 4.5% in the Foreign Direct Investment Report, driven by tech, renewables, and sustainable tourism. Corporate tax rates remain competitive at 21% on the mainland, 20% in Madeira, and just 16.8% in the Azores.

Hungary offers the EU’s lowest corporate tax rate — a flat 9% — with strong growth in logistics, real estate, automotive manufacturing, and ICT, especially around Budapest’s industrial corridor.

Greece remains a global force in tourism and shipping. Tourism contributes 16.8% of GDP, while the broader services sector accounts for over 68%, well above the global average. Hospitality-focused funds benefit from robust demand, with Greece welcoming 40 million visitors annually.

4. Potential for investment returns

Golden Visa investment options are structured to generate returns of 4—5% — not just access. In Portugal, fund yields range from 2 to 20% annually, depending on risk level and sector. Hungarian funds are lower-risk, offering returns of up to 6%.

5. Quality of life beyond investment

Each destination offers its own lifestyle rhythm:

• Greece is defined by its island tempo — sailing, quiet beaches, and living near ancient landmarks that still shape the culture;
• Portugal offers a relaxed coastal lifestyle — Atlantic surfing, seafood by the sea, and compact cities where nature and tradition coexist;
• Hungary is more grounded and central-European: think thermal spas in Budapest, countryside vineyards, historic castles, and communities where tradition is lived rather than curated.

6. Access to public services and international education

Golden Visa holders and their families are eligible for free public healthcare and state-funded schooling. Dependents can also enrol in international schools with bilingual instruction, while adults have access to accredited universities and EU-wide vocational programs. 

7. Comfortable climate and year-round outdoor living

Greece and Portugal offer Mediterranean weather — mild winters, dry summers, and long hours of sunshine. Hungary has a temperate continental climate, with four distinct seasons. 

All three support an outdoor-oriented lifestyle, with alfresco dining, weekend travel, and seasonal festivals woven into everyday life.

Each Golden Visa fund route offers a different trade-off between investment threshold, diversification options, and long-term flexibility.

Hungary

Lowest entry point, with a minimum fund investment of €250,000. This route appeals to those prioritising affordability and regulatory simplicity.

However, only two funds are currently authorised: one is open-ended, and the other is a closed-ended vehicle with a 20-year maturity. Annual yields are modest, capped at 6%, reflecting the funds’ conservative and capital-preserving strategies.

Portugal

Highest investment threshold at €500,000 but unmatched variety. Investors can choose from dozens of regulated funds spanning sectors such as hospitality, sustainable agriculture, AI, renewable energy, infrastructure, and even sports management.

Yields vary widely, from 2% in low-risk funds to as high as 20% in high-risk, niche strategies. Most funds are closed-end and require a holding period of 6 to 12 years.

Greece

Middle ground with a €350,000 minimum investment. The fund market is less transparent: eligible fund names and performance data are not publicly disclosed. However, the funds presented to investors by licensed advisors often focus on income-generating commercial real estate — including logistics centres, hospitality projects, and office developments.

All three programs provide the same core benefits: visa-free travel across the 29 Schengen countries, access to public healthcare and education, no mandatory stay requirements, and the option to include family members.

Ultimately, the choice depends on the investor’s priorities — whether it’s cost-efficiency in Hungary, fund diversification and potential in Portugal, or real estate-backed stability in Greece.