GDP Growth in EU and Golden Visa Economies

Europe’s Golden Visa Economies are Growing Faster than the Eurozone

Do Golden Visa Countries Outperform the Eurozone? La Vida’s analysis of over Eight Years of GDP Data from Eurostat suggest this is very much the case.

The four European economies that ran continuous investment migration programs from 2017 to 2025 each outpaced the eurozone average. The size of the gap varies considerably, and the data on its own does not establish what caused the out performance.

Cumulative GDP Growth Chart

Key Findings

• All four golden visa countries outpaced the eurozone on both aggregate and per-capita measures
• Malta grew by 53% in real GDP terms over the eight years, against 10% for the eurozone
• Portugal grew by 18%, Greece by 16% and Spain by 15%
• Direct program-related investment is too small to explain the gaps on its own — it sits in the range of 0.025% to 0.25% of GDP per year
• Other factors clearly contributed: tourism, EU recovery funds, services exports, and recovery from low post-2012 bases

Investment migration programs — better known as golden visas — sit at the intersection of immigration policy, tax policy and economic development. Their critics argue that they generate too little real investment to matter, distort housing markets, and import risks that outweigh the benefits. Their defenders argue that they bring meaningful capital, attract people whose presence creates downstream growth, and offer a market-based response to economies that need wealth more than they need to tax it harder.

La Vida has been advising clients on these programs since 2012, introducing more than $1 billion of investment from investors in 160+ countries into golden visa economies in that time. We sit close to the demand side of this market every day. But the broader question of whether the programs have actually moved the needle for the host economies is empirical, and it should be settled by looking at the numbers.

This piece looks at one specific question: how did the four EU economies that operated continuous investment migration programs through 2017 to 2025 grow against the eurozone average over those eight years? The answer is straightforward to read out of the public data. What that answer means is a harder question, and one we come back to at the end.

How did Malta, Portugal, Greece and Spain compare to the eurozone?

The four golden visa countries in scope are Malta, Portugal, Greece and Spain. Each ran an investment migration program continuously through the period in question, although several have since been reformed or closed. Spain ended its scheme in April 2025. Portugal removed real estate as a qualifying route in October 2023. Malta’s citizenship-by-investment route was struck down by the European Court of Justice in April 2025, while its residence programme continues. The comparator is the eurozone aggregate.

Real GDP growth, indexed to 2017 = 100, comes out as follows:

Every one of the four golden visa countries grew faster than the eurozone average. The gaps range from a modest 4.9 percentage points in Spain’s case to an extraordinary 42.9 points in Malta’s.

Averaging the four countries’ growth gives two different figures depending on the method. Treating each country as a single observation produces a simple average of 25.3%, that’s 15.2 points above the eurozone. Weighting by 2017 GDP gives 15.9%, because Spain’s much larger economy dominates the weighting. Both figures are well above the eurozone benchmark.

What happens when you adjust for population growth?

Aggregate GDP measures the size of an economy, not its productivity per resident. Two of the four golden visa countries — Malta and Spain — recorded significantly faster population growth than the eurozone average over this period, which contributes to their headline GDP growth without necessarily meaning that the average resident is better off. Greece moved in the opposite direction, with a falling population.

On a real-GDP-per-capita basis, indexed and compared on the same eight-year period:

The per-capita picture differs from the headline in three ways worth noting. Malta narrows considerably — its aggregate lead of 43 points falls to a per-capita lead of just under 15. A meaningful portion of Malta’s headline outperformance comes from very rapid population growth rather than per-resident productivity gains. The remaining gap is nonetheless substantial: Malta’s per-capita CAGR over the period is around 2.6% per year, against 0.9% for the eurozone.

Greece looks stronger on this measure. A shrinking population means each remaining resident accounts for more economic output. Greece’s per-capita gap widens from 5.5 points on the headline to almost 12 points per capita, making it the second-strongest performer in the group.

Spain narrows substantially in the other direction, from a 5-point aggregate gap to just over 1 point per capita. Spain’s outperformance is still positive, but on a per-capita basis it sits within the margin of statistical revision. Portugal sits in the middle on both measures.

The headline finding holds on both measures: all four golden visa countries outpaced the eurozone over the period, on aggregate and per-capita. The composition of that outperformance differs from country to country.

Do the program fees themselves explain the growth?

This is the harder question. To answer it properly, the direct investment associated with each program needs to be set against the size of the economy it flowed into.

Portugal’s golden visa attracted approximately €7.3 billion in cumulative qualifying investment between October 2012 and the end of 2024, according to data from SEF and its successor agency AIMA. Around 90% of that went into real estate until the route was removed in October 2023. Portugal’s 2024 GDP was approximately €285 billion.

Malta’s programs need to be looked at separately. The citizenship-by-investment route generated approximately €1.4 billion in contributions to the National Development and Social Fund and related vehicles before it was struck down in April 2025. The current Permanent Residence Programme, which continues to operate, generated €132 million in 2024 alone. Malta’s 2024 GDP was approximately €22 billion.

Greece’s program has attracted broadly similar cumulative real-estate-led investment to Portugal’s. Spain’s was smaller per applicant and the cumulative figure is not consolidated in a single official publication.

On a back-of-envelope basis, the direct annual investment associated with these programs sits somewhere in the range of 0.025% to 0.25% of national GDP across the four countries. That is an order of magnitude — or in some cases two — smaller than the GDP outperformance gaps reported above.

Direct investment alone is not large enough to explain the growth gaps. That does not mean the programs did not contribute. It means that any further contribution they made runs through channels other than the qualifying investment alone. And this could be quite significant.

How should the data be interpreted?

The data is consistent with three readings, which are not mutually exclusive.

The first is a direct effect. The programs contributed through the channels they directly created — qualifying investment, government fee revenue, construction and real-estate activity around the qualifying routes, plus the multiplier effects on local services. Real, measurable, but small relative to the size of the gaps observed.

The second is an indirect effect through the people the programs attracted. A subset of beneficiaries went on to invest beyond the qualifying minimum, started or relocated businesses, paid income and corporate taxes, hired locally, and over time compounded their economic contribution well beyond the initial investment threshold. This would explain why outperformance persists over a multi-year period rather than appearing as a one-off spike in the data. We know from our own internal client analysis at La Vida that typical client wealth is in excess of $2.5 million. Often entrepreneurs, business people and professionals. That offers significant potential for contribution into the economy year after year.

The third is contextual. The four economies share characteristics that have driven growth over the period independent of investment migration policy — strong post-pandemic tourism recoveries, sizeable EU recovery fund allocations, a relatively weak euro supporting services exports, more competitive energy mixes than the German and Italian economies that drag the eurozone average, and recovery dynamics from low post-2012 bases.

The strength of each of these channels in each country is an open question. A complete account of the eight-year growth gap would also need to weigh population dynamics (partly addressed above), tourism receipts, the EU recovery and resilience funds, and the underlying sector composition of each economy.

What does this data show — and what doesn’t it show?

What it shows is straightforward. Economies that operated continuous investment migration programs through this period grew faster than the eurozone average — on aggregate and per-capita measures both — by margins that the direct investment associated with the programs themselves does not, on its own, explain.

What it does not show is causation. The data is consistent with the programs having contributed materially to the outperformance, with that outperformance being driven entirely by other factors, or with any intermediate combination.

It is worth noting too that the programs themselves are changing. Spain has now closed its program. Portugal has removed real estate as a qualifying route and introduced Private Equity investment. Malta’s citizenship route has gone. The next eight years will not look like the last eight, and the next round of this analysis will be measuring something different from the programs that produced this data.

Common questions:

Which European countries had golden visa programs throughout 2017 to 2025
Malta, Portugal, Greece and Spain ran investment migration programs continuously through the full eight-year period. Other countries operated programs intermittently or began later, but these four had stable, well-established schemes for the whole window.

Did golden visa programs cause the GDP outperformance?
The data does not establish causation. All four countries grew faster than the eurozone over the period, but several other factors — tourism recovery, EU recovery funds, energy and services exports, recovery from low post-2012 bases — were also at work. The direct investment associated with the programs themselves is too small to explain the gaps on its own.

Which country had the strongest economic performance per capita?
On a per-capita basis, Malta led with growth of around 23% over the period, followed by Greece at around 20%, Portugal at 13% and Spain at 9%. Greece’s strong per-capita performance reflects its falling population — each remaining resident accounts for more of the country’s output.

Are these golden visa programs still running?
Spain closed its program in April 2025. Portugal removed real estate as a qualifying route in October 2023 but the programme continues with other qualifying investments. Malta’s citizenship-by-investment route was struck down by the European Court of Justice in April 2025, but Malta’s residence programme is still open. Greece’s programme is still operating.

Where does the data come from?
GDP data is from Eurostat’s quarterly national accounts (series namq_10_gdp), measured as real GDP at market prices, chain-linked volumes, seasonally and calendar adjusted. Population data is from Eurostat’s demographic statistics. Program-investment figures are from primary national agency sources — see the notes section below for details.

Notes on the data
GDP figures are from Eurostat series namq_10_gdp — quarterly GDP at market prices, chain-linked volumes (2020=100), seasonally and calendar adjusted — calculated as the average of four quarterly observations per year. Series extracted May 2026.

Population figures are from Eurostat demo_pjan and demo_gind, 1 January of each year, using the latest series following the 2021 census round. Per-capita growth is calculated as the ratio of aggregate GDP growth to population growth over the same period.

Cumulative program-investment figures are from primary national agency sources: SEF and AIMA for Portugal; Residency Malta and the National Development and Social Fund / ORIIP for Malta; the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum for Greece; and the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration for Spain. The Spanish figure is not consolidated in a single official publication and is reported with lower precision than the others.

The eurozone aggregate uses the current EA20 scope retrospectively, consistent with Eurostat’s published series.

La Vida is an investment migration advisory firm based in the UK. It has been advising clients on residence and citizenship by investment programs since 2012, with more than $1bn introduced into golden visa economies from clients in over 160 countries. For research enquiries: research@goldenvisas.com.