Latvia’s new Immigration Law has been promulgated and enters into force on September 15, closing the golden visa‘s real estate and bank deposit routes after 16 years.
Applications filed with the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (OCMA) up to and including September 14 will still be assessed under the current rules.
The Saeima, Latvia’s parliament, adopted the law on June 11 by 65 votes to 17, but President Edgars Rinkēvičs returned it for a second review, asking lawmakers to consider keeping a real estate route open to citizens of EU, NATO, OECD, and EEA states and other “friendly nations.”
Lawmakers re-passed it on August 20 with minor refinements, including additional security vetting for investor applicants, but without the change the President had requested.
Investment Routes: Before and After
The outgoing statute grants temporary residence against real estate purchases of at least €250,000 (approximately US$290,000) or a €280,000 (approximately US$324,000) subordinated bank deposit. Both routes end on September 15.
Two investment pathways survive the rewrite. The company route continues at €50,000 (approximately US$58,000) in the equity of a small Latvian business, or €100,000 (approximately US$116,000) for companies with more than 50 employees and over €10 million in turnover, plus a €10,000 state payment in both cases. The permit it yields now runs two years instead of five.
New to the framework is a €150,000 (approximately US$174,000) investment placed for at least five years through a state-created alternative investment fund manager, paired with the same €10,000 payment and carrying a permit of up to five years.
Russian and Belarusian citizens are barred from both investment routes, closing a gap in the law as first passed, which had left the fund option open to them until a hurried June 18 amendment.
A Two-Week Scramble, for Some
Immigrant Invest, an international residence and citizenship advisory firm working the Latvian program among others, is “proactively contacting every client whose case is already at an advanced stage under the current law,” co-founder and managing partner Elena Ruda says, to help them finalize submissions by September 14 so their applications are assessed under today’s rules.
Starting a transaction from scratch is another matter. Two weeks is realistically achievable only “for clients who already have a property identified, documents prepared and the transaction at its final stage,” Ruda says, “and we are handling those cases on a priority basis right now.”
Why the President’s Carve-Out Failed
Rinkēvičs had asked parliament to consider keeping a real estate route open to citizens of Western-aligned and other “friendly” states.
The proposal found no support, Viktorija Tomaševiča of EU Law Firm explains, because MPs “increasingly viewed a real-estate route as a security and migration risk, rather than an economic tool that could be safely narrowed.”
The opposition National Alliance cited the weak economic returns of the pre-2022 intake, while Jaunā Vienotība, the center-right party that led the government until May, linked the route to “the old ‘golden visa’ model and Russian elites,” Tomaševiča says.
“With the October Saeima election approaching and coalition tensions over migration,” Tomaševiča notes, “there was little political incentive to revive a policy that could be portrayed as reopening the controversial route.”
What Actually Awaits on September 15
The fund route is in the law, but the vehicle behind it “does not appear to be fully operational yet,” Tomaševiča cautions, noting that the President’s June letter also flagged unsettled source of funds and anti-money laundering rules.
“The route may be legally available but not yet practically usable,” she explains.
The legislation gives the government until December 1, 2027, to adopt various implementing rules, including the mechanics of the required state-budget payment.
“The right to apply exists on paper,” Tomaševiča says, “but investors should not assume that the full investment infrastructure is already available on 15 September.”
Immigrant Invest is meanwhile coordinating with its Latvian legal partners and awaiting the Cabinet of Ministers regulations that will define how the new routes work in practice. Once those are published, Ruda expects “a cleaner and more predictable structure that, over the medium term, will be simpler for investors.”
Latvia thus joins the club of European golden visas that have traded property for funds. Whether its state-run version is ready before demand arrives is now a question for the Cabinet, not the Saeima.
