Europe’s digital nomad visas have priced out the people they were named for. Spain’s threshold rose to €2,849 a month in January, Portugal’s sits at €3,680, and Greece, Malta, and Cyprus all ask for €3,500. For a freelancer billing €2,000 a month, the nomad route is closed in most of the EU.
The older self-employment permits are a different story. They predate the nomad fashion, they were written for tradesmen and professionals rather than remote tech workers, and their income tests are pegged to the local minimum wage or to welfare thresholds. Several sit well under €2,000.
The trade-off is real. A self-employment permit means registering a business or a professional activity in the country, paying its social contributions, and becoming tax resident there.
A nomad visa usually lets you avoid all three for a year or two, though Spain now checks contributions and, in some cases, tax status at renewal.
The thresholds below are the figures currently in force according to the available official sources as of publication.
🇮🇹 Italy: €8,500 a Year, If You Can Get a Quota Place
Italy’s self-employment visa (visto per lavoro autonomo) has the lowest income floor in Western Europe. The applicant must show lawful income of at least €8,500 a year, earned in the country of residence and above the threshold for exemption from healthcare co-payments. That is €708 a month, and bank guarantees or insurance policies do not count toward it.
The catch is supply. Most self-employment visas fall under the annual decreto flussi quota, and the decree of October 2, 2025, reserved just 650 places for independent workers in 2026, out of 181,450 entries in total. The places go in minutes on the designated click days.
A short list of categories sits outside the quota and can apply at any time. Italian consulates list executives of foreign companies’ Italian branches, university lecturers and researchers, and translators among them, each still subject to the €8,500 test and a police nulla osta issued within the previous three months.
The applicant must also show suitable housing, through a lease, a purchase, or a declaration from a resident host meeting regional public housing standards. The permit converts to a two-year residence permit for self-employment on arrival, and five years of legal residence opens the EU long-term residence permit.
Italy’s separate digital nomad visa, introduced in 2024, requires roughly three times the self-employment floor, at about €28,000 a year.
🇵🇹 Portugal: The D2 Starts at €920
Portugal’s D2 visa covers both entrepreneurs and independent professionals with Portuguese clients or a clear local connection. The financial test is means of subsistence, and the government sets that at the national minimum wage, which rose to €920 a month on January 1, 2026.
The family add-ons follow the same formula: 50% for a spouse, bringing a couple to €1,380, and 30% for each child, or €276. Consulates expect to see roughly 12 months of that amount in a Portuguese bank account, which is €11,040 for a single applicant.
Meeting the floor is not the same as being approved. The D2 turns on a business plan, and consultants who handle the applications say vagueness is the main reason for refusal. A freelancer should expect to show contracts or letters from Portuguese clients, not just a bank balance.
The visa is issued for 120 days, after which the holder books an appointment with the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) for a two-year residence permit, renewable for three. Permanent residence comes after five years. Citizenship now takes ten years of legal residence under the nationality law that took effect in May 2026, up from five, with an A2 Portuguese test.
The D8 digital nomad visa, by contrast, requires four times the minimum wage, which is €3,680 a month in 2026.
🇩🇪 Germany: No Number in the Law, a Big One in Berlin
Germany’s freelance permit under section 21(5) of the Residence Act sets no income figure. The statute asks that the applicant’s livelihood be secured, that any professional license be in hand, and nothing more. Freelance here means the liberal professions: doctors, architects, engineers, lawyers, translators, artists, and comparable roles.
Each immigration office decides what “secured” means. Berlin’s State Office for Immigration asks for a revenue forecast, at least two letters of intent from clients, and evidence that fees will cover rent, health insurance, and living costs. A freelancer with €2,000 a month in signed commitments and modest rent can meet that test.
Berlin’s guidance, updated on June 25, 2026, now deducts a flat 10% from certified gross earnings to arrive at net income. The same update sets a far higher bar for commercial self-employment under section 21(1), where Berlin wants to see about €46,000 a year after tax, or a substantial investment with jobs attached.
Two other costs apply. Health insurance must match statutory cover, with no major exclusions and a deductible of at most €300. Applicants over 45 must show pension provision, which Berlin quantifies as a pension of €1,612.53 a month from age 67 or assets of €232,204.
The permit runs one to three years and renews. Business owners under section 21(1) can reach a settlement permit after three years; freelancers follow the standard five-year route with 60 months of pension contributions and B1 German.
🇫🇷 France: Pegged to the SMIC, Now €1,867
France’s entrepreneur/profession libérale permit, under Article L421-5 of the immigration code, requires that the activity be economically viable and produce resources at least equal to the minimum wage. The SMIC was revalued on June 1, 2026 to €1,867 gross a month, the second rise of the year after a January increase.
That makes France the most expensive of the sub-€2,000 group, and the one where the margin matters. A freelancer at exactly €2,000 has €133 of headroom, and the next inflation-triggered revaluation could take it.
The business must be registered in France before the application is filed, and the activity must match the applicant’s qualifications or experience. The first card lasts one year and can be renewed three times. A four-year card follows for those who reach A2 French and pass the civic examination that became mandatory in 2026.
Renewal repeats the test. The prefecture asks for accounts and a URSSAF attestation showing income at or above the SMIC, and courts have upheld refusals where the business fell short. The fiscal stamp for a first card rose to €350 on May 1, 2026, from €225.
Five years of continuous residence opens the ten-year resident card.
🇨🇿 Czechia, 🇳🇱 the Netherlands, and 🇧🇪 Belgium: Capital Instead of Income
Three countries test savings or a business case rather than monthly earnings, which suits anyone whose income is irregular.
Czechia’s long-term visa for business, known to freelancers as the živno after the trade license it requires, asks for funds equal to 50 times the subsistence minimum. The Interior Ministry puts that at CZK 156,500, about €6,300, shown in a bank account. The trade license costs around CZK 1,000, and the holder can invoice clients anywhere, including Czech companies.
The running costs are the real test. A sole trader pays minimum health and social contributions of roughly CZK 8,300 a month combined, about €335, before any tax. The visa is granted for a year and converts to a two-year residence permit; five years of continuous residence opens permanent residence.
The Netherlands has no general low-income route, but Americans and Japanese nationals have a treaty one. Under the Dutch-American and Dutch-Japanese Friendship Treaties, the applicant invests €4,500 in a Dutch business of his own and receives a two-year permit, extendable for five. The 2026 application fee is €423, and the IND now gives new arrivals six months after approval to meet the conditions, since opening a bank account from abroad had become the main obstacle.
Renewal requires accountant-certified accounts showing genuine activity. There is no stated income figure, though an applicant who cannot support himself will fail the general sufficient-means test.
Belgium issues a professional card to non-EU self-employed workers. Each region sets its own test, and Wallonia’s is economic or social usefulness to the region, shown through a business plan, financial capacity, and commercial contacts. No income threshold is published. The card costs €140 to apply for, is usually issued for two years on probation, and can run for five.
Where €2,000 Falls Short
Spain has no low-cost equivalent. Its self-employment work visa requires an investment, a viable business plan, and proof of means, and its digital nomad visa is pegged to 200% of the minimum wage. The 2026 SMI of €1,221 across 14 payments produces a floor of €2,849 a month for a single applicant, with no more than 20% of income from Spanish clients.
Spain in fact runs two self-employment routes, says Maryem Essadik of Marfour International Law Firm: a residence and work authorization for self-employment under Royal Decree 1155/2024, and a residence authorization for entrepreneurs under Law 14/2013, which also allows self-employed work. “The fundamental difference between the two is that, in the case of the entrepreneur permit, you are required to have an innovative project,” she says, one that ENISA, Spain’s state-owned innovation financing company, must approve.
On the nomad visa, the 200% rule is applied to the letter. “When we receive requests for additional documents, we are seeing them ask for approximately €2,850 for the main applicant,” Essadik says. Renewals, which are now arriving in volume, re-test that income, though officials focus most on whether Social Security contributions have been paid and no debts are outstanding, and “in some cases they are requesting tax returns to check whether the person should in fact be paying tax in Spain.”
She still rates it “a good authorization that is quite easy to obtain and very fast.” Spain must decide within 20 working days, and if it misses that deadline, the permit is granted automatically.
The nomad visas elsewhere are higher still, according to figures compiled in March 2026: €3,000 net in Hungary, €3,500 in Greece, Malta, and Cyprus, €3,622.50 in Croatia, and €4,500 in Estonia. Latvia and Romania are tied to average wages and sit above €4,000.
Those programs were designed to admit people earning more than locals, and the thresholds say so. The self-employment permits were designed to admit people who will work alongside locals, which is why they settle at the minimum wage instead. IMI’s digital nomad visa guide tracks the full set.
Every route above leads to the EU long-term residence permit after five years of legal stay, subject to each country’s own integration and income conditions at that point.
Three Things the Threshold Does Not Tell You
The floor is gross, your margin is net. France’s €1,867 is a gross figure, and French social contributions for the self-employed take roughly a fifth to a quarter of turnover under the micro-entrepreneur regime. Czechia’s minimum contributions run about €335 a month whether or not you earned anything. Build the contributions into the €2,000 before deciding it is enough.
Renewal is a second application. France re-tests the SMIC at every renewal, Portugal re-tests means at the two-year mark, and the Netherlands wants certified accounts. A freelancer who met the floor at entry and dipped below it in year two will find out at the prefecture.
Tax residence comes with the permit. Each of these countries will treat a permit holder who spends more than half the year there as tax resident on worldwide income. That is the reverse of the nomad visa bargain, and it is the price of a route that leads to permanent residence. Anyone with income in a third country should check the relevant tax treaty before the first invoice.
