A foreigner who sets up a company in Estonia under the ordinary business permit needs €65,000 in capital. One who sets up the same company under the Estonian startup visa needs none.
That gap runs across Europe. Of the 17 countries with a dedicated route for startup founders, 11 set no upfront investment and hand the decision to an expert committee, an incubator, or an endorsing body instead.
The highest stated minimum, Bulgaria’s, works out to about €51,000.
The capital figure is also a poor guide to what a founder actually has to show. Nearly every program adds a personal living-funds test, and that runs from £1,270 held for 28 days in the UK to €22,404 a year in France.
Austria, one of the programs that does demand capital, waives the living-funds test altogether.
Every figure below comes from the immigration authority, the agency that runs the program, or the statute that sets the threshold.
No Capital Required: The 11 That Judge the Idea Instead
These programs replace the money test with a judgment about the business, made by a committee, an incubator, or a licensed endorser. Each still asks the founder to prove he can support himself, and they appear here from the smallest personal-funds requirement to the largest.
🇬🇧 The UK’s Innovator Founder visa dropped the old £50,000 minimum when it replaced the Innovator visa in 2023. The current rules ask only that the founder satisfy an endorsing body that he has enough funding and can show where it came from, plus £1,270 (approximately €1,490) in personal funds held for 28 consecutive days.
That low cash test hides the highest fees in the group. Endorsement costs £1,000 plus £500 for each of at least two progress meetings, before VAT; the visa costs £1,357 from abroad; and the health surcharge adds £1,035 a year. Settlement is possible after three years, with £50,000 of investment counting as one of seven milestones, two of which must be met.
🇵🇹 Portugal’s StartUP Visa, run by the IAPMEI agency through certified incubators, sets no minimum investment. It looks instead for a business able to pass €325,000 a year in turnover or assets within five years.
The personal test is 12 times Portugal’s social support index, which at the 2026 rate of €537.13 comes to €6,445.56 in own and living funds. A certified incubator issues a declaration of interest, and IAPMEI decides within 30 working days.
🇪🇸 Spain is the most explicit. The labor ministry’s program page states that “no existen mínimos de inversión ni de creación de empleo” (there is no minimum investment or job creation), and approval rests on a favorable report from ENISA, the state innovation lender.
Living funds are 100% of IPREM, the public income benchmark that has stood at €600 a month since 2023, plus 50% for each family member. That is €7,200 a year for a single founder. The residence authorization lasts three years and renews for two.
🇱🇻 Latvia defers the capital test rather than dropping it. No investment is needed for the permit, but within 12 months the founder must show early-stage funding of at least €30,000 from a qualified venture fund or €15,000 from an accelerator, under the Startup Law, or pass a progress review instead.
Living funds are the minimum wage of €780 a month, or €9,360 for the year, plus €234 a month for each minor child. The route narrowed in 2026: from May 20 it was limited to citizens of OECD countries plus Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, and San Marino. A new Immigration Law in force since September 15 keeps the startup ground, but its published text does not yet show how the nationality limit applies.
🇪🇪 Estonia’s startup committee, an expert panel drawn from the local startup community and set up under the Interior Ministry, rules on the business within 10 working days. The Police and Border Guard Board then asks for income of four times the subsistence level, which rose to €220 in 2026, making €880 a month.
Startup Estonia’s own site still quotes €800. The residence permit runs up to five years and costs €350 if filed in Estonia.
🇱🇹 Lithuania sets no capital for the Startup Visa itself, though company law does: a private limited company needs €1,000 in share capital, while a small partnership needs none. Living funds are one minimum monthly wage for each month of the year, which at the 2026 wage of €1,153 comes to €13,836.
Innovation Agency Lithuania screens applications before an expert committee votes. The permit runs two years and extends to five, and applications from Russian and Belarusian citizens are suspended.
🇫🇮 Finland’s startup permit starts with an eligibility statement from Business Finland, which wants at least two founders holding at least 60% of the company between them. There is no capital floor.
The Finnish Immigration Service requires net income of €1,210 a month in the Helsinki area, €1,090 in other large municipalities, and €1,030 elsewhere, available for a full year. In the capital region that is €14,520; the first two-year permit costs €650 online.
🇩🇰 Start-up Denmark requires no prior investment but caps the route at 75 permits a year, scored by an expert panel the Danish Business Authority appoints. A single founder must show DKK 153,240 (approximately €20,540) for the first year, rising to DKK 306,480 with a spouse. The permit runs up to two years, extends in steps of up to three, and costs DKK 3,060.
🇳🇱 The Netherlands’ startup permit depends on a facilitator, an experienced mentor organization on the Netherlands Enterprise Agency’s list that may not hold a majority stake. There is no capital test, but the founder must meet the self-employed income requirement of €1,766.77 a month, about €21,200 for the year, unless the facilitator funds the stay.
The permit lasts one year only. After that the founder must move to the ordinary self-employed permit, with the facilitator confirming at least three months of mentoring; the fee is €423.
🇫🇷 France’s “talent – porteur de projet” card, formerly the talent passport, has an innovative-project branch marketed as the French Tech Visa for founders. That branch sets no fixed investment; it needs a Ministry of Economy opinion that the project is innovative, usually backed by a French Tech-listed incubator.
Its living-funds test is the steepest in the group: a year’s full-time gross minimum wage, €22,404.20. The card lasts up to four years and costs €350, plus €99 for the long-stay visa.
🇧🇪 Belgium has no national startup visa, but Flanders rebranded its professional card for foreign entrepreneurs as the Innovation & Startup Permit on September 1, 2026, with a fast track for applicants holding a letter from a Flemish incubator or accelerator. Its “innovative added value” category needs only a business plan, while the “economic added value” category asks for at least €22,838 in start-up capital.
Net income must reach 110% of Belgium’s guaranteed minimum monthly income. The card costs €140 and lasts one to three years; Brussels and Wallonia run their own procedures.
Under €50,000: Slovakia, Malta, Austria, and France’s Second Route
🇸🇰 Slovakia added an “innovative project” variant to its business residence permit in July 2025, through Act 178/2025. The applicant must hold 40 times the subsistence minimum in a business bank account, and with that minimum set at €295.22 from July 1, 2026, the figure is €11,808.80.
That makes Slovakia the cheapest route with a stated capital requirement. The permit lasts up to three years, though no official page names a body that vets the innovative project itself.
🇲🇹 Malta’s Startup Residence Programme asks for “tangible investment and/or paid up share capital of not less than €25,000,” plus €10,000 for each co-founder beyond four, up to six, according to its August 2025 rules. Malta Enterprise must approve the business plan, and the company can be no more than seven years old.
Personal funds must be “sufficient,” with no figure set, while core employees must earn at least €30,000 a year. The permit lasts three years and extends by five for founders; the government charges €750 for each applicant and dependant, plus €300 for the residence card.
🇦🇹 Austria’s Red-White-Red Card for start-up founders requires at least €30,000 of capital, at least half of it equity, under section 24 of the Foreign Employment Act. Founders also need 50 of a possible 85 points for qualifications, experience, and languages, with bonus points for investing €50,000 or more.
In return, Austria waives the usual proof of accommodation and means of living, which makes it the only program here with no personal-funds test. The regional employment service decides within three weeks, and the card lasts up to two years for a fee of €218. Demand has been thin: a 2019 parliamentary answer counted three approvals from 17 applications between 2017 and 2019.
🇫🇷 France’s talent card has a second branch for ordinary business creation. It requires at least €30,000 invested in the project and a master’s degree or five years of experience, on top of the same €22,404.20 living-funds test.
🇨🇾 Cyprus revised its Start-up Visa Scheme in December 2024, and the minimums usually quoted for it, €25,000 for an individual founder and €50,000 for a team, would place it in this tier. No government page confirming those figures, or whether the scheme runs beyond the end of 2026, could be reached for this article, so it is left out of the ranking.
The €50,000 Club: Italy, Ireland, and Bulgaria
🇮🇹 Italia Startup Visa requires funding “non inferiori a 50.000 euro” for the company, according to the program’s guidelines, and up to five founders can share a single €50,000. Joining an existing innovative startup instead takes €100,000.
The money can come from the founder’s own liquid funds, venture capital or other investors, or public and private grants; crowdfunding is not on the list. The personal test is modest, at income above the threshold for exemption from health-service charges, about €8,500 a year.
A committee at the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy issues clearance within 30 days, and the route has been closed to Russian and Belarusian citizens since October 27, 2023. The permit lasts a year, renews for two, and leads to long-term residence after five.
🇮🇪 Ireland’s Start-up Entrepreneur Programme asks for €50,000, plus €30,000 for each additional founder. It may come from own resources, a business loan, angel or venture capital, or a grant from an Irish state agency, and must sit with an institution regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
Ireland also sets the highest bar for the business: a startup capable of creating 10 jobs and €1 million in sales within three years, judged by a committee of senior public servants that meets quarterly. There is no separate living-funds figure, but private health insurance is required.
Few founders clear that test. Dwayne Chauhan of Vancis Capital says “the bar is quite high and approval numbers have traditionally been fairly low,” and that the businesses that fit best are “genuinely scalable companies with a strong growth story, rather than a more traditional small business.”
Chauhan previously led operations at a fintech on Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-Up track. He notes that the state agency can also invest where a company is strong enough to fit that profile, “so the €50,000 is only one part of what the committee is really looking at.”
The permit runs two years, then three, then in five-year renewals, with long-term residence after five. The application fee is €350, and Russian and Belarusian citizens can no longer apply.
🇧🇬 Bulgaria’s StartUp Visa, a certificate issued by the Ministry of Innovation and Growth since February 2023, requires BGN 100,000 raised under a contract with a specialized equity or venture fund. Bulgaria adopted the euro in January 2026, but the ministry still states the figure in leva; at the fixed rate it is €51,129, the highest minimum in this ranking.
Founders must own at least half the company and hold three Bulgarian minimum monthly wages in personal funds for 30 days. A council of experts scores the project, which needs 8 of 14 points, and the certificate is free, decided within 30 days, and valid for a year with a two-year extension.
What the Capital Figure Leaves Out
Rank the same programs by personal funds and the order changes. The UK’s £1,270 is the smallest sum to hold, Portugal and Spain follow at about €6,400 and €7,200, and the Netherlands and France sit at the top above €21,000, more than Slovakia demands in capital.
Fees reorder it again. In the UK, the endorsement fee, the visa, and three years of health surcharge paid upfront come to more than £5,400 before the first progress meeting, while Bulgaria’s certificate is free and Austria’s card costs €218.
The price of a zero-capital route is discretion. Each one swaps a number for an opinion, whether from a Danish panel limited to 75 permits a year, a Finnish rule that wants two founders, or a UK endorser that bills by the meeting. Latvia is the plainest case: it waives the money at the door and asks for €15,000 to €30,000 of outside funding within a year.
Nationality now matters as much as money. Italy, Ireland, and Lithuania have shut their routes to Russian and Belarusian citizens, and Latvia limited its route to OECD citizens and four microstates in May.
Some large economies have no founder route at all. Germany offers only its general self-employment permit, which sets no fixed capital, Sweden’s self-employed permit asks for SEK 200,000 in personal funds, and Poland suspended its Poland Business Harbour program in January 2024.
