How Seven Golden Visa Cities Rank as Pure Property Investments

The golden visa proposition inherently merges two distinct acquisitions: a residence permit and a real estate asset. While most investors concentrate on the permit’s value, the timeline for obtaining it, and the mobility it confers, considerably fewer scrutinise the underlying property with the same rigour. Elena Kozyreva, Managing Director for Real Estate Projects at Immigrant Invest, observes that many foreign buyers tend to prioritise metrics such as “price per square meter or projected rental yield.” Although these indicators are pertinent, she cautions, they are “rarely the deciding factors in long-term success.”

IMI’s Global Property Scoreboard (GPS) addresses this analytical gap by evaluating a city’s residential market exclusively on its investment fundamentals, independent of any associated visa. The seven cities examined here are those most closely identified with the golden visa property narrative, though not all currently operate active programmes. When assessed on property merit alone, the ranking diverges sharply from much of the marketing rhetoric.

Abu Dhabi leads with a score of 30, followed by Dubai and Valletta at 21 and 18 respectively. Limassol occupies the middle ground with 7, while Madrid, Lisbon, and Athens trail at 6, 4, and 2. Notably, two of these seven cities no longer offer a golden visa through real estate acquisitions: Spain abolished its programme in April 2025, and Portugal removed real estate as a qualifying investment from its Golden Visa in 2023. In Madrid and Lisbon, therefore, the property now stands entirely on its own.

Understanding the Scoreboard’s Methodology

The GPS applies a weighted scoring system across seven categories. Property fundamentals—comprising yield, price trajectory, liquidity, and supply—account for 30% of the total score. Demand drivers contribute 20%, while costs, access, governance, macroeconomic conditions, and resilience each carry a 10% weighting. Roundtrip transaction costs and principal property taxes are allocated to the costs category, separate from the property fundamentals.

Ms Kozyreva notes that buyers frequently underestimate the importance of exit liquidity. “How easy will it be to sell in five or ten years?” she asks. “A property that’s simple to acquire isn’t always straightforward to divest.” The GPS further applies a Foreign Ownership Limitations Penalty to restricted markets, deducting three points for light restrictions, five for moderate restrictions, and eight for heavy restrictions. This penalty accounts for frictions including designated ownership zones, approval requirements, title complexities, nationality-based restrictions, banking hurdles, and repatriation limits. Both open and restricted markets are ranked together on the basis that both remain investable for global buyers, with a higher total score indicating stronger fundamentals.

The Scoreboard encompasses 146 cities worldwide. This analysis focuses on the seven golden visa destinations identified above. The following figures—gross rental yields, prime prices per square meter, ten-year price changes, and roundtrip transaction costs—are drawn from the Scoreboard’s underlying data, which draws on sources including Numbeo, the Global Property Guide, and local market reports.

Abu Dhabi (Score: 30)

Abu Dhabi secures the top position among the group, and by a considerable margin. Ranking third out of 146 markets on the GPS, it is the highest-scoring golden visa property market in the index. Its lead is built on robust property fundamentals and a favourable cost structure rather than on exceptional headline yields. Abu Dhabi’s property score significantly outpaces Dubai’s, and the emirate imposes no personal income tax, no annual property tax, and no capital gains tax (CGT). Roundtrip transaction costs, at approximately 6%, are the lowest among the seven cities.

Gross yields are moderate for the group, at roughly 5.7% in the city centre. Apartment prices average around $5,700 per square meter, with quality product in the designated investment zones of Saadiyat, Yas, and Al Reem ranging between $4,000 and $7,000. The residence link is the UAE Golden Visa, under which investors may qualify for a ten-year renewable permit by holding property worth at least AED 2 million (approximately $545,000), with no minimum stay requirement. Foreign buyers are restricted to freehold ownership within designated investment zones, a limitation for which the GPS applies a foreign-ownership deduction.

Abu Dhabi’s advantage over Dubai is largely attributable to supply dynamics. Its development pipeline is more tightly managed, mitigating the oversupply risk that periodically affects its neighbour. The dirham’s peg to the US dollar eliminates currency risk for dollar-based investors, and the land registry is transparent. Principal risks include sensitivity to oil prices and exposure to regional conflict, the latter already reflected in the score. The currency peg removes a variable that Ms Kozyreva regards as decisive for cross-border buyers. “Real estate performance creates the return,” she explains; “currency can either amplify or dilute it.”

Dubai (Score: 21)

Dubai ranks second among the group and 25th out of 146 markets on the GPS. It shares Abu Dhabi’s zero-tax regime—no income tax, no property tax, and no CGT—and the dirham’s dollar peg similarly eliminates currency risk. Dubai’s distinguishing feature within the group is yield. Data from Cavendish Maxwell places average Dubai apartment yields at approximately 7% in early 2026, with villas closer to 5%. Roundtrip transaction costs are around 8%, with the 4% Dubai Land Department fee representing the largest component, marginally higher than Abu Dhabi’s.

The residence link is the same UAE Golden Visa, subject to the identical AED 2 million (approximately $545,000) property threshold, and freehold for non-nationals is confined to designated zones. Demand is structural but narrow: the tenant base is almost entirely expatriate, so rental demand tracks business activity and inward migration rather than being underpinned by a domestic owner-occupier market. Dubai carries the weakest resilience score of the seven, reflecting its exposure to regional conflict, and receives the same foreign-ownership deduction as Abu Dhabi. Even after these deductions, its fundamentals rank in the top fifth of the index, consistent with IMI’s 2025 review of golden visa real estate returns, which found that the UAE delivered the strongest returns of any major programme that year. The principal risk remains supply: off-plan sales constituted roughly 63% of 2024 transactions, and scheduled completions run to tens of thousands of units through 2027.

Valletta (Score: 18)

Malta’s capital anchors the Greater Valletta cluster—comprising Sliema, Saint Julian’s, and Msida—which functions as the effective investment market. Costs are the primary attraction, and Valletta’s cost score matches that of the two Gulf cities. Rental income is subject to a 15% final withholding tax, the 8% property transfer tax operates as a low-rate CGT, and there is no annual property tax. Yields in the core area run at about 5.3%, with prime prices near €5,000 per square meter. Prices have appreciated by 60% to 80% in euro terms over the past decade, so the entry point is no longer inexpensive.

Demand rests on an unusual foundation for a Mediterranean island. The iGaming sector employs more than 15,000 people in a country of roughly 560,000, alongside fintech and English-language financial services. The residence link is the Malta Permanent Residence Programme (MPRP). Applicants may qualify for permanent residency by purchasing property worth at least €375,000, or renting at €14,000 per annum, in addition to a government contribution. Malta’s citizenship-by-investment route was terminated following an EU Court of Justice ruling in April 2025, though the residence programme survived. A foreign-ownership penalty applies here as well: non-EU buyers require an Acquisition of Immovable Property (AIP) permit, which, although routinely granted, constitutes a genuine procedural step in portfolio construction. Malta’s acute land scarcity—one of the highest population densities globally—provides a structural floor under prices.

Limassol (Score: 7)

Limassol is Cyprus’s primary international business centre and offers the highest yield of the seven after Dubai, at approximately 6%. A favourable price-to-rent ratio of around 17 supports this yield, aided by mid-market districts such as Germasogeia trading below the seafront luxury segment. On the Scoreboard, costs net out flat. Cyprus has no annual property tax but levies a 20% CGT on gains from Cypriot property, and roundtrip costs range from roughly 8% to 14%.

The residence link is Cyprus’s residence-by-investment programme. Investors may qualify for permanent residency by investing at least €300,000 in new property and demonstrating €50,000 of annual foreign income. Two considerations are material: the citizenship-by-investment programme closed in 2020, so the route now leads to a residence permit rather than a passport, and Cyprus is not in the Schengen Area, so the permit does not confer Schengen travel rights. Demand recalibrated after 2022: Russian buyers, once accounting for 30% to 40% of luxury purchases, withdrew under sanctions, while Israeli and other Middle Eastern buyers partially filled the gap. A technology cluster—including firms such as Wargaming, eToro, and Exness—now supports rental demand. Access scores lower here than in any other city in the group, and both macro and resilience scores are negative. A substantial luxury-tower pipeline will test high-end absorption, and the island operates an isolated, oil-dependent power grid subject to outages.

Madrid (Score: 6)

Madrid represents a deep, liquid market led by owner-occupiers and posts the strongest governance score of the seven, with top marks for access and resilience. However, its cost and demand scores are the weakest in the group, which depresses the overall total. Yields are thin in the centre, at about 3.9%, albeit with a higher blended city average, and roundtrip costs are substantial, ranging from approximately 10% to as much as 20% once transfer tax, fees, and commissions are included. Non-EU landlords face a higher withholding rate on rental income than EU residents. The ten-year nominal price gain, near 31%, is more moderate than Lisbon’s or Athens’s, and prime districts such as Salamanca and Chamberí hold their value well.

There is no golden visa to attach. Spain closed the programme to new applications on 3 April 2025 under Organic Law 1/2025, which repealed the 2013 articles that had created the route. The law provided for a transitional period, so complete applications filed before that date were determined under the rules in force at submission, and permits already issued run for their granted term. The non-lucrative, digital nomad, and entrepreneur visas remain open routes for those seeking residency. A Madrid purchase now must stand on its own merits as real estate. One procedural drag warrants consideration: Spanish courts may take 18 months or more to resolve non-payment cases where tenants invoke vulnerability protections requiring social-services coordination prior to eviction.

Lisbon (Score: 4)

Lisbon records the weakest property score of the seven and the second weakest cost score, while its governance, resilience, and access scores are among the strongest in the group. Porto scores 9 to Lisbon’s 4 on the Scoreboard, so even within Portugal the best-known name is not the strongest market. The two cities share identical cost, governance, macro, and resilience scores, so the gap is almost entirely attributable to property fundamentals. A decade of demand outstripping supply has driven national prices up by more than double since 2015, and central Lisbon now trades near €6,000 to €7,000 per square meter. That appreciation has compressed gross yields toward 4.6% in the centre. Roundtrip transaction costs run 12% to 17% once the transfer tax (IMT), stamp duty, and fees are included, and rental income faces a rate of roughly 28%.

The residence link has narrowed. Portugal’s Golden Visa still operates through investment funds and other qualifying routes, but real estate was removed in 2023, so a Lisbon apartment no longer qualifies. The Non-Habitual Resident tax regime has also closed to new entrants. The longer-term risk is political: Portugal has restricted new short-term rental (Alojamento Local) licences in its busiest parishes, and further measures in response to housing pressure cannot be ruled out. Rules of this kind feature prominently on Ms Kozyreva’s list of factors that buyers price too late. “Rules governing short-term rentals, taxation, and foreign ownership can materially affect returns,” she states.

Athens (Score: 2)

Athens posts the lowest fundamentals score of the seven and, at 101st of 146 markets on the GPS, is the clearest case of reputation running ahead of the numbers. The city was Western Europe’s distressed market throughout the 2010s, and the recovery since has been steep: prices are up by well over 50% across the decade, and more than 80% from the 2017 bottom in the strongest areas. Yields have consequently fallen to about 3.9% in the centre, and roundtrip costs range from 12% to 17%. Prime prices remain comparatively low, at roughly $4,000 to $5,000 per square meter, and Greece has kept its property capital gains tax suspended, which partly explains the continued entry case.

The residence link is Greece’s Golden Visa, still the most prominent real-estate route among the group. Athens is now its most expensive tier: the programme requires applicants to invest at least €800,000 in the capital following the 2024 increase, and qualifying properties are barred from short-term rental platforms. Title risk is higher than buyers from northern Europe typically encounter: incomplete cadastre mapping, informal additions to older buildings, and unregistered inheritance chains make thorough due diligence essential. Governance scores the weakest of the seven, property and demand both score negatively, and the grid’s oil dependence weighs on energy security.

What the Ranking Measures—and What It Leaves Out

The GPS scores the asset, not the permit. A high total indicates that the property appears sound on yield, pricing, costs, and stability. It says nothing about the value of the residence right attached, the mobility a particular permit provides, or the lifestyle a city offers. This distinction operates in both directions. Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Valletta lead on fundamentals, yet each limits foreign ownership, and the GPS already deducts for that. A buyer who can purchase only within a freehold or investment zone, or who requires an AIP permit, is acquiring those limitations. At the other end, Athens scores worst as an investment while still conferring the benefit the fundamentals ignore: a five-year Greek residence permit carrying Schengen access, with no minimum stay. For a buyer whose primary objective is a foothold in the EU, a thinner yield can be a reasonable price.

Madrid and Lisbon present the harder cases. In both, a property purchase no longer comes with a permit at all, so there is no residence benefit to offset a low yield or a heavy tax bill; the fundamentals are all that remain for assessment.

The Takeaway

The essential discipline is to separate the two purchases that the golden visa bundles together, then price each on its own terms. The decision should turn on whether the residence permit or the asset is the true rationale for the acquisition. If residence is the objective, the permit’s conditions—its cost, any stay requirement, and what it ultimately leads to—should drive the choice, with the property serving as the vehicle. If the asset is the objective, the fundamentals come first, and on that test the order here runs close to the reverse of the popular ranking. For Madrid and Lisbon, the question has already been simplified: with no permit attached, the only factor to evaluate is the real estate, and on the fundamentals neither one leads.

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