The EU Golden Passport Ban Explained: What the Malta Ruling Means for Every Programme

Following the Court of Justice of the EU's 29 April 2025 ruling against Malta, zero EU member states now operate a citizenship-by-investment scheme. Malta was the last to close, in July 2025, after Cyprus ended its programme in 2020 and Bulgaria in 2022. The ruling binds only EU states; the Caribbean five, Turkey and Vanuatu are unaffected.

What the 29 April 2025 judgment actually banned

The Court of Justice of the European Union's ruling in Case C-181/23, European Commission v Malta, addressed one specific legal question: whether a member state can grant its own citizenship, and by automatic extension European Union citizenship, in exchange for a predetermined financial contribution, without requiring a genuine connection between the applicant and that country. The Court held that this practice amounts to the commercialisation of the status of national of a member state, incompatible with the essential nature of Union citizenship under Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and a breach of the duty of sincere cooperation between member states under Article 4(3) of the Treaty on European Union. In plain terms, the ruling does not ban citizenship for exceptional individual contribution, ancestry, marriage or long-term residence-based naturalisation, all of which remain lawful and common across the EU. It specifically targets schemes structured around a fixed, transparent, predetermined investment amount as the qualifying criterion, which is precisely the model Malta, and before it Cyprus and Bulgaria, had operated.

Why the ruling binds EU member states only

The Court's reasoning is rooted entirely in EU treaty law: the specific harm identified is that a scheme in one member state effectively grants access to the rights of EU citizenship across all 27 member states, undermining mutual trust between them. That logic has no application to a country outside the European Union, whose citizenship does not carry any EU rights to begin with. This is why the ruling has no legal bearing whatsoever on the Caribbean five citizenship-by-investment programmes, Turkey's, or Vanuatu's: none of those countries are EU member states, none of their citizenships confer EU citizenship, and the Commission has no legal standing to bring a case against a non-member state under this line of reasoning. Marketing material occasionally implies these programmes now face similar legal risk; as a matter of EU law, they do not, since the Court's jurisdiction simply does not extend to them.

Cyprus and Bulgaria: the earlier closures

Malta was not the first EU country to end a citizenship-by-investment scheme, and the CJEU ruling was, in that sense, the conclusion of a longer trend rather than its start. Cyprus operated a scheme requiring an investment of around €2.2 million, and ended it on 1 November 2020, after the Cyprus Papers, a document leak investigated by Al Jazeera, exposed that a majority of the roughly 6,800 citizenships granted between 2007 and 2020 had involved irregularities, including citizenship extended to individuals with pending criminal charges. Bulgaria operated a smaller-scale scheme and ended it in March 2022, in the weeks immediately following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as EU pressure to close routes used by Russian nationals intensified sharply. With Malta's closure in July 2025, no EU member state now operates a fixed-investment citizenship route. One narrow exception exists in principle: Austria retains a highly exceptional discretionary naturalisation provision for individuals judged to make a significant direct contribution to the Austrian economy, but it is not marketed as a citizenship-by-investment scheme, has no fixed investment threshold, and results in only around 20 to 30 grants a year.

Golden visas are a different, and still partly active, category

It matters to distinguish golden passports, which grant citizenship, from golden visas, which grant residency and, in some cases, an eventual path toward citizenship after a standard residence period. The CJEU ruling does not address residency programmes at all, and several EU countries continue to run them: Greece maintains a tiered real estate investment route, and Portugal continues to offer residency through fund investment and other non-property routes, having already removed its real estate option in major cities in an earlier reform. The trend, however, has been consistently toward restriction rather than expansion. Spain eliminated the real estate route of its own golden visa entirely from 3 April 2025, Portugal removed the property option from its largest cities before that, and Ireland closed its Immigrant Investor Programme to new applicants in February 2023. The direction of travel across the EU, for both golden passports and golden visas, has been toward closure or narrowing for close to five years, and the Malta ruling is best read as the point at which that trend reached the last standing citizenship-by-investment scheme, rather than as an isolated event.

What remains unaffected outside the EU

For anyone comparing options after Malta's closure, the practical landscape splits cleanly along the EU line. Inside the EU, citizenship-by-investment as a category no longer exists anywhere, and golden visa residency routes, while narrower than they were, continue in Greece, Portugal and a handful of other member states, generally now requiring genuine residence before citizenship becomes possible. Outside the EU, the citizenship-by-investment model continues unchanged and unaffected: the five Caribbean programmes, Turkey's real estate route, and Vanuatu's programme, covered individually elsewhere on this site, none of which grant EU rights, but all of which remain lawful under their own national frameworks regardless of what happens inside the European Union.

Frequently asked questions

Does the Malta ruling mean no country in the EU can ever offer citizenship by investment again?

It means no current EU member state can lawfully operate a scheme structured around a fixed, predetermined financial contribution as the qualifying test for citizenship, based on the Court's reasoning about EU citizenship rights. A future scheme built around a genuine, demonstrable connection requirement rather than a flat investment figure could in principle be argued differently, but no EU state currently operates one.

Why did Cyprus and Bulgaria end their programmes years before Malta?

Cyprus closed its scheme in November 2020 following a document leak that exposed widespread irregularities in how citizenship had been granted. Bulgaria closed its scheme in March 2022, amid intensified EU pressure following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Malta was the last of the three to close, only after losing a direct legal challenge at the CJEU.

Are Greece and Portugal's golden visas affected by the Malta ruling?

No, not directly. The ruling addresses citizenship, not residency. Greece and Portugal's programmes grant residency, which can lead to citizenship after a standard residence period, and are a legally distinct category from the citizenship-by-investment schemes the ruling addressed.

Does the ruling affect Caribbean citizenship-by-investment programmes?

No. The Court of Justice of the EU has no jurisdiction over countries outside the European Union. The five Caribbean programmes, along with Turkey's and Vanuatu's, continue to operate under their own national laws, unaffected by this ruling.

Is there still any way to get EU citizenship through a financial contribution?

Not through a fixed-investment scheme; none currently exist anywhere in the EU. Austria retains a narrow, highly discretionary route for individuals judged to make an exceptional direct contribution to the Austrian economy, but it has no fixed investment figure, is not marketed as an investment scheme, and results in very few grants each year.