Ireland · Residency by investment
Immigrant Investor Programme
Closed to new applications from 15 February 2023 with effectively no notice, ending an 11-year programme. Applications on hand at closure are still being processed — as of January 2026 the Department of Justice confirmed roughly 1,400 files representing about EUR 1bn remained under review, with 1,164 late-stage files already processed channelling EUR 771.9m into social housing bonds, nursing homes and sports facilities. Nothing replaced it.
The IIP's closure removed the only route by which a non-EU family could purchase Irish residence, and with it the only practical way for most UHNW families to access the Irish non-dom remittance basis. That is the whole Irish problem in one sentence: the best tax regime in Western Europe now sits behind a door with no handle unless you have EU citizenship or an Irish grandparent.
The facts
- Minimum investment
- €400k
- Total landed cost
- Historic: EUR 400,000 endowment, or EUR 1m into an approved investment fund or enterprise for 3 years, plus fees
- Physical presence
- Historic: one day per year
- Family
- historic: spouse or partner and dependent children
- Permanent residency
- Historic: Stamp 4 renewable permission; long-term residence after 5 years
- Citizenship
- Historic: 5 years reckonable residence, but the one-day-a-year presence made citizenship unreachable in practice
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- closed to new applications since 15 February 2023
- The closure was abrupt and unannounced — a live lesson in policy risk for anyone timing a golden visa application anywhere.
- Legacy applicants are still in limbo three years on. Senior executives who filed under the old rules may not receive Stamp 4 permission until late 2026.
- Firms still marketing 'Ireland golden visa' services are farming traffic on a dead programme.
- There is no successor and no credible signal of one. Do not plan around a revival.