Ireland · Passive income
Stamp 0 — persons of independent means
Open
Last verified July 2026
Open. Discretionary, granted for one year at a time, and deliberately unattractive: Ireland has never wanted a retirement migration industry.
Stamp 0 is the only realistic non-EU route into Irish residence for a wealthy retiree since the IIP closed, and it pairs with the non-dom remittance basis. But it is a thin permission — renewed yearly at official discretion, with no work rights, no state services, and no citizenship at the end of it.
The facts
- Qualifying figure
- €50k
- Total landed cost
- No investment required, but you must evidence EUR 50,000 of annual income per person (EUR 100,000 for a couple, not necessarily split evenly) plus access to a lump sum for major unforeseen costs such as a property purchase or medical emergency, plus private medical insurance
- Timeline
- 4–8 months — Applications typically processed in 4–6 months by Immigration Service Delivery
- Physical presence
- Expected to be genuinely resident; the permission is renewed annually
- Family
- spouse or partner (combined EUR 100,000 income)dependent children in practice, though this is discretionary
- Permanent residency
- Not a normal path — Stamp 0 is expressly a low-level, temporary permission and does not lead to long-term residency in the ordinary way
- Citizenship
- Effectively none — see watch-outs
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- non-EEA nationalannual income of at least EUR 50,000 per person (EUR 100,000 per couple)access to a lump sum for unforeseen major expensesprivate medical insuranceno employment or business activity in Irelandverified statement of accounts certified by an Irish accountancy firm
What can go wrong
- Stamp 0 residence is generally not reckonable for naturalisation. Years spent on it will very likely buy you nothing toward Irish citizenship — verify with Immigration Service Delivery before treating this as a passport strategy. This is the route's defining limitation.
- It is discretionary and renewed annually. There is no entitlement, and no security of tenure for a family relocating children into Irish schools.
- No work, no business, no state benefits and no publicly funded services. Private medical insurance covering emergencies and hospital stays is mandatory.
- The financial evidence bar is unusually procedural: accounts must be presented in tabular form, converted to euro, and certified by an Irish-based accountancy firm.
- The EUR 50,000 is income, not capital — a large balance sheet producing little income does not qualify on its face.