Moldova · Residency by investment
Investor Residence Permit (Law No. 200/2010, Article 36¹)
Open. Legal basis: Law No. 200/2010 (Articles 31 and 36) with Law No. 81/2004. The threshold is defined as 30 forecast average monthly salaries; with the 2026 forecast salary at MDL 17,400 this gives roughly MDL 522,000 — about EUR 26,000–27,000. Several advisory sites claim this route requires around EUR 100,000; that does not reconcile with the official Invest Moldova formula or the published salary figure and appears to be wrong.
Moldova is the only jurisdiction in this group with live EU accession momentum: screening completed 22 September 2025, the first cluster (Fundamentals) formally opened 15 June 2026, and the government targets all six clusters open by end-2026 with an accession agreement signed by end-2028. The passport already carries visa-free Schengen. Entry is genuinely cheap — roughly EUR 26,000, not the EUR 100,000 widely quoted.
Qualifying routes
roughly MDL 522,000; 2-year permit
3-year permit
4-year permit
5-year permit
8-year permit
The facts
- Minimum investment
- €26k
- Total landed cost
- Investment plus MDL 3,600 application fee and roughly EUR 2,000–5,000 in legal and formation costs. Alternative to the capital threshold: create at least one full-time job at or above the average wage.
- Timeline
- 1–3 months — Bureau for Migration and Asylum processing.
- Physical presence
- Required to build the permanent-residence clock
- Family
- spousedependent children
- Permanent residency
- roughly 5 continuous years of temporary residence
- Citizenship
- 10 years counted from the grant of PERMANENT residence, not from arrival — realistically 15+ years in total
- Language test
- Romanian language test
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- qualifying investment or job creationregistered Moldovan companyclean criminal recordhealth insuranceproof of accommodation
- NATURALISATION IS A FIFTEEN-YEAR PROPOSITION, NOT TEN. The ten years run from the grant of permanent residence, and permanent residence itself needs roughly five continuous years of temporary residence first. Do not sell Moldova as a citizenship route. Reduced to 3 years for spouses, parents or children of citizens, and 8 for recognised refugees.
- THE EUR 100,000 FIGURE CIRCULATING ON ADVISORY SITES IS WRONG. The official formula is 30 forecast average monthly salaries — roughly EUR 26,000–27,000 for 2026. If an adviser quotes EUR 100,000, they have not read the source.
- EU ACCESSION IS THE ENTIRE THESIS AND IT IS REVERSIBLE WITH ONE ELECTION. The 2028 signature target is a political statement, not a base case; independent assessment calls it ambitious but achievable. Moldova's politics have swung before.
- TRANSNISTRIA REMAINS UNRESOLVED, and Moldova sits directly on the Ukrainian border with the regional security exposure that implies.
- A new biometric Residence Card replaced the old permit and ID from 1 January 2026.
- CFC rules could not be confirmed in the official text — do not represent Moldova as having none.