Romania · Residency by investment
Proposed Romanian Residency by Investment Programme (EUR 400,000)
NOT LAW — DO NOT PRESENT AS AVAILABLE. Announced on 15 October 2025 as a PNL draft bill and registered in the Senate. As of July 2026 it has not passed either chamber. It must clear the Senate, then the Chamber of Deputies as decision chamber, then possible Constitutional Court review, then presidential signature and publication in the Official Gazette.
Worth tracking, but assign low-to-moderate probability and no reliable timeline. Romania would be launching an EU golden visa into the most hostile environment such schemes have ever faced — after the CJEU ruled against Malta's CBI in April 2025, and while Romania itself sits under an Excessive Deficit Procedure with a 2030 correction deadline.
Qualifying routes
PROPOSED ONLY — maturity of at least 5 years
PROPOSED ONLY — held at least 5 years
PROPOSED ONLY
PROPOSED ONLY
The facts
- Minimum investment
- €400k
- Total landed cost
- Not applicable — the programme does not exist
- Physical presence
- No minimum stay under the draft
- Family
- family members includable under the draft
- Permanent residency
- Permanent residence after 5 years under the draft
- Citizenship
- 'Under Law 21/1991' — the draft is deliberately vague on timeline
- Language test
- B1 Romanian under the ordinary route
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- PROPOSED ONLY. Registered in the Senate and not passed by either chamber as of July 2026. Anyone offering to pre-register a client is selling nothing.
- The political headwinds are severe: the April 2025 CJEU ruling against Malta's CBI, an openly hostile Commission and Parliament, and a legislature whose bandwidth is elsewhere — the Chamber of Deputies passed a Moldova-unification negotiation bill in June 2026.
- The draft's vetting provisions are unusually heavy: source-of-funds plus screening by SRI (domestic intelligence), SIE (foreign intelligence) and the ONPCSB anti-money-laundering office.
- The draft's citizenship language is deliberately vague — it points at Law 21/1991 without committing to a timeline.