Romania · Residency by investment
Long-Term Residence Exemption for Investors (Article 71, GEO 194/2002)
Open. NOTE: the commonly-cited 'EUR 500,000' threshold could not be verified anywhere. The verified figure is EUR 1,000,000 or more than 100 full-time jobs. The EUR 500 and EUR 700 per month figures circulating in the market are means-of-subsistence proofs for the business visa — a different thing entirely, and the likely source of the confusion.
Romania permits dual citizenship and requires no renunciation — the structural opposite of Bulgaria. For a UHNW client unwilling to surrender an existing passport, Romania's routes can in principle deliver citizenship where Bulgaria's investor route cannot. But at EUR 1m for long-term residence and eight years to citizenship, this is not a competitive investment-migration product.
Qualifying routes
Grants long-term residence without the duration-of-stay and means-of-subsistence conditions, bypassing the standard 5-year continuous residence requirement
Alternative to the capital threshold
The facts
- Minimum investment
- €1M
- Total landed cost
- EUR 1m of committed investment plus legal and advisory costs; the job-creation alternative substitutes payroll for capital
- Timeline
- 3–9 months — Residence permit processing is 30 days statutory, often 2-4 weeks in practice
- Physical presence
- The exemption removes the duration-of-stay condition
- Family
- spousedependent children
- Permanent residency
- This IS the long-term residence route — it bypasses the standard 5-year requirement
- Citizenship
- 8 years of legal residence under ordinary naturalisation, reducible by up to 3 years under Law 14/2025 for EU citizens or those born in Romania who also meet criteria such as significant economic contribution
- Language test
- B1 Romanian plus proof of social and cultural integration
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- investment of at least EUR 1,000,000, or creation of more than 100 full-time jobsclean criminal record and documented source of funds
- THE EUR 500,000 FIGURE IS WRONG and widely repeated. The verified threshold is EUR 1,000,000 or more than 100 jobs. Anyone quoting EUR 500k is confusing this with the monthly subsistence proofs on the business visa.
- NOT PRIMARY-SOURCE CONFIRMED. The Romanian immigration authority IGI blocks automated access and the consolidated text of GEO 194/2002 could not be opened. The EUR 1m / 100-jobs figure is corroborated across multiple independent secondary sources but is not confirmed against primary text. Verify with IGI directly before advising.
- There is no citizenship shortcut — the ordinary 8-year clock applies, with a B1 language test.
- Romania has been under an Excessive Deficit Procedure since 2020 with the correction deadline extended to 2030. Further consolidation is likely and the 10% flat rate is a standing target.