Spain Golden Visa for Property Investors · Mallorca Focus Guide 2026

Let us start with the fact that matters: Spain's golden visa is closed. The programme that granted residency to non-EU nationals investing €500,000 or more in Spanish property ended on 3 April 2025, when the legislation abolishing it took effect. Applications lodged before that date continued under transitional rules, and existing golden visa holders retain their permits and renewal rights — but for a buyer planning a Mallorca purchase today, property investment no longer carries a residency permit with it. Any adviser suggesting otherwise is selling you the past.

This guide exists because the search interest never stopped, and because the underlying question remains completely legitimate: how does a non-EU buyer — American, British, Swiss, Emirati — combine a significant Mallorca property purchase with the right to actually use it for more than 90 days at a stretch? The answer in 2026 is a two-part structure: buy the property on its own merits, and secure residence through one of the visa routes that survived the reform.

Two routes do most of the work. The non-lucrative visa suits buyers living on independent means — pensions, dividends, investment income — and requires proof of sufficient funds (a multiple of Spain's IPREM index, roughly €2,400 per month for the main applicant, plus increments per dependant) and full private health insurance. The digital nomad visa suits working buyers employed by, or invoicing, non-Spanish companies, with a similar income logic. Both cover spouses and children, both renew towards long-term residence, and both are routine work for the immigration lawyers we partner with. Neither requires a property purchase — but owning your home here strengthens the practical case and removes the largest cost of relocation.

For the buyers who used to be golden visa candidates — typically non-EU families purchasing between €1M and €10M — the post-2025 playbook looks like this. First, separate the questions: the property purchase follows the standard non-resident process (NIE, independent lawyer, arras contract, notary completion) regardless of any visa. Nothing about being non-EU restricts what you can buy in Mallorca or how you hold it.

Second, choose the residence route by how you earn. Retired and financially independent buyers take the non-lucrative visa, applied for at the Spanish consulate in their country of residence before moving; it does not permit work in Spain, which is precisely its design. Working buyers with remote income take the digital nomad visa, which can even be applied for in-country and carries access to a favourable expatriate tax regime in qualifying cases. Third, model tax residency honestly: more than 183 days in Spain generally makes you a Spanish tax resident, bringing worldwide income tax and the Balearic wealth tax into scope. Some buyers deliberately stay under the threshold; others embrace residency and structure around it. Both are legitimate — drifting between them accidentally is not.

Mallorca-specific advantages remain intact. The island's international schools ease family relocations; Palma's consular and legal infrastructure handles non-EU paperwork daily; and the airport's year-round connections make split-residence patterns practical. What the golden visa's end actually changed for our clients is sequence, not feasibility: residence planning now starts before the property search, with immigration and tax advisers in the room from the first conversation. We make those introductions as a standard part of every non-EU engagement.