Residency by Investment (RBI / Golden Visa).

Definition

Residency by Investment (RBI) — commonly called a "Golden Visa" — grants the legal right to live in a country in exchange for a qualifying investment, typically real estate or a regulated fund subscription. Unlike Citizenship by Investment, RBI does not itself confer citizenship or a passport; it's a residency permit, sometimes with a path to citizenship after a number of years of actual or notional residence.

Portugal, the reference case in our directory

Portugal's Golden Visa is the one RBI program in our Programs directory, and the strictest on digital assets of any program we track: it accepts no direct crypto contribution at any investment size, only a €500,000 subscription to a regulated Portuguese fund, some of which happen to hold partial crypto exposure. A five-year residency period can lead to Portuguese — and EU — citizenship. See our full Portugal page for exactly how a crypto-holding applicant navigates this route today.

Why RBI and CBI get evaluated together

A family office rarely chooses one over the other in isolation — a Golden Visa's path to EU citizenship and a Caribbean CBI's immediate passport often serve different purposes in the same portfolio: one for eventual EU access and tax residency, the other for immediate travel freedom and jurisdictional diversification. Our Advisory vertical treats CBI and RBI programs as one sequenced decision, not two separate product categories.