Old Riga · Latvia
Photo: Old Riga panorama by Hajotthu, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized), via Wikimedia Commons
€50,000 into a nine-year-old Latvian company. €10,000 to the Latvian state budget. A Schengen residence card in your name within 30 days of filing.
A five-year Temporary Residence Permit in Latvia, renewable for another five years or convertible to permanent EU residence at year five, for you, your spouse, and your children under 18. The programme is open to Egyptian, GCC residents, Jordanian, Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Moroccan, Tunisian, Algerian, Libyan, Sudanese, Pakistani, Indian, and Brazilian families, among other nationalities. Iranian nationals with GCC residency or other country residency: please contact Dr. Mohamed Taha Ghobashy to discuss your options. The permit gives you the right to live anywhere in Latvia and travel freely across the 29 Schengen countries plus Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein.
Physical presence: minimal — about 3–5 days per year in Riga for the annual eID residence-card renewal. Otherwise no obligation to be physically present in Latvia, and you keep your home, business, and life in your country of origin. If your goal at year five is to convert into permanent residence or EU long-term resident status, additional requirements apply under EU and Latvian law (language proficiency, physical-presence rules, financial requirements). We discuss the specific path that fits your family during the first call.
Country-specific guides: For Egyptian families → · For UAE residents → · For Indian families → · For Pakistani families → · Latvia vs Portugal Golden Visa → · Family benefits — children's education →
You receive this by subscribing €50,000 into the share capital of an established Latvian company, plus €10,000 to the Latvian state budget. Your name is registered as a shareholder in the Latvian Company Register.
At the end of your engagement, once you have earned your permanent residence, the company buys your shares back for €1 and the transaction closes. The €50,000 was, economically, the price of the residence — not a refundable investment. This is disclosed in your shareholder agreement and on this website. It is not a surprise.
Portugal's Golden Visa rose to €500,000 and removed real estate in 2023. Greece raised its minimum to €800,000 in the main zones in 2024. Malta's programme costs over €700,000 all-in. Latvia remains at a total investor outlay of roughly €63,000 — four to thirteen times cheaper than every other regulated EU investor-residence programme currently open.
A Latvian residence card is an EU/Schengen residence card. You can fly, drive, or train across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Norway — twenty-nine countries — without a separate visa. You can place children in European schools and bank in euros.
After five years of lawful residence, EU law entitles you to apply for permanent residence under EU long-term resident status — a right you carry for life. Latvia is one of the few EU states where this five-year clock runs even if you are not physically present in the country.
Same end result — EU residence, Schengen access, pathway to permanent residence and eventually citizenship — at a fraction of the price every other open programme charges in 2026.
| Country | Minimum investment | All-in cost (family) | Physical residency | PR / Citizenship |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Latvia | €50,000 | ~€63,000 | ~5 days / year (eID renewal) | PR Yr 5 · Cit. Yr 10 |
| Portugal | €500,000 (fund) | ~€550,000 | 7 days / year | PR Yr 5 · Cit. Yr 5 |
| Greece | €400,000–€800,000 | ~€420,000–€820,000 | None | PR Yr 5 · Cit. Yr 7+ |
| Malta | €700,000+ | ~€700,000+ | None | PR immediate · Cit. (naturalisation) |
| Hungary | €250,000 | ~€260,000 | None | PR Yr 3 · Cit. Yr 8 |
| Cyprus | €300,000 | ~€310,000 | Every 2 years | PR immediate · Cit. Yr 7+ |
All figures approximate for the 2026 programme year, based on publicly available programme terms. Latvia is currently the lowest-cost regulated EU investor-residence programme in operation, by a wide margin.
This is the single most important section on the page. Every fee is shown, every recipient is named, and every refund status is honest.
| Item | Amount (EUR) | Paid to | Refundable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Share capital subscription into SIA "Las Palmas" | 50,000 | SIA "Las Palmas" | No* |
| State budget contribution | 10,000 | Ministry of Finance, Latvia | No |
| Legal fees (filing, contracts, OCMA) | 3,000 | Latvian law firm | No |
| State processing fee — standard (30 days) | 160 | OCMA | No |
| State processing fee — accelerated (10 business days) | 280 | OCMA | No |
| State processing fee — urgent (5 days) | 560 | OCMA | No |
| Total all-in, standard processing | ~63,160 | — | — |
| Total all-in, urgent processing | ~63,560 | — | — |
* Figures in euros. Does not include translation/apostille of documents, flights to Riga for card collection. We do not charge a separate service fee on top of the figures in this table.
At the end of the five-year programme, once your permanent residence is secured, SIA "Las Palmas" buys your shares back for €1 nominal consideration — a clean legal closing under Latvian Immigration Law Article 23. This mechanism is written transparently into your shareholder agreement before any payment is made.
Economically, the €50,000 functions as the programme fee. Legally, it takes the form of a share subscription because the Latvian statute requires this structure for the investor residence route. We mention it openly here, in every consultation, and in every contract — so there are no surprises down the line.
If you prefer to continue rather than transition to permanent residence at year 5, the temporary residence permit can be prolonged for another five years. In that case the €50,000 remains held as share capital through the extended term, additional state fees apply at renewal, and the €1 buyback simply moves to the end of the extended period. We will quote the exact renewal figure in writing during year four, based on the Latvian fees in force at that point.
Most families find this completely clear once explained. If anything feels unclear, we welcome the conversation — at the first call, during document review, or any time before you sign.
You will meet us by video call before you pay anything. We require it.
The benefits for your children's education and future are the part of the programme that rarely gets discussed — but for most Middle East and South Asian families, they matter more than the €60,000 programme cost.
Children of Latvian residence permit holders have the same right to education as Latvian citizens. Public preschool, primary, and secondary schools (ages 5–19) are free for residents.
University of Latvia, Riga Technical University, and Riga Stradiņš University offer programmes in both Latvian and English at €2,000–€7,000/year — vs €30,000+ at UK universities or $40,000+ in the US for international students.
After five years on the permit, your family qualifies for EU long-term resident status. Your children then access EU universities at the same tuition rates as residents of that country — most significantly in the Netherlands (€2,694/year vs €15,000+ as international student).
During the initial 5-year temporary residence period, families maintain private health insurance (~€300–€500 per child per year, covering all EU). After transition to permanent residence, children gain full access to Latvian state healthcare — free family doctor visits, hospital care, paediatric services, and free dental care under 18.
All children in Latvia — regardless of how long the family has held the permit — are entitled to standard state-funded childhood vaccinations.
Your children can attend summer language programmes in France, Germany, Italy without visa applications, join Erasmus+ EU youth exchange programmes once enrolled in a Latvian institution, and travel freely across all 29 Schengen states.
The hidden financial benefit most families overlook:
For a family with two children planning university studies in the EU, the difference between EU-resident and international-student tuition rates can save €100,000–€300,000 across two degrees. The €60,000 programme cost frequently pays for itself through one child's university tuition alone.
Your initial residence-permit application is submitted on paper at one of two places: a Latvian embassy in your region, or OCMA's offices in Latvia. The supporting documents — apostilled criminal-record certificate, source-of-funds bank evidence, notarised company subscription papers — exist in physical form and cannot yet be submitted electronically. Choose the route that fits your country of residence and how you prefer to engage with the process.
You appear in person at the Latvian embassy serving your region — Cairo, Abu Dhabi, New Delhi, Tashkent, and others — and submit the file. The embassy then forwards it to OCMA in Riga.
Some clients combine a short trip to Latvia with in-person filing at OCMA, biometric capture, and a meeting with Mārtiņš at his law office. Two to three days in the country, all under one umbrella.
How DHL forwarding works at the embassy. If you are filing through an embassy and want to save the diplomatic-mail wait, you ask the embassy to forward your file by DHL instead. The embassy prepares the package and remains the sender — you arrange the DHL pickup at the embassy and cover the courier cost. The documents never leave the embassy's custody, which preserves the official chain.
A note on electronic submission. The initial residence-permit application cannot be filed electronically — the apostilled criminal-record certificate and other notarised supporting documents exist only on paper. Annual eID renewals during your five-year permit term can, however, be submitted electronically by Mārtiņš via the latvija.lv portal; only the biometric appointment and card collection in Riga still need to be done in person.
We recommend the right route during the first call — based on your country of residence, family situation, and how soon you need the decision. We do not quote the statutory 30-day window as a marketing timeline; we quote the realistic 2 to 2.5 months for the embassy route and explain exactly why.
A client who understands the realistic picture stays a happy client. Here is what we tell every applicant on the first call, and in writing in the engagement letter, before any payment changes hands.
Although you do not have to live in Latvia, each TRP holder in the family must travel to Riga once per year for biometric capture and physical card collection. Article 22(2) of Imigrācijas likums governs this. The renewal application itself can be submitted electronically by Mārtiņš via the latvija.lv portal — but the in-person biometric appointment in Riga remains required. We schedule the trip, book the OCMA slot, and coordinate hotels.
Statutory decision windows are 30 / 10 / 5 days, but the realistic end-to-end timeline — from embassy filing to TRP-in-hand — is 2 to 2.5 months. Document transit, financial-source review, and multi-agency security screening account for the difference.
Since 2024–2025, investor files are reviewed not only by OCMA but also by the Latvian State Security Service (VDD) and the Latvian Financial Intelligence Unit. Clean, well-documented source of funds is essential — we triage this before any money moves.
Permanent residence after year five is a real option, but it requires substantive physical presence during the qualifying period AND A2-level Latvian language. Clients who do not relocate keep the TRP and renew for another 5 years — that path needs no Latvian language and no relocation.
Latvian citizenship by naturalisation is a long-term path that requires 10 years' lawful residence, B1 Latvian language, a civic-knowledge exam, and — depending on your nationality — consideration of dual-citizenship rules. We discuss whether citizenship fits your specific situation during the first call rather than ruling it in or out on a website.
The €50,000 enters SIA "Las Palmas" as share capital — your name is registered on the Latvian Company Register as a shareholder. At year five (or end of the extended period), the company repurchases the shares for €1 nominal under the agreement you sign before paying. In economic terms it functions as a programme fee; the legal structure is fully real and disclosed.
If any of these items would change your decision, we want you to know now — not after you have paid. Every one of these points is also set out in your engagement letter and in the shareholder agreement, in writing, before the bank transfers happen.
This is a 30-minute video call, in English, with Jānis personally. We answer every question — about the programme, the fees, the €1 buyback, your specific situation. We do not take a deposit, send a contract, or put you on a mailing list.