Best European Digital Nomad Visas: Portugal, Spain, Croatia and More
February 13, 2026
A 2026 guide to Europe's leading digital nomad visas, Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Estonia, Italy, and Greece, with income, duration, and residency-path basics compared.
Remote work untethered a lot of careers from a single office, and Europe has spent the last few years building visa programs to catch the people who noticed. A digital nomad visa lets someone earning income from outside the country, an employer abroad, a freelance client base, a business they run remotely, live there legally for a year or more without needing local employment. That is a narrower promise than “citizenship” or even “permanent residency,” but for the right applicant it is often the more useful first step: lower barriers, faster approval, and in several countries a genuine on-ramp toward something more permanent later.
This roundup covers six of the programs worth knowing in 2026: Portugal, Spain, Croatia, Estonia, Italy, and Greece. Each has a different personality, some are built for people planning to stay a decade, others are built for people who want a great year and no strings attached.
What a digital nomad visa is, and isn’t
A digital nomad visa is a residence permit tied to remote income, not to a job offer, a marriage, ancestry, or an investment. That distinguishes it sharply from the citizenship-by-investment and golden visa programs we cover elsewhere on this site (see our guide to exploring golden visas), where the applicant buys their way into residency or citizenship through a qualifying investment, often real estate or a government fund. Nomad visas are cheaper to obtain and usually faster, but they generally don’t grant citizenship on their own; at best, several years of continuous residency under one can eventually count toward naturalization, depending on the country’s separate citizenship rules.
Worth flagging up front: Spain’s digital nomad visa is a completely different program from Spain’s former Golden Visa (the investment-residency route Spain closed in April 2025). The nomad visa is unaffected by that closure and remains active. Similarly, Malta’s citizenship-by-investment program was shut down in 2025 after a European Court of Justice ruling, but that is a separate track from any remote-work residency permit; the two shouldn’t be confused.
The programs at a glance
Figures below are approximate and change; always confirm current thresholds with the relevant consulate before applying.
| Country | Program | Approx. minimum monthly income | Initial duration | Notes on renewal / path forward |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Portugal | D8 Digital Nomad Visa | Roughly 4x the national minimum wage (typically €3,000-3,500 range; check current figure) | 1 year residence permit | Renewable; years count toward permanent residency and, later, citizenship eligibility |
| Spain | Visado para Teletrabajadores (digital nomad visa) | Around €2,500-2,800/month, higher with dependents | Up to 1 year, then renewable residence permit | Renewable up to several years; a possible reduced tax rate is available for a limited window |
| Croatia | Digital Nomad Residence Permit | Varies, check the consulate; historically set around €2,300-2,500/month | Up to 1 year | Not renewable back-to-back; applicants generally must leave for a period before reapplying |
| Estonia | Digital Nomad Visa | Among the higher thresholds in Europe, historically near €4,000-4,500/month | Up to 1 year | Not designed as a long-term residency pipeline; best for a defined stay |
| Italy | Digital Nomad / Remote Worker Visa | Varies, check the consulate; income and health-insurance proof both required | Up to 1 year, renewable | Renewable; separate from Italy’s 2025 restrictions on citizenship by descent, which do not affect this visa |
| Greece | Digital Nomad Visa | Roughly €3,500/month range; verify current figure | 1 year, renewable | Renewable; extended stays can eventually feed into Greece’s general residency framework |
Portugal
Portugal’s D8 visa is usually the first program people mention, and for good reason: it pairs a manageable income bar with one of Europe’s more forgiving paths from temporary residence to permanent residence to citizenship, typically counted in years of lawful residence rather than a large capital outlay. Lisbon and Porto get the attention, but the visa covers the whole country, and cost of living outside the two big cities remains meaningfully lower than most of Western Europe. The tradeoff is paperwork: Portuguese bureaucracy has a reputation for being slow, and applicants should budget real time for appointments and document processing.
Spain
Spain’s nomad visa leans into lifestyle: Mediterranean climate, strong healthcare, and cities (Barcelona, Valencia, Madrid) that already have deep expat and remote-work communities. It has occasionally offered a reduced tax rate for qualifying newcomers in the early years of residence, though the details of that benefit have shifted and should be checked directly rather than assumed. As noted above, this is a distinct program from the golden visa Spain closed in 2025; nomad-visa applicants aren’t affected by that closure.
Croatia
Croatia’s pitch is simpler and, in some ways, more honest about what it is: a genuinely tax-free arrangement on foreign-earned income for the length of the permit, in a country with over a thousand islands and a coastline built for a working sabbatical. The catch is that the permit is explicitly not designed for long-term settlement. It typically cannot be renewed consecutively, and holders are usually expected to leave for a cooling-off period before reapplying. Treat Croatia as an excellent one-year (or two, non-consecutively) chapter, not a residency pipeline.
Estonia
Estonia built its digital nomad visa for a specific applicant: a well-paid tech or consulting professional who wants Europe’s most digitized bureaucracy and doesn’t need a long-term residency strategy attached. The income bar tends to run higher than most of its neighbors, which filters the applicant pool accordingly. In exchange, Estonia offers e-government services that make the actual administrative experience of living there unusually painless.
Italy
Italy’s remote-work visa gets less attention than its D8 or nomad-visa peers, partly because the country’s broader immigration bureaucracy has a reputation for complexity that the visa itself doesn’t fully escape. It is worth being precise about one thing: Italy’s 2025 legislative changes to citizenship by descent (jure sanguinis) restricted who can claim Italian citizenship through ancestry; that is an entirely separate legal track from the remote-work visa and doesn’t change its requirements or availability. For applicants drawn to Italy for its culture and food rather than an ancestry claim, the nomad visa remains a straightforward, if bureaucratically patient, route.
Greece
Greece rounds out the list with a program aimed squarely at people who want sun, an increasingly well-connected digital economy in Athens and a handful of islands, and a lower cost of living than Western Europe without sacrificing EU access. Like most of the programs above, it renews annually rather than granting anything permanent outright, but extended, continuous residence can eventually intersect with Greece’s broader residency and naturalization rules.
Choosing between them
The honest way to choose is to rank what actually matters to you: income threshold you can clear comfortably, whether the visa is renewable or a one-time stay, whether years on it count toward a longer-term residency or citizenship goal, and tax treatment of foreign income. Portugal and Spain skew toward people thinking several years ahead. Croatia and Estonia are better suited to people who want a defined, excellent chapter without a long-term commitment. Italy and Greece sit in between, with real cultural upside and a slower bureaucratic pace to match.
None of these programs are citizenship by investment, and none should be confused with one. If a faster or investment-based path to a second passport is closer to what you’re actually after, our golden visa guide covers how those programs differ.
Where this fits your bigger picture
A digital nomad visa is a good answer to “where can I legally live and work remotely next year.” It is a different question from “what’s my actual path to a second citizenship,” which depends on your ancestry, existing citizenships, income, and the specific country’s rules, not just which visa application form you fill out.
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Informational only, not legal or tax advice. Program details change; verify current requirements with the relevant consulate.