How to Get EU Citizenship in 2026: Every Route to a European Passport, Ranked

An EU passport is one of the most valuable documents in the world. It grants the right to live, work, study, and retire in any of the 27 member states, with no visa, no work permit, and no quota. So the question of how to get EU citizenship draws an enormous amount of attention, and an enormous amount of misinformation. Much of the content online is out of date, because 2025 and 2026 brought the largest wave of legal change to European nationality rules in a generation. Malta’s investor passport was struck down by Europe’s highest court. Italy slammed the door on distant-ancestor descent claims. Portugal doubled its naturalization clock. Spain abolished its golden visa entirely.

This guide ranks every realistic route to an EU passport in 2026 and tells you the trade-offs each one carries, including the ones marketed heavily but rarely the fastest in practice. The single most important fact to absorb first: you cannot buy EU citizenship anymore. Following the April 2025 ruling against Malta, no member state can legally sell a passport. What remains is descent, naturalization through residence, and golden visas that lead to residence and then, years later, to naturalization. Those are different things, and conflating them is the most expensive mistake prospective applicants make. Throughout, treat the dates and figures here as accurate to mid-2026 and confirm tax and legal specifics with qualified counsel before you commit money or relocate.

The three real routes to an EU passport

There are exactly three legitimate pathways to EU citizenship, and they differ wildly in cost, speed, and certainty:

1. By descent (jure sanguinis): You inherit the right through an ancestor. Often free or low cost, usually no residency required, and frequently the fastest path if you qualify.
2. By naturalization through residence: You move to an EU country, live there legally for a set number of years (5 to 10 depending on the country), and meet language and integration requirements.
3. By golden visa, then naturalization: You invest for a residence permit, then naturalize on the standard residence timeline. This is the slowest and most expensive route, and the one most often misrepresented as a shortcut to a passport.

Route 1: EU citizenship by descent

If you have European ancestry, this is almost always your best option. It is cheaper, faster, and lower risk than relocating for a decade. The catch is that the rules tightened sharply in 2025, so older guides will mislead you.

• Ireland offers one of the cleanest routes. If a grandparent was born on the island of Ireland, you can register on the Foreign Births Register and obtain Irish citizenship with no residency and no language test. Processing runs roughly 12 months after documents are received. Great-grandparent claims work only if the intervening generation registered before you were born, so the chain must have been actively preserved.
• Poland has no generational cap. You can seek confirmation of citizenship (a confirmation, not a fresh grant) if you document an unbroken chain from an ancestor who held Polish citizenship from 1918 onward. If any ancestor formally renounced or lost citizenship before their child was born, the chain breaks.
• Hungary has no generational limit but requires proof of lineage and basic Hungarian language ability.
• Lithuania extends to a parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent who held citizenship before the June 1940 Soviet annexation. Latvia covers descendants of those who left during the 1940 to 1990 occupation. Both allow dual citizenship.
• Italy previously had the most generous descent rules in Europe. The Tajani Decree (Law No. 74/2025, in force May 24, 2025) ended that. Automatic recognition now requires an Italian parent or grandparent born in Italy. Great-grandparent claims no longer qualify automatically. Applications filed before March 27, 2025 are evaluated under the old rules. Italy’s Constitutional Court reviewed the reform and upheld the new generational cap on March 12, 2026, so the restriction now stands.

See our dedicated breakdown of citizenship by descent and EU passport ancestry for the documentation each country demands.

Route 2: Naturalization through residence

If you have no qualifying ancestry, you naturalize the hard way: live in an EU country legally and continuously, then apply. The timelines vary more than most people expect.

Germany is now among the fastest. Its reformed Nationality Act (in force June 27, 2024) cut the standard residence requirement from eight years to five years and fully permitted dual citizenship. A three-year accelerated track for highly integrated applicants existed in the original 2024 law, but the CDU/CSU-SPD government that took office in early 2025 abolished it: the Bundestag voted to scrap the three-year route in October 2025, leaving the five-year standard in place.

France also requires five years, but raised its language bar to B2 level from January 2026 (up from B1), a change many 2024-era guides miss. Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden all naturalize at five years with no major recent reforms. Spain is 10 years for most nationalities but only two years for nationals of Latin American countries, the Philippines, Andorra, and Portugal.

Portugal is the cautionary tale. Its revised Nationality Law extended standard naturalization to 10 years for non-EU, non-CPLP nationals, with seven years for EU citizens and CPLP nationals (Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome, Timor-Leste, Equatorial Guinea). Only periods of legal residence count; application-processing time before residence is granted no longer counts. The transition is narrower than simply having been resident under the old five-year rule: nationality applications filed by 18 May 2026 and still pending when the new law took effect are protected under the prior regime, while prior residence or fee payment without a filed nationality application is not the same thing. Portugal also closed its Sephardic Jewish ancestry route under the 2025-2026 Nationality Law reform; new claims on that basis are no longer accepted, though existing holders’ family members can still apply. The Portuguese passport guide separates this residence route from descent, marriage and the other ways Portuguese citizenship can be acquired.

Route 3: Golden visa, then naturalization

This is where the marketing is loudest and the reality is harshest. A golden visa is a residence permit, not a passport. It lets you live in the host country and travel the Schengen Area, but EU citizenship still requires you to naturalize on that country’s timeline. After the Malta ruling, there is no exception to this.

What is still open in 2026 narrowed considerably. Spain abolished its golden visa on April 3, 2025 (Organic Law 1/2025); existing holders renew under prior rules, but no new investors. Portugal’s real estate route closed in October 2023, leaving fund subscriptions (€500,000), cultural investment (€250,000), scientific research (€500,000), or job-creating business formation, all now feeding into a 10-year naturalization clock. Greece remains popular: its golden visa needs no minimum stay to renew, but Greek naturalization demands seven continuous years of lawful residence, the official citizenship knowledge certificate, and evidence of economic and social integration. Thresholds run €250,000 to €800,000 by location after the 2024 overhaul.

Compare the live programs in our golden visa index and the broader residency by investment hub. Country specifics are on the Portugal, Greece, and Malta pages.

The end of EU citizenship by investment

On April 29, 2025, in case C-181/23, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that Malta’s investor citizenship scheme violated EU law (Article 4(3) TEU, the principle of sincere cooperation). The court held that granting citizenship “essentially in exchange for predetermined payments or investments” without a genuine connection to the country “manifestly disregards the special relationship of solidarity and good faith” between member states. Malta ended the program and announced a replacement “citizenship by merit” scheme based on exceptional societal contributions, but its rules and status are not settled as of mid-2026, and it is not a purchasable alternative. The bottom line: the last direct EU citizenship-by-investment pathway is gone.

Honest ranking of the routes

Route	Typical time to passport	Cost	Residency required	Notes
Descent (Ireland, Poland, etc.)	1 to 3 years	Low (fees, document gathering)	Usually none	Best route if you qualify
Naturalization, Germany / Belgium / France	5 years	Cost of living abroad	Yes, continuous	France now needs B2 language
Naturalization, Spain (preferential)	2 years	Cost of living abroad	Yes	Latin American, Filipino, Andorran, Portuguese only
Greece golden visa, then naturalize	7 years+	€250k to €800k + living	Genuine legal residence	PEGP and integration are the real hurdles
Portugal golden visa, then naturalize	11 to 15 years	€250k to €500k + living	Yes, 7 days/year	Only legal-residence time counts; pre-grant processing does not
Buy a passport directly	Not possible	n/a	n/a	Struck down by ECJ in 2025

Ranked by realistic value: descent first, then five-year naturalization in Germany or Belgium, then Spain’s two-year preferential track if you are eligible, then Greece, with Portugal’s golden visa now one of the slowest paths to a passport in the EU. Marriage routes (one year in Spain, two in Italy, three in Germany, four in France with B2) shorten residence but never eliminate it. For a fuller comparison of low-barrier options, see the easiest countries to get citizenship.

Common mistakes to avoid

Do not assume Malta still sells passports; it does not. Do not use pre-2025 Italian jure sanguinis rules; great-grandparent claims are gone. Do not assume Portugal naturalizes in five years; it is now 10 for most. And do not confuse a golden visa with citizenship: the visa is step one of a long process, not the destination.

If you want to model the real cost and timeline for your situation, our cost calculator and eligibility finder are built on the verified program data behind this guide. Civita is an independent, fee-only advisory: we are paid by clients, never by the programs or governments we compare, which is why we can tell you that the slowest, most heavily marketed route is rarely the right one. Confirm any tax and legal specifics with qualified counsel before you act.