US investors made up 52% of identified European residency enquiries in late 2025, advisory data shows

The Shift to American Dominance

Americans represented the single largest source of European residency-by-investment enquiries at Movingto, a Lisbon-based investment migration advisory firm, across an eight-month period ending in March 2026. The data, drawn from the firm's CRM system, suggests a structural shift in who is seeking European residency—though it reflects one firm's enquiry funnel and should not be extrapolated to market-wide conclusions without corroboration.

Between August 2025 and March 2026, US-based investors accounted for 52% of all enquiries where the source country could be identified, based on approximately 1,600 leads with country attribution. The US share peaked at 55.2% in October 2025 and remained above 33% in every month of the dataset.

Earlier data from a prior CRM system suggests the US share was approximately 25% in the first half of 2025. Because the two systems differ in data capture methodology, the figures are not directly comparable, and the CRM transition may account for some of the observed increase. However, the sustained elevation within the current system—where methodology is consistent month over month—indicates that the shift is not a one-month anomaly.

*February 2026 excluded; a CRM migration during that month prevents reliable isolation of organic enquiry data.

The October Peak

October 2025 recorded the highest concentration of US investor enquiries in the dataset at 55.2%. This peak occurred roughly eleven months after the November 2024 US presidential election and approximately six months into the new administration's fiscal and trade policy agenda, including tariff escalation and proposed changes to capital gains treatment.

Whether the election was a direct driver is unclear from this data alone. What the data does show is that US enquiry share did not spike once and recede. It remained at 46% in both January and March 2026, suggesting that whatever is motivating American interest in European residency has not dissipated. Multiple migration advisory firms have reported a similar pattern: sustained rather than episodic interest from US-based high-net-worth individuals in the months following the political transition.

"The enquiries we're getting from Americans now are completely different from two years ago. Back then it was exploratory. Now they come in with a US tax attorney already lined up, asking which funds are IRA-compatible and how the residency clock works. They've done the research. They just need execution."
— Dean Fankhauser, founder, Movingto

Source Markets

The United Kingdom was the second-largest source market at 26.4% of attributed enquiries, consistent with industry reporting on increased outbound interest from UK-based individuals following the abolition of the non-domiciled tax regime. The remaining source markets were smaller but geographically diverse.

Based on ~1,600 leads with identified source country, Aug 2025–Mar 2026. Leads from destination countries (Portugal, Spain) excluded.

The presence of Gulf states and South Asian countries in the mix is notable. These are not traditional outbound-migration markets, but they suggest a broadening of demand for European residency as a diversification strategy beyond the US-UK-China base that has historically dominated investment migration flows.

Programme Demand Is Shifting, Not Shrinking

The data contains a secondary finding that may be equally significant: demand is moving between European residency programmes rather than declining overall.

Portugal's Golden Visa remained the most enquired-about programme at 33% of tagged enquiries across the full period. But its share declined from 35.7% in H2 2025 to 29.5% in Q1 2026. Over the same period, Portugal's D7 passive income visa grew from 20.8% to 30.7%, and the D8 digital nomad visa grew from 9.5% to 16.8%.

Share of programme-tagged enquiries. Italy's decline is consistent with the restructuring of Italy's flat-tax incentive in late 2025.

The Nationality Law Context

In June 2025, the Portuguese government proposed extending the residency requirement for citizenship from five years to ten years. Parliament approved the proposal in October 2025, the Constitutional Court partially struck it down in December 2025, and as of March 2026 the existing five-year pathway remained in effect while Parliament considered revisions.

The programme-level data suggests this uncertainty may be redirecting demand rather than suppressing it. Investors who might have pursued the Golden Visa for its citizenship pathway appear to be exploring D7 and D8 routes that offer residency without the same investment threshold or sensitivity to citizenship-timeline changes. Whether this pattern holds across the broader advisory market is an open question that would require data from multiple firms to answer.

What the Data Shows and What It Does Not

Three patterns are visible in this dataset. Each is internally consistent but comes with important limitations.

US demand appears sustained rather than episodic. The seven-month persistence above 33%, with stabilisation around 46% into early 2026, suggests that American interest in European residency may be becoming a structural feature of wealth management rather than a reaction to a single political event. This is one firm's enquiry data, not a market census.

Legislative uncertainty appears to redistribute demand rather than destroy it. The Golden Visa's declining share and the D7's mirror-image growth suggest that investors are adapting their strategy, not abandoning European residency. This is consistent with anecdotal reporting from other advisory firms, but the data here comes from a single source.

The source-market base is broader than the US-UK duopoly suggests. Gulf states, South Asia, and Turkey together account for roughly 17% of attributed enquiries. This is a small share but a significant signal of geographic diversification in demand for European residency.

What this data cannot establish is causation. The US share increase coincides with a new presidential administration, tariff escalation, and fiscal policy uncertainty—but the dataset does not contain the information needed to prove which, if any, of these factors drove the shift. It is possible that multiple forces are operating simultaneously, that the effect is generational rather than political, or that Movingto's marketing reach into the US market changed during the period. The data shows the what. The why requires further investigation.

Methodology and Data Source

Data in this article is drawn from Movingto's CRM system covering August 2025 through March 25, 2026. The primary dataset uses a single CRM with consistent methodology throughout. Earlier H1 2025 figures are from a prior system and used for directional comparison only; they are not directly comparable. A bulk data import on February 4, 2026 has been excluded from monthly trend analysis.

Country attribution is based on self-reported country of residence. All percentages are calculated as a share of leads with identified country attribution (~1,600 leads). Programme-type attribution uses Movingto's internal tagging applied during lead qualification. Not all leads have programme tags.

This article presents one firm's proprietary enquiry data and should not be interpreted as representative of the broader investment migration market. External context is drawn from the Henley & Partners Private Wealth Migration Report 2025 and public reporting by Harvey Law Group.