Why Did American Demand for European Residency Double in the Second Half of 2025?

Executive Summary

This report presents proprietary CRM data from Movingto's advisory practice covering April 2025 through March 2026. The data reveals three key patterns: a rapid doubling of American investor demand in the second half of 2025, a measurable post-election surge that has sustained into 2026, and a redistribution of programme demand away from Portugal's Golden Visa toward D7 and D8 pathways as legislative uncertainty around citizenship timelines persists.

US Investor Demand: The Data

American investors represented the single largest source market for Movingto across the reporting period, accounting for 52% of all source-market enquiries over the last twelve months. In peak months, US enquiries comprised more than half of all incoming leads.

"The enquiries we're getting from Americans now are completely different from two years ago," says Dean Fankhauser, founder of Movingto. "Back then it was exploratory — people Googling 'how do I move to Portugal' and wanting a general overview. 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."

The shift has been rapid. In the first half of 2025, American investors represented approximately 25% of Movingto's source-market enquiries in an earlier CRM system. By the second half of 2025 and into early 2026, under improved data capture in a new system, that figure had risen to 52%, with a peak of 55% in October 2025. While differences in data capture rates between systems may account for some of the increase, the monthly trend within the current system — where methodology is consistent — shows US share sustained above 33% for seven consecutive months, confirming the structural nature of the shift.

The October Spike

October 2025 recorded the highest concentration of US investor enquiries in the dataset, representing 55.2% of all incoming enquiries for the month. This coincides with the immediate aftermath of the November 2024 US presidential election result and the policy uncertainty that followed. While correlation does not establish causation, the pattern is consistent with what migration advisors across the industry have reported: political transitions in the United States reliably produce spikes in second-residency exploration among high-net-worth Americans.

Source Market Breakdown

While the United States leads with 52% of source-market enquiries, the UK represents the second-largest source market at 26.4%. This aligns with broader industry data showing record outflows of millionaires from the UK following the abolition of the non-domiciled tax regime and changes to inheritance tax policy.

Source market reflects the country investors are enquiring from, excluding leads from destination countries (Portugal, Spain) where enquiries typically relate to existing residency holders.

The presence of the UAE (4.7%) and Saudi Arabia (3.1%) as source markets is notable. These are not countries typically associated with outbound migration, but they reflect a growing cohort of Gulf-based professionals and entrepreneurs seeking European residency as a diversification strategy rather than a primary relocation.

How investors find advisory firms is also shifting. Movingto recorded leads originating from ChatGPT.com during the reporting period, making AI-powered search a small but measurable new referral channel for investment migration. This category of lead source did not exist eighteen months ago.

Programme Demand: Golden Visa Leads

Portugal's Golden Visa remains the most enquired-about programme in Movingto's portfolio, accounting for 33% of all programme-tagged enquiries across the reporting period. The D7 passive income visa (25.2%) and D8 digital nomad visa (12.8%) represent the next most popular Portugal-specific pathways, indicating demand across the full spectrum of residency options rather than concentration in a single programme.

Italy's sharp decline in Q1 2026 likely reflects the end of Italy's flat-tax incentive for new residents, which was restructured in late 2025, reducing its attractiveness relative to Portugal and Spain for incoming investors.

The Nationality Law Effect

In June 2025, the Portuguese government proposed extending the residency requirement for citizenship from five years to ten years. The proposal was approved by Parliament in October 2025, referred to the Constitutional Court in November, and partially struck down in December 2025. As of March 2026, the existing five-year pathway remains in effect while Parliament considers revisions.

Movingto's data shows the Golden Visa's share of programme-tagged enquiries declining from 35.7% in the second half of 2025 to 29.5% in the first quarter of 2026. But the D7 visa saw the inverse pattern, growing from 20.8% to 30.7% over the same period. Legislative uncertainty appears to be redistributing demand across programme types rather than suppressing it. Investors who might have pursued the Golden Visa specifically for its citizenship pathway are exploring alternative routes that offer residency without the same investment threshold or citizenship-timeline sensitivity.

What This Data Suggests

Three patterns emerge from this dataset that have implications beyond Movingto's own advisory practice:

American demand is structural, not episodic. Within Movingto's current CRM system, where methodology is consistent, US share of source-market enquiries has remained above 33% for seven consecutive months, peaking at 55% in October 2025 and stabilising around 46% into early 2026. Earlier data from a prior system suggests the share was significantly lower in the first half of 2025 (approximately 25%), indicating a substantial acceleration that coincides with the post-election period. The consistency of the signal suggests that second-residency planning is becoming a standard component of American wealth management, not a reaction to any single political event.

Programme uncertainty redistributes demand rather than destroying it. Portugal's nationality law debate has not produced a collapse in enquiry volume. Instead, it has shifted demand from the Golden Visa toward D7 and D8 pathways that offer residency without the same investment threshold or citizenship-timeline sensitivity. Investors are adapting their strategy, not abandoning Portugal.

Source market diversification is accelerating. The presence of UAE, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, and Turkey in the top source markets reflects a broadening of the investor migration market beyond its traditional US-UK-China base. European residency is increasingly attractive to investors from the Middle East and South Asia as a diversification strategy.

Looking Ahead

Movingto expects American demand to remain elevated through at least Q3 2026. The drivers — political uncertainty, fiscal policy concerns, and a generational shift toward global mobility as standard wealth management — are structural rather than cyclical. The unresolved Portuguese nationality law debate, scheduled to return to Parliament in April 2026, will likely continue to redistribute demand across programme types rather than reduce it. We will update this report quarterly as new data becomes available.