An investor in Dubai decides to apply for a European Golden Visa on her own. She reads the government website, gathers her bank statements, and looks for a place to upload her application directly. She can’t find one. Every program she checks either legally requires a licensed local agent to submit the case, or makes the process so procedurally dependent on a lawyer or notary that a direct filing isn’t realistic. This isn’t a website design flaw. It’s how these programs are built.
The licensed-agent requirement is one of the least understood parts of investment migration, and one of the most consistent. It also explains why the referral economy around Golden Visas exists at all. This spoke looks at why the requirement exists, which programs make it a strict legal mandate versus a practical necessity, and what that gap means for anyone directing a client toward one of these routes.
Key Takeaways
- Malta’s Permanent Residence Programme legally requires every application to go through a licensed Accredited Agent under Legal Notice 121 of 2021. There is no direct-filing path at all.
- Portugal and Greece don’t always write “you must hire a lawyer” into statute, but the filing mechanics (AIMA portal submission, notarized property transfers, power of attorney) make an unrepresented application impractical in nearly every real case.
- The European Commission’s 2019 review of investor residence schemes flagged weak oversight of intermediaries as a recurring risk, which is part of why regulators lean on licensed agents as an accountability checkpoint.
- For referring professionals, understanding which requirement is a hard legal wall and which is a practical bottleneck changes how you set expectations with a client before making an introduction.
Why Do Golden Visa Programs Require a Licensed Agent at All?
Golden Visa and residency-by-investment programs build a licensed intermediary into the process because the applicant is, almost by definition, a stranger to the local legal and administrative system. Someone living in Singapore or Riyadh has no practical way to interpret a Maltese due diligence questionnaire or a Portuguese fund subscription agreement without local help. Governments don’t leave this to chance. Several programs make the licensed intermediary a structural requirement rather than a suggestion.
There’s a second reason that matters just as much. In January 2019, the European Commission published a review of investor citizenship and residence schemes across the EU. It flagged money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption as recurring risks tied to these programs, and it specifically called out weak oversight of the intermediaries involved (European Commission, “Report on Investor Citizenship and Residence Schemes in the European Union,” January 2019, retrieved 2026-07-08). A licensed agent gives a regulator a named, accountable party standing between the government and an applicant it has never met. That’s a compliance backstop, not just a convenience for confused investors.
How Referral Commissions Work for Immigration and Golden Visa Introductions covers what happens on the money side of that relationship.
Is the Licensed-Agent Requirement Actually the Law, or Just How the System Works?
It depends on the program, and the distinction matters more than most guides admit. Malta writes the requirement directly into statute. Portugal and Greece rely on procedural mechanics that make an unrepresented filing nearly impossible in practice, even though neither government’s text bluntly states “investors may not apply themselves.”
Malta is the clearest example of a hard legal requirement. The Malta Permanent Residence Programme was established by Legal Notice 121 of 2021 under Article 7A of the Immigration Act (Cap. 217). The regulation defines an agent as one “duly licensed under the Agents regulations” and requires every application to be submitted through that licensed agent (Residency Malta Agency, Legal Notice 121 of 2021, retrieved 2026-07-08). There’s no alternate path. An applicant cannot walk into a government office and file the paperwork themselves, no matter how well-prepared their documents are.
Portugal works differently. Golden Visa applications now run through the AIMA agency’s Portal ARI, and while the online system doesn’t explicitly bar a self-represented filing, in practice a lawyer typically prepares and submits the case, manages the pre-approval review, and handles the renewal cycle that follows over several years. Greece adds its own procedural wall. Foreign buyers using the real estate route generally need a notarized power of attorney to complete a property purchase and sign the final sales contract, particularly if they can’t be physically present for every step, and the notarization itself has to be authenticated and legalized before it’s usable (Varnavas Law, “Power of Attorney Explained,” retrieved 2026-07-08). None of that legally bars a hands-on investor from doing it alone. It just makes the alone version so slow and error-prone that almost nobody tries.
The honest way to describe this across programs isn’t “you legally cannot apply yourself” everywhere. It’s closer to: some programs make the agent mandatory by law, and the rest make it mandatory by friction. Both outcomes look identical from the applicant’s chair.
Does the United States Require a Lawyer for an EB-5 Investor Visa?
No, not as a strict legal mandate, and this is the clearest counterexample to the pattern. The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program run by US Citizenship and Immigration Services doesn’t require an attorney to file Form I-526 or I-526E. USCIS guidance describes the process in terms of investor filings, not attorney filings. That said, immigration attorneys reviewing source-of-funds documentation and managing regional center paperwork are close to universal in practice, since the source-of-funds evidentiary burden alone is enough to sink an unrepresented case (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “EB-5 Immigrant Investor Process,” retrieved 2026-07-08).
This distinction is worth sitting with if you’re advising a client cross-border. A Maltese applicant faces a legal wall. A Portuguese or Greek applicant faces a practical one that’s nearly as solid. A US EB-5 applicant faces neither, technically, though almost no one actually tests that in practice given what’s at stake. Telling a client “you have to use an agent” when the real answer is “you don’t have to, but you’d be foolish not to” is a different conversation, and it’s one referring professionals get wrong more than they’d expect.
How Immigration Consultants Monetize Referring Clients They Can’t Serve goes deeper into what happens once you’ve made that determination.
What Does a Licensed Agent Actually Do That an Applicant Can’t?
A licensed agent’s job goes well beyond filling out a form. It includes work an unrepresented applicant genuinely cannot replicate, regardless of how organized they are. Due diligence document assembly is one piece. Most programs require detailed source-of-funds evidence, and a licensed agent knows exactly which documents a given government office will and won’t accept, because they’ve submitted dozens of files through the same review desk before.
Government liaison is another piece that’s easy to underestimate. A licensed agent maintains a working relationship with the reviewing agency, whether that’s Residency Malta, Portugal’s AIMA, or a regional USCIS service center. That relationship shortens the distance between “we sent a request for evidence” and “we understood what they actually wanted.” An unrepresented applicant is starting that conversation cold, often in a language and legal register they don’t fully command.
For example: an applicant applying to Malta’s programme submits a fund-of-source explanation that looks complete to her. A licensed agent who’s handled similar cases recognizes immediately that the review desk will want three additional years of bank statements, not the two she provided, because that’s the pattern the agency has shown on comparable files. She finds this out from her agent before submission, not from a rejection letter four months later.
What Immigration Law Firms Look for in a Referral Partner covers how firms judge whether a referring partner actually understands this layer of the work.
How Does This Licensing Requirement Shape the Referral Business Around Golden Visas?
Because almost no Golden Visa applicant can file directly, nearly every cross-border introduction in this space ends at a licensed agent’s or lawyer’s desk. That’s the entire structural reason referral relationships exist here. A wealth manager, property agent, or tax advisor who meets a client wanting a second residency has nothing to sell directly. They can only introduce that client to someone who holds the license the program actually requires.
This changes what “referral demand” looks like when a program’s rules shift. Portugal eliminated its real estate investment route in October 2023, and Portugal’s own immigration authority recorded 2,081 main-applicant investor permits and 2,909 family reunification permits the following year, both up sharply, as applicants moved into fund-based investment instead (AIMA, cited by Bloomberg, “Portugal Golden Visa Processing Time Speeds Up After Long Delays,” February 2025, retrieved 2026-07-09). Referring parties who used to point clients toward a property purchase had to redirect that same client toward a fund manager and an immigration lawyer instead. The licensing wall didn’t move. Who sits on the other side of it did.
Can a Financial Advisor Just Handle the Golden Visa Filing Themselves to Keep the Full Fee?
No, not for any program that legally mandates a licensed agent, and not practically for the ones that don’t. A financial advisor without a Maltese agent license, a Portuguese bar admission, or a Greek notary commission simply isn’t the party these systems are built to accept a filing from. Trying anyway isn’t a shortcut. It’s a rejected application and a client who now distrusts the advisor’s judgment on everything else, too.
What a financial advisor can do is make the introduction and get compensated for it, within the bounds of whatever rules govern their own profession. That’s a genuinely different question from the licensing question this piece covers, and it runs into its own restrictions once a licensed attorney is the one receiving the referral. Non-lawyer compensation for legal referrals is governed by a separate, stricter set of professional conduct rules than program licensing is.
A Comparison of Licensing Requirements Across Major Programs
| Program | Is a licensed agent a legal requirement? | What actually happens without one |
|---|---|---|
| Malta Permanent Residence Programme | Yes, by statute (Legal Notice 121 of 2021) | Application cannot be submitted at all |
| Portugal Golden Visa (fund route) | Not explicitly stated as a bar | AIMA portal submission and years-long renewal cycle become impractical unrepresented |
| Greece Golden Visa (real estate route) | Not a blanket legal bar | Notarized power of attorney and legal contract steps are procedurally required |
| US EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program | No | Source-of-funds evidentiary burden makes an unrepresented filing extremely risky |
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I apply for a Golden Visa without a lawyer or agent?
For some programs, no, not as a matter of law. Malta’s Permanent Residence Programme requires every application to go through a licensed Accredited Agent under Legal Notice 121 of 2021, with no direct-filing alternative. Other programs, including Portugal’s and Greece’s, don’t always state a hard legal bar but build in procedural steps, like notarized power of attorney or portal-based lawyer submission, that make an unrepresented filing impractical in nearly every real case.
Why don’t Golden Visa governments just accept applications directly from investors?
Investors applying to these programs are typically unfamiliar with the local legal and administrative system, which makes direct filing error-prone. Regulators also treat licensed intermediaries as an accountability checkpoint. The European Commission’s 2019 review of investor residence schemes specifically flagged weak oversight of intermediaries as a compliance risk, which is part of why licensing requirements exist at all.
Does the EB-5 visa legally require an immigration attorney?
No. US Citizenship and Immigration Services does not mandate attorney representation for EB-5 filings. In practice, though, the source-of-funds documentation burden is significant enough that almost every investor works with an experienced immigration attorney anyway.
What’s the difference between a legally required agent and a practically required one?
A legally required agent, like Malta’s Accredited Agent, means the government’s system has no path for a direct filing at all. A practically required one, like a Portuguese immigration lawyer or a Greek notary for a property closing, means the law doesn’t explicitly forbid a direct filing, but the procedural mechanics make attempting one alone unrealistic.
Who actually benefits from the licensed-agent requirement?
The requirement primarily protects program integrity and gives regulators a named party to hold accountable. It also benefits applicants directly, since a licensed agent who has handled comparable cases can catch document gaps before submission rather than after a rejection.
The Bottom Line
Golden Visa programs weren’t designed with a direct-filing option that got quietly removed. Most were built from the start around a licensed local agent or lawyer standing between the applicant and the government reviewing the case. Malta makes that a hard legal requirement. Portugal and Greece make it a practical one that’s nearly as binding. The US EB-5 program is the outlier, legally open to a self-filed case but rarely attempted that way given what’s on the line.
For anyone referring clients into this space, the useful distinction isn’t whether an agent is technically required everywhere. It’s knowing which wall a specific program puts up, so you can set expectations honestly before the introduction ever happens.
Sources
- European Commission, “Report on Investor Citizenship and Residence Schemes in the European Union,” January 2019, retrieved 2026-07-08. https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2019-01/com_2019_12_final_report.pdf
- Residency Malta Agency, “Legal Notice 121 of 2021 (Immigration Act, Cap. 217),” retrieved 2026-07-08. https://residencymalta.gov.mt/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/L.N.-121-of-2021.pdf
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “EB-5 Immigrant Investor Process,” retrieved 2026-07-08. https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers/employment-based-immigration-fifth-preference-eb-5/eb-5-immigrant-investor-process
- Varnavas Law, “Power of Attorney Explained: Making the Greek Golden Visa Easier,” retrieved 2026-07-08. https://varnavas.gr/newsroom/post/power-of-attorney-explained-making-the-greek-golden-visa-easier/
- Bloomberg, “Portugal Golden Visa Processing Time Speeds Up After Long Delays,” February 2025, retrieved 2026-07-09, citing AIMA data. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-10/portugal-golden-visa-processing-time-speeds-up-after-long-delays
This article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal or immigration advice. Golden Visa program rules, licensing requirements, and agent accreditation regimes vary by country and change frequently. Consult a licensed immigration attorney before relying on any information described here or acting on a specific application.
