Digital Nomad Visa Statistics (2026)
Based on 65 digital nomad and remote-work visa programs verified against official immigration sources. Last updated July 21, 2026. Currency conversions use July 2026 rates.
Every statistic below is computed from our own maintained dataset at build time and is free to republish with attribution. Jump to how to cite this page.
Key digital nomad visa statistics
Each statistic links to its own anchor, so you can cite a single figure rather than the page. Where a program publishes no value for a field, it is excluded from that calculation and the real denominator is stated.
- 65#
NomadQualify tracks 65 digital nomad and remote-work visa programs across 6 world regions: 57 open to applicants, 5 announced but not yet accepting applications, and 3 closed. Every figure is taken from the country's own immigration authority or consulate and dated (2026).
- 51 of 65#
51 of the 65 programs in this dataset are currently confirmed against the country's official source. The other 14 are marked pending re-confirmation, here and on their own pages, rather than being deleted or presented as settled — every statistic below that names a pending country says so (2026).
- $3,280/mo#
The median income requirement for a digital nomad visa is $3,280 per month, across the 45 of 57 open programs that set a fixed income floor. The mean is higher at $3,500, pulled up by a small group of high-threshold programs (2026, converted at July 2026 rates).
- $976/mo#
Albania has the lowest income requirement of any open digital nomad visa, at about $976 a month (2026, converted at July 2026 rates). Albania is still being re-confirmed against the official source.
- $7,980/mo#
Iceland sets the highest income requirement of any open digital nomad visa, at about $7,980 a month (2026, converted at July 2026 rates).
- 8.2×#
The income bar for a digital nomad visa varies 8.2× between the least and most demanding open program — Iceland asks roughly 8.2 times the monthly income Albania does (2026). Albania is still being re-confirmed against the official source.
- 12#
12 of the 57 open digital nomad visa programs set no fixed minimum-income floor at all, asking applicants to demonstrate self-support or savings instead of clearing a published number (2026).
- 29#
29 of the 57 open programs peg their income requirement to a local benchmark such as a national minimum wage or average salary, which means those thresholds re-set on their own whenever the underlying wage changes (2026).
- 7#
Only 7 of the 57 open programs accept a lump-sum savings balance as an alternative to monthly income: Armenia, Brazil, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Mexico, and Thailand (2026). Armenia is still being re-confirmed against the official source.
- $199#
The median digital nomad visa application fee is $199, across the 49 of 57 open programs that publish a fee. The mean is $347 (2026, converted at July 2026 rates).
- $0–$2,000#
Published application fees run from $0 in Mauritius to $2,000 in Anguilla and Barbados, a difference of $2,000 for the same class of permit (2026).
- 28#
28 of the 57 open digital nomad visas — just under half — are issued by countries that do not tax the foreign income you earn while you hold the permit (2026).
- $3,040#
Tax-free destinations are not the expensive ones. Among open programs with a fixed income floor, the 20 that do not tax foreign income have a median requirement of $3,040 a month — below the $3,430 median of the 25 that do (2026).
- 6.5 weeks#
The median digital nomad visa takes up to 6.5 weeks to decide, measured on the upper bound of each program's own published estimate across the 56 of 57 open programs that publish one (2026).
- 8#
8 open programs publish a decision time of two weeks or less: Anguilla, Bahamas, Barbados, Georgia, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, Seychelles, and United Arab Emirates. The slowest published estimate belongs to Czech Republic, at 9 to 17 weeks (2026).
- 35#
35 of the 57 open digital nomad visas are issued for exactly 12 months on first grant, and the median maximum stay including renewals is 18 months (2026).
- 5 years#
5 open programs allow a stay of up to 5 years including renewals — Albania, Portugal, Spain, Sri Lanka, and Thailand — the longest runway any digital nomad visa currently offers (2026). Albania is still being re-confirmed against the official source.
- 9 of 53#
53 of the 57 open programs let you bring a spouse or children, but only 9 of those publish how much extra income each dependant adds to the requirement (2026).
- 55#
55 of the 57 open digital nomad visas accept self-employed freelancers rather than only salaried remote employees. Indonesia and South Korea are the exceptions (2026).
- 33#
33 of the 57 open programs require a criminal-record certificate; the other 24 do not ask for one at all (2026).
- 54#
54 of the 65 programs in the dataset launched in 2020 or later, which makes the digital nomad visa a policy category only a few years old (2026).
Every program in the dataset
All 65 programs, open first and then ranked by monthly income requirement. Blank cells mean the program publishes no official figure for that field — we leave them blank rather than estimate. Rows marked Pending in the last column are being re-confirmed against the official source; they are counted in the totals above and flagged wherever they are named. Each country links to its full, sourced page.
| Country | Status | Min income (USD/mo) | Fee (USD) | Max stay | Processing | Foreign income taxed | Launched | Source confirmed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Albania | Open | $976 | 5 years | 4–12 weeks | Yes | 2022 | Pending | |
 Ecuador | Open | $1,450 | $320 | 2 years | 4–10 weeks | No | 2022 | Confirmed |
 El Salvador | Open | $1,460 | $100 | 4 years | 1–9 weeks | No | 2023 | Confirmed |
 Brazil | Open | $1,500 | 2 years | 2–8 weeks | Yes | January 2022 | Confirmed | |
 Mauritius | Open | $1,500 | $0 | 1 year | 1–8 weeks | No | November 2020 | Confirmed |
 Colombia | Open | $1,610 | $232 | 2 years | 1–5 weeks | Yes | October 2022 | Confirmed |
 Cape Verde | Open | $1,710 | $23 | 1 year | 1–3 weeks | No | December 2020 | Pending |
 Georgia | Open | $2,000 | 1 year | 1–2 weeks | No | August 2020 | Confirmed | |
 Malaysia | Open | $2,000 | $244 | 2 years | 6–8 weeks | No | October 2022 | Confirmed |
 Namibia | Open | $2,000 | $199 | 6 months | 2–6 weeks | No | October 2022 | Confirmed |
 Sri Lanka | Open | $2,000 | $500 | 5 years | 1–4 weeks | Yes | February 2026 | Confirmed |
 Montenegro | Open | $2,060 | $77 | 4 years | 4–10 weeks | No | 2024 | Pending |
 Italy | Open | $2,360 | $133 | 1 year | 4–12 weeks | Yes | April 2024 | Confirmed |
 Norway | Open | $2,950 | $653 | 1 year | 8–16 weeks | Yes | Confirmed | |
 Bulgaria | Open | $2,950 | $114 | 2 years | 4–8 weeks | Yes | December 2025 | Confirmed |
 Moldova | Open | $2,980 | $103 | 2 years | 4–7 weeks | Yes | September 2025 | Pending |
 Costa Rica | Open | $3,000 | $100 | 2 years | 2–4 weeks | No | July 2022 | Confirmed |
 Panama | Open | $3,000 | $300 | 18 months | 4–9 weeks | No | May 2021 | Confirmed |
 Kazakhstan | Open | $3,000 | $220 | 2 years | 2–4 weeks | Yes | January 2025 | Confirmed |
 Turkey | Open | $3,000 | 1 year | 3–6 weeks | Yes | 2024 | Confirmed | |
 Grenada | Open | $3,090 | $1,500 | 2 years | 1–3 weeks | No | 2020 | Confirmed |
 Spain | Open | $3,260 | $91 | 5 years | 3–8 weeks | Yes | January 2023 | Confirmed |
 South Africa | Open | $3,280 | $26 | 3 years | 6–12 weeks | Yes | May 2024 | Confirmed |
 Hungary | Open | $3,430 | $75 | 2 years | 3–5 weeks | Yes | January 2022 | Confirmed |
 United Arab Emirates | Open | $3,500 | $287 | 1 year | 1–2 weeks | No | March 2021 | Confirmed |
 Slovenia | Open | $3,660 | $117 | 1 year | 4–12 weeks | Yes | November 2025 | Confirmed |
 Greece | Open | $4,000 | $86 | 1 year | 2–12 weeks | Yes | September 2021 | Confirmed |
 Malta | Open | $4,000 | $343 | 4 years | 4–8 weeks | Yes | June 2021 | Confirmed |
 Cyprus | Open | $4,000 | $80 | 3 years | 5–12 weeks | Yes | October 2021 | Confirmed |
 Croatia | Open | $4,140 | $69 | 18 months | 2–8 weeks | No | January 2021 | Confirmed |
 Barbados | Open | $4,170 | $2,000 | 1 year | 1–2 weeks | No | July 2020 | Confirmed |
 Dominica | Open | $4,170 | $800 | 18 months | 1–4 weeks | No | 2021 | Confirmed |
 Portugal | Open | $4,210 | $103 | 5 years | 8–16 weeks | Yes | October 2022 | Confirmed |
 Mexico | Open | $4,550 | $317 | 4 years | 2–6 weeks | Yes | Confirmed | |
 Kenya | Open | $4,580 | $1,200 | 2 years | 2–8 weeks | Yes | October 2024 | Pending |
 South Korea | Open | $4,760 | 3 years | 2–6 weeks | Yes | January 2024 | Confirmed | |
 Latvia | Open | $4,820 | $103 | 2 years | 2–5 weeks | Yes | June 2022 | Confirmed |
 Taiwan | Open | $4,940 | 3 years | 4–8 weeks | No | February 2018 | Confirmed | |
 Indonesia | Open | $5,000 | $390 | 1 year | 1–4 weeks | Yes | April 2024 | Confirmed |
 Japan | Open | $5,130 | $92 | 6 months | 1–8 weeks | No | March 2024 | Confirmed |
 Estonia | Open | $5,140 | $137 | 18 months | 2–5 weeks | Yes | August 2020 | Confirmed |
 Montserrat | Open | $5,830 | $500 | 1 year | 1–2 weeks | No | January 2021 | Confirmed |
 Romania | Open | $6,020 | $343 | 2 years | 2–8 weeks | Yes | January 2022 | Pending |
 Belize | Open | $6,250 | $500 | 6 months | 2–4 weeks | No | February 2021 | Confirmed |
 Iceland | Open | $7,980 | $97 | 6 months | 3–4 weeks | No | October 2020 | Confirmed |
 Anguilla | Open | No fixed floor | $2,000 | 1 year | 1–2 weeks | No | August 2020 | Confirmed |
 Argentina | Open | No fixed floor | $200 | 1 year | 4–12 weeks | No | May 2022 | Pending |
 Armenia | Open | No fixed floor | $286 | 1 year | 3–8 weeks | Yes | Pending | |
 Aruba | Open | No fixed floor | 3 months | No | September 2020 | Confirmed | ||
 Bahamas | Open | No fixed floor | $1,030 | 3 years | 1–2 weeks | No | October 2020 | Confirmed |
 Curaçao | Open | No fixed floor | $299 | 1 year | 1–3 weeks | No | 2020 | Confirmed |
 Czech Republic | Open | No fixed floor | $118 | 1 year | 9–17 weeks | Yes | Confirmed | |
 Germany | Open | No fixed floor | $86 | 3 years | 6–12 weeks | Yes | Confirmed | |
 Saint Lucia | Open | No fixed floor | $70 | 1 year | 1–2 weeks | No | March 2021 | Confirmed |
 Seychelles | Open | No fixed floor | $51 | 1 year | 1–2 weeks | No | April 2021 | Confirmed |
 Thailand | Open | No fixed floor | $297 | 5 years | 1–4 weeks | Yes | July 2024 | Confirmed |
 Uruguay | Open | No fixed floor | 1 year | 1–3 weeks | No | August 2021 | Pending | |
 Nepal | Announced | $1,500 | 5 years | Yes | Pending | |||
 North Macedonia | Announced | No fixed floor | 1 year | Yes | Pending | |||
 Peru | Announced | No fixed floor | 1 year | Yes | Pending | |||
 Philippines | Announced | No fixed floor | 1 year | No | Pending | |||
 Puerto Rico | Announced | No fixed floor | 0 months | Yes | Pending | |||
 Antigua and Barbuda | Closed | $4,170 | $1,500 | 2 years | 1–2 weeks | No | October 2020 | Confirmed |
 Cayman Islands | Closed | $8,330 | $1,470 | 2 years | 1–4 weeks | No | October 2020 | Confirmed |
 Bermuda | Closed | No fixed floor | $275 | 1 year | 1–2 weeks | No | August 2020 | Confirmed |
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What the numbers say
The most useful thing this dataset shows is how little the phrase "digital nomad visa" pins down. The programs at either end of the income range are not competing for the same applicant. At the low end sit countries using the permit as a development tool: bring foreign earnings into a small economy, fill apartments outside the capital, and set the bar low enough that an ordinary remote salary clears it. At the high end sit places with no housing shortage and no need for volume, where the threshold works as a filter rather than an invitation. Both get called the same thing, and a table reporting one average across them describes nobody.
That is why the spread between the least and most demanding program is the figure worth quoting, rather than the median. The median tells you where the middle of the market sits. The spread tells you the market has no middle.
Why published thresholds go stale so fast
About half the open programs do not fix their income requirement at a set figure. They peg it to something local — a national minimum wage, an average salary, a benefit rate — so the figure moves when the underlying wage moves, usually in January, with no announcement that reads like a change in visa policy. Anyone who copied the number once and never went back will be wrong within the year, and will look confident while being wrong.
Currency is the second decay path. Every threshold here is stored in the currency the law itself names, then converted at a rate we refresh on a fixed schedule with the date attached. A dollar figure quoted without a conversion date has a shelf life, and usually a short one.
The tax finding is the counterintuitive one
Intuition says countries that let you keep all your foreign income must charge for the privilege with a high income bar. The data points the other way: the tax-free group asks for less. The explanation is geographic rather than fiscal. Many zero-tax programs come from small island and emerging economies that want arrivals and price accordingly, while the countries that do tax foreign income tend to be wealthy ones where the cost of living sets the floor by itself. If you are optimising for take-home pay, the tax column and the income column agree more often than people expect.
Speed is not where the friction lives
Processing time is the field people compare first and the one that predicts the least. What actually delays an application sits outside the processing window entirely: apostilled criminal-record certificates that expire while you gather everything else, savings balances that have to sit visibly in an accessible account rather than in investments, and the in-country appointment to collect the permit once the consulate has already said yes. The countries with the quickest published turnaround are mostly the ones asking for the least paperwork, which is the same thing measured twice.
Where the data runs out, and why we say so
Two gaps deserve naming. Most programs that welcome your family do not publish what a spouse or a child adds to the income you must show; the permission is written into the law, the arithmetic is left to the consulate. And a meaningful minority publish no application fee anywhere official. We leave those cells empty rather than filling them with a plausible guess, and every statistic on this page states the denominator it was actually computed from.
That is the editorial position here. A number you cannot trace back to a government source and a date is worth less than an honest blank, particularly when someone is about to move countries on the strength of it.
What changed recently
Launches, announcements, and closures tracked in the dataset. Closed programs keep their page — we mark them closed rather than deleting the record.
Newest programs (5)
Opened in 2025 or later
- Sri Lanka — February 2026
- Bulgaria — December 2025
- Slovenia — November 2025
- Moldova — September 2025
- Kazakhstan — January 2025
Announced, not open (5)
Legislated or announced, not yet accepting applications
Closed (3)
No longer accepting new applicants
- Antigua and Barbuda — launched October 2020
- Bermuda — launched August 2020
- Cayman Islands — launched October 2020
How to cite this page
How to cite:
NomadQualify, Digital Nomad Visa Statistics 2026, https://nomadqualify.com/statistics/, accessed [date].
All statistics on this page are licensedCC BY 4.0— free to republish with a link to this page as attribution.
Journalists and researchers are welcome to request a cut of the data we have not published here, or a comment on a specific program: contact the editorial team. The full machine-readable dataset behind these figures is available at/data/countries.v1.json.
How these statistics are derived
Every figure on this page is computed at build time from our country dataset, in which each program's income threshold, duration, fee, tax treatment, and status is taken from that country's own immigration authority or consulate and dated. Monetary values are stored in the currency the rule is written in and converted to USD from a single exchange-rate file refreshed monthly, so no conversion on this page can drift away from another.
Where a program does not publish a value, we exclude it from that calculation and state the real denominator in the statistic itself. We never estimate, interpolate, or carry a figure over from an aggregator. Annual income requirements are divided by twelve to compare against monthly ones. An automated check re-derives every number on this page from the raw source data on each build and fails the release if any rendered figure disagrees.
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