Albania · Citizenship by investment
Albanian Citizenship by Investment ('Golden Passport')
Closed
Last verified July 2026
NEVER LAUNCHED. Prime Minister Rama announced it, then it went under a moratorium in March 2023 pending the ECJ proceedings against Malta's programme. No Albanian CBI has ever operated, and none exists in 2026. We list it here only because some intermediaries still reference it.
This programme is closed. We keep the page up because agents still advertise it and clients still ask. Nothing below is available to new applicants.
The ECJ's ruling against Malta ended any realistic chance of an EU-candidate state launching a citizenship-by-investment programme. Albania read the room in 2023 and never opened one. Any intermediary still marketing an Albanian golden passport is selling something that has never existed.
Qualifying routes
—
n/a — never launched
A moratorium was declared in March 2023, before any applications were accepted.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- Not applicable
- Route type
- Citizenship by investment
- Physical presence
- Not applicable
- Family
- Not applicable
- Permanent residency
- Not applicable
- Citizenship
- Not applicable. Use the residence route instead.
- Language test
- Not applicable
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- Not applicable. The programme never launched.
What can go wrong
- It never launched. There is nothing to apply for.
- Albania's EU accession track makes reviving the programme essentially impossible. The Commission has treated investor-citizenship schemes as incompatible with membership.
- The residence route, followed by naturalisation, is the only path to an Albanian passport.