Liechtenstein · Passive income
EEA Residence Permit Quota and Lottery (Auslosung)
This is genuinely a lottery. Under the EEA Free Movement Agreement, Liechtenstein negotiated the right to cap immigration. Half of its residence permits for EEA nationals must be allocated by random draw, and the other half by government discretion on economic-benefit grounds.
This is the most honest lottery in immigration. In the 8 November 2024 draw, 24 permits were awarded against 714 employed and 138 non-employed applicants from 23 EEA states. Your odds as a non-working applicant are roughly 2%. No wealth, no adviser and no structure changes that. That is precisely why Liechtenstein has stayed Liechtenstein.
Qualifying routes
At least 28 permits are issued per year, drawn across two rounds. The pre-draw fee is CHF 100, and the final draw fee is CHF 500.
At least 8 permits per year. This is the route relevant to a wealthy non-working family, and the scarcest of all.
At least 36 further permits per year, mainly for highly qualified specialists whose presence benefits the economy.
17 permits per year: 12 for employed applicants, 5 for non-employed.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- Draw fees of CHF 600 in total. There is no investment and no way to pay for a better chance. The constraint is pure probability.
- Route type
- Income requirement
- Timeline
- 6–120 months (Two draw rounds per year. Realistically, this means a multi-year campaign of repeated entry. The 2026 autumn round had a participation window of 1–31 August 2026, with the pre-draw on 4 September 2026.)
- Physical presence
- Genuine residence is required. The permit is the scarce asset here, and it is monitored.
- Family
- SpouseDependent children. Family reunification follows the permit holder
- Permanent residency
- Permanent residence (Niederlassungsbewilligung C) typically after 5 years for EEA nationals
- Citizenship
- 10 years' residence plus a vote at the municipal assembly, or 30 years by the simplified route (years before age 20 count double)
- Language test
- German is required, with the level set by the naturalisation procedure and the commune
- Dual citizenship
- Not permitted. You would have to renounce.
- Requirements
- EEA nationality, or Swiss nationality under the separate bilateral allocationentry into the pre-draw and final draw, with the applicable feessufficient means and health insurance for the non-employed categorygenuine residence in Liechtenstein once drawnno recourse to social assistance
- It is a lottery. Roughly 850 applicants competed for 24 permits in the November 2024 draw. Treat any adviser promising Liechtenstein residency as either misinformed or dishonest.
- Only EEA nationals may enter the lottery at all. Third-country nationals have no lottery route.
- The non-employed allocation, the one wealthy families want, is the smallest at about 8 per year.
- Liechtenstein is in the EEA and Schengen but not the EU, so its passport does not confer EU free movement for employment.
- Naturalisation generally means giving up your existing citizenship. A 30 August 2020 referendum on allowing dual citizenship was rejected by 61.5% of voters.
- The official llv.li government site blocked automated retrieval throughout this research. So the quota figures here rest on convergent secondary sources, including government press mirrors and Liechtenstein and Swiss media, rather than a directly read official table. The core numbers agree across sources, but you should reconfirm them with the Ausländer- und Passamt before acting.