Monaco Investor Visa

No fixed capital level is set; the applicant files a reference letter from a bank in Monaco confirming sufficient funds, and that bank itself decides what counts as sufficient.

Savings are only one of four ways to show financial resources. The others are a salary, professional income from independent activity or through a company, and support from a relative, spouse or partner living as a couple.

It comes with a requirement for accommodation in Monaco large enough for everyone living there: owning a property, being director or unit holder of a company that owns one, renting, or staying with a close relative. A tenancy agreement must be registered with the Department of Tax Services.

The fee for a first permit is EUR 80, according to the procedure page updated on 25 September 2026. Non-EEA nationals must obtain a type D long-stay establishment visa for Monaco, through the French consulate nearest their most recent residence, before applying for the permit; without the visa no permit application can be filed.

The procedure page sets out two other routes. A person settled in France for more than one year applies for a transfer of residence to the French Embassy in Monaco. Exceptionally, a foreigner already in the Principality with accommodation there may ask the Department of the Interior for permission to complete the formalities directly with the French Embassy.

For a person living in Vietnam, French visa applications are decided by the Embassy of France in Hanoi and the Consulate-General of France in Ho Chi Minh City, and are received by appointment at the two TLScontact centres in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, wherever in Vietnam the applicant lives.

The real value of a Monegasque residence permit lies in the travel it opens up, and the authority puts exactly that at the head of its statement of principle: the Monegasque residence permit authorises its holder to move freely within the Schengen area, and for non-EU residents it allows them to enter, leave and move within that area.

Monaco is not a member of the European Union, so this is a right the card confers rather than an automatic consequence of residing in the Principality.

Two technical functions are set out alongside that right as equals: the card creates a digital identity allowing the holder to prove who they are on the Principality’s compatible online services, and an electronic signature with evidential value.

On who may hold one, there is an age line worth knowing before planning a family move: residence permits are not issued to children under sixteen. In their place the authority issues foreign minors a separate travel document to make travel easier — so a child under sixteen holds no residence permit, but is not left without papers either.

The page records its most recent update as 28 October 2024.

The ordinance fixes exactly one hard deadline, and it falls on the applicant rather than the authority:

Article 2 requires every foreigner over sixteen who is in order under Article 1 to apply for a residence card within eight days of arrival; a foreigner already living in the Principality must complete the same formality at the latest eight days after turning sixteen.

No provision requires the authority to answer within any period, so the waiting time has no ceiling.

Against that, the ordinance does not leave the applicant in a legal gap: while awaiting delivery of one of the cards described, a foreigner may stay in the Principality only if holding the valid provisional receipt of the residence application provided for in Article 3, paragraph 6.

That receipt is therefore the legal basis for the whole waiting period, and letting it lapse is losing the basis.

Where to file is fixed rather than chosen: Article 3, as amended by Ordinance No. 10,504 of 27 March 1992, requires residence-card applications to be lodged with the Directorate of Public Safety, and a foreigner not already admitted to reside in Monaco must show they meet the conditions of Article 1.

Three groups are exempt from applying altogether: career consuls accredited to the Sovereign and their families, holders of a tourist card valid on French territory, and officials seconded under the Franco-Monegasque conventions.

Residence here is not measured in days of presence but by a ladder of cards, and the ladder is climbed only with time actually resided. The ordinance builds four rungs.

The first is the temporary resident card, valid for no more than one year, and capped a second time as well: the temporary card's validity may not exceed the validity of the documents and visas required to enter and stay in the Principality — meaning a Monegasque card cannot outlive the French-side status standing behind it.

Second rung: where the foreigner has resided more than three years in the Principality, an ordinary resident card may be issued, valid three years.

The third rung is for the spouse of a Monegasque national: residence of more than one year opens a Monegasque-spouse card valid five years.

Fourth rung: save for the cases in Article 8, where the foreigner has resided for at least ten years, a privileged resident card may be issued, valid ten years.

The word to read closely on all four rungs is may, not shall: completing the years opens the door to consideration, nothing more.

The conditions for a first application sit in Article 6 and come in only two branches: either a work permit, or a receipt standing in its place, issued by the competent services; or documentary proof of sufficient means of existence where the applicant intends to practise no profession.

On presence, the Supreme Court of Monaco drew the line in decision 2021-08 of 12 July 2022: a minimum stay of three months in the Principality during the previous year is not a condition for renewing a resident card. According to the court's press release, the authority may still refuse a first card or a renewal where the application is manifestly without purpose, that is where what it knows of the applicant's personal and professional life shows they are not likely to stay more than three months in the Principality in the coming year, and in that assessment it may take account of the applicant not having actually stayed there during the previous year.

Two procedural dates accompany the ladder. Article 7 requires a renewal application to be lodged during the month before the card expires, while the government's renewal page, updated 30 September 2026, states that a foreigner must renew at the latest on the expiry date. Article 14 requires a foreigner leaving the Principality to return the residence card eight days before departure.

Finally, anyone who cannot establish that they own or rent the accommodation they intend to occupy for more than three months must hold a certificate of accommodation issued by the Directorate of Public Safety.

Monegasque law has no family reunification institution, and that is not an inference: no instrument in the body of Monegasque legislation uses the phrase family reunification.

The actual mechanism runs quite the other way: article 2 of Sovereign Ordinance No. 3,153, as amended in 1996, requires every foreigner over 16 to file their own application for a residence card within eight days of arrival, and anyone already present to file within eight days of their sixteenth birthday.

A child under 16 residing in the Principality receives a circulation document under article 4-1, not a residence card.

Article 3 does mention the spouse and the children living with the applicant, but that is an obligation to declare their civil status within the applicant own application, not an entitlement for accompanying persons.

Articles 6 and 7 require every first application to carry either a work permit or documentary proof of sufficient means of existence where the person intends to practise no profession, and that condition recurs for the ordinary resident card and on renewal.

Each person aged 16 and over therefore files their own application and evidence, but that evidence need not be the applicant's own resources: the Monaco government's procedure page for a residence card, updated 25 September 2026, accepts support from a relative, a spouse or a partner living as a couple as one of four ways to show financial resources, with a support letter on the set template and documents showing the supporter's resources. A spouse can therefore rely on the other's finances while still holding a separate file.

The instrument states no financial threshold, neither for the applicant nor for accompanying persons. The procedure page publishes no minimum bank deposit either: where resources are shown through savings, the sum judged sufficient is assessed by the Monaco bank that issues the attestation.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Monaco passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Monaco passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Monaco passport reaches 187 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The instrument that creates the Monegasque residence permit says nothing whatever about tax. It is Sovereign Ordinance No. 3,153 of 19 March 1964 on the conditions of entry and residence of foreigners in the Principality, still in force and last amended by Ordinance No. 8,697 of 17 June 2021.

It has twenty-five articles and does not use the words tax, fiscal, contribution or income; the word resident appears only in the names of residence card classes.

One structural detail is worth recording: on that same 19 March 1964 Monaco issued Ordinance No. 3,152 creating the tax on profits, and yet the residence instrument still makes no mention of tax.

The real tax regime sits in the bilateral convention with France, and it is an exclusion clause rather than a concession. It is article 7(1) of the tax convention of 18 May 1963, as amended by article 2 of the amending agreement (avenant) of 26 May 2003, in force from 1 August 2005.

It provides that persons of French nationality who transfer their domicile or residence to Monaco, or who cannot establish five years of habitual residence in Monaco as at 13 October 1962, remain liable in France to personal income tax and the supplementary tax exactly as if they were domiciled or resident in France.

Only two groups fall outside that rule, namely members of or dependants of the Princely family, and officials and employees of Monegasque public bodies habitually resident before 13 October 1962.

Paragraph 3 adds that French nationals transferring to Monaco from 1 January 1989 became liable to French wealth tax from 1 January 2002. This clause is directed at French nationals only and not at other nationalities, and this record claims nothing wider.

Tax data sharing obligations are real: Monaco applies the automatic exchange standard through Sovereign Ordinance No. 6,208 of 20 December 2016, whose title and Annex I were replaced from 1 January 2026 by Sovereign Ordinance No. 11,683 of 4 December 2025.

Vietnam has made no commitment on its side: the OECD Global Forum table of automatic exchange commitments, updated 30 September 2026, places Monaco among the jurisdictions undertaking first exchanges by 2018 and Vietnam among the developing countries not asked to commit that have not yet set a date for their first exchanges.

Monaco's administrative charges are not one figure but a four-tier ladder, and every tier follows the same rule: the renewal costs exactly half the first issue, across all four categories without exception.

Every charge below is set by Article 1 of Ministerial Decree No. 2020-814 of 30 November 2020, in force from 1 January 2021, and the renewal page updated 30 September 2026 still cites that decree as the basis for the fee.

The four card categories, with fees in euro (EUR):

A newcomer receives the temporary card, the only tier carrying no prior-residence condition. For the privileged card, the ten-year seniority may be cut to one year in particular cases.

Three charges apply across every category, in euro (EUR):

Two points repay close reading: the fee tracks the card's validity period rather than the holder's standing, so an arriving investor pays what any other newcomer pays; and the EUR 80 duplicate costs as much as a newly issued temporary card and no less than any renewal.

Under-16s receive no residence card but a Travel Document for Foreign Minors instead.