Days in New Zealand, a minimum tax in Malta, and a fund Latvia’s law does not name

Four instruments set out what a holder has to keep doing after a grant. They are not four versions of one thing. One imposes conditions on a resident visa. One attaches commitments to a grant of citizenship. One governs a special tax status. One states when a residence permit stays valid.

Their operative status differs, and it is worth fixing before anything else, instrument by instrument.

• New Zealand’s instruction has been effective since 1 April 2025.
• Malta’s rules state that they come into force on 1 January 2027.
• The Eastern Caribbean agreement enters into force thirty days after the deposit of a fifth instrument of ratification, and that deposit had not been recorded when the records were checked on 27 August 2026.
• Latvia’s law was adopted on 20 August 2026. This article does not establish when it commences.

What follows therefore compares what each instrument says. It does not assert that four regimes are simultaneously binding somebody.

New Zealand: conditions written onto the visa

Every Active Investor Plus resident visa is granted subject to conditions under section 49(1) of the Immigration Act 2009. Instruction BN9.1, effective 1 April 2025, sets out four.

The first is to retain the investments in acceptable investments in New Zealand, or where applicable in acceptable on-call investments, through the investment period.

The second is presence. Under the Growth category it is at least 21 days as the holder of a resident visa during the 36-month investment period. Under the Balanced category it is 105 days, reduced by 14 days for each NZ$1,000,000 nominated above the initial NZ$10 million, to a maximum reduction of 42 days.

The third is to inform Immigration New Zealand, during the investment period, of any change to contact details, including a New Zealand address where the holder has one.

The fourth is evidence, filed twice: after 24 months, evidence that the investments have been retained, with a questionnaire; and after the investment period expires, evidence of retention through the final stretch, with a second questionnaire.

A separate instruction, BN10.20, states the consequence: a holder who has not complied at 24 months and at the end of the investment period may be made liable for deportation. That is what BN10.20 provides; it does not follow that any single missed step produces it.

The conditions also do not lapse when the period ends. Under BN10.25 a business immigration specialist must be satisfied that the section 49(1) conditions have been complied with, and the conditions are then cancelled in agreement with the applicant. Two further deadlines sit alongside: travel conditions run four years from the first day in New Zealand under the Growth category and six under the Balanced category, and family members included in the visa must arrive within 12 months of the grant or apply for residence again.

The Eastern Caribbean: commitments attached to citizenship, in an agreement not yet in force

The Agreement establishing the regional citizenship-by-investment regulator is not a residence instrument. It attaches obligations to a grant of citizenship. Article 95.1 provides that it enters into force on the thirtieth day following deposit of the fifth instrument of ratification, and that deposit had not been recorded when the records were checked on 27 August 2026.

What the text says is this. Article 48.2(a) requires each main applicant and each named dependant to commit to being physically present in the territory of the Participating State for an aggregate of at least thirty days during or up to any of the first five years after the grant. Article 48.4 requires each person named in the grant to be physically present for not less than five days during the first twelve months.

The two provisions are not the same kind of thing. One is a commitment given; the other is a period the text requires to be spent. The Agreement text quoted here does not set out how the thirty-day commitment is monitored, nor what follows if it is not met.

Grenada has reproduced both figures in the section 7A its amending Bill would insert — a Bill, not yet an Act.

Malta: a tax status, and a test counted in other jurisdictions

Malta’s Individual Tax Programme Rules are not a residence permit, and the rules quoted here do not state an investment requirement. They govern a special tax status, and rule 1(2) provides that they come into force on 1 January 2027.

The rules contain no minimum Malta-presence requirement: rules 4 and 6, read in full, do not require the holder to spend any period in Malta. The programme they replace did — the Malta Retirement Programme required residence in Malta of at least 90 days a year averaged over any five-year period.

What the rules do contain is a numerical test counted elsewhere. Status ceases, in the words of rule 6(1)(h), if the individual stays in any other jurisdiction for more than one hundred and eighty-three (183) days in a calendar year. That is still a test of physical presence. It is applied to any one other jurisdiction, not to a total of days spent outside Malta.

Alongside it runs an obligation in money. The minimum tax for global resident and EU, EEA or Swiss resident status is €35,000 for any year of assessment, payable in full both in the year the status is granted and in the year it ceases, due by 30 April of the year immediately preceding the year of assessment, and not refundable.

One further condition is procedural: status ceases if the holder stops being duly represented by an authorised registered mandatary. The rules also carry penalties — €5,000 on the individual for late notification of a change in dependants or of cessation, €10,000 on the mandatary for failure to notify long-term or permanent residence, and €500 to €19,250 for compliance-monitoring failures.

Latvia: continuing validity expressed through a confirmation

The investment ground in the Immigration Law adopted on 20 August 2026 states its continuing condition in one sentence. This article does not establish when that law commences, so what follows is what the adopted text provides.

Under Article 27(1)(36), the permit stays valid while the state-established alternative investment fund manager confirms, during the permit’s validity, that the investment contract has not been terminated and that the balance is not below €150,000.

Two facts are therefore in issue on a continuing basis — the contract and the balance — and the provision expresses the permit’s validity as depending on a confirmation by the manager that both hold. The adopted text does not identify a fund, set a date for establishing one, or place a duty on any body to establish one.

What the four instruments test

Set side by side, they test different things.

New Zealand tests conduct across a defined period: investments retained, days spent, notifications made, evidence filed at two checkpoints, and a specialist satisfied before the conditions are cancelled.

The Eastern Caribbean text asks for a commitment to presence across five years, together with a five-day period in the first twelve months, attached to a citizenship rather than to a permit.

Malta’s rules test money and days counted in another jurisdiction, and impose a representation requirement on the individual and notification duties carrying penalties on both the individual and a mandatary.

Latvia’s adopted text makes continuing validity turn on a confirmation about a contract and a balance.

Three of the four name an administrative or institutional actor with a part to play — a specialist, a mandatary, a fund manager — though the texts give those roles different functions, and only in New Zealand does the text speak of somebody being satisfied.

The one thing common to all four is temporal. None of them treats the grant as the end of the matter, and each sets out at least one obligation that runs afterwards. Beyond that the four have little in common, which is the point: what the holder of one has to keep doing tells you nothing about the holder of another.