Guide
Digital nomad visas in Europe: the five that exist, and the five that don't
By Covered Abroad Research Desk · Last verified July 2026
The five routes, with their real income bars
The published tests, from each country's own instruments as recorded in our routes dataset:
| Country | Income test | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Spain | €2,442/month — 200% of the 2026 SMI | Employees may work only for companies based outside Spain |
| Italy | Formula-based: 3× the healthcare cost-sharing exemption level | Two official missions state different euro figures for the same formula — €25,500 (Pristina) vs €28,000 (Buenos Aires) |
| Portugal | €3,680/month — 4× the minimum wage, averaged over 3 months | Moves every January with the RMMG |
| Greece | €3,500/month | Set by joint ministerial decision — steps rather than drifts |
| Malta | €42,000/year gross | Revised upward once already (from €32,400, April 2024) |
The Italy row deserves its own sentence, because it is the strangest fact in the set: the statutory formula is identical everywhere, but the missions publishing worked figures disagree with each other. Verify against the consulate handling your file, not a national number.
The five that publish nothing — and what that means
Germany and Austria publish no digital nomad route at all. That is a verified absence, not a research gap — checked against their statutes and route indexes. A remote worker heading there needs an ordinary residence route: Germany's freelance permit if you genuinely freelance for clients, Austria's quota-capped settlement routes otherwise.
France publishes none either — its visitor route bars professional activity, and its Talent routes are employment-shaped. The Netherlands routes remote workers through the highly skilled migrant permit (which needs a Dutch sponsor) or the DAFT treaty for Americans running their own business. Belgium requires a Regional professional card for self-employment.
The honest takeaway for a remote worker choosing a base: the nomad-visa map of Europe is smaller than the blog posts suggest, and where a route does not exist, working remotely on a tourist stay is exactly the thing the 90/180 rule and work-authorisation law combine to forbid. Our visa finder carries every route, including the verified absences.
60-second check
Not sure the policy you have meets your destination's written rule? Run it through the policy check now, before you build the rest of the file around it.
Check my policyThe insurance line every nomad file carries
All five routes ask for health insurance, and the tests differ more than the income bars do. Malta wants EU-plus-UK cover for a full prepaid year and explicitly accepts foreign insurers. Greece wants €30,000 with repatriation. Italy is handled to the €30,000 standard with zero deductible expected in year one. Portugal takes the €30,000 Schengen standard at the consulate, then expects fuller cover at the AIMA stage. Spain requires an insurer authorised to operate in Spain — a different kind of test entirely, and the Spain hub explains how that is handled and what to check before you rely on anything.
The pattern: a travel policy fails most of these files on product category, whatever its limit — the same finding our Schengen-vs-long-stay guide documents. The companion page to this one, health insurance for digital nomads, walks the requirements route by route.