Andorra Residency 2026: Every Route's Real Cost

Andorra residency became materially more expensive on 13 February 2026, and a good share of the pages ranking for it have not caught up. Llei 2/2026 lifted the passive residency investment from €600,000 to €1,000,000, converted the €50,000 that applicants used to park with the financial regulator into a payment they never get back, and set the tax a newcomer pays on buying a first home at 6% on top of the ordinary 4% transfer tax.

Run that together and the headline route moved from roughly €650,000, most of it recoverable, to about €1,150,000, of which €150,000 is gone for good. For a freelancer or bootstrapped founder earning between $50k and $300k a year, that is not a price change — it is a different country.

So I read the law instead of the consultancy pages: Article 96 for the passive route, Article 38 ter for the self-employed one, Article 8 for the property tax, and the CASS quota tables for the monthly cost almost nobody prices. There is one exemption sitting inside Article 38 ter that most of the top results never mention, and for this site's readers it is the only part of the 2026 reform that opens rather than closes a door.

Key takeaways

• Passive residency now needs €1,000,000 in Andorran assets (Article 96.1), or €400,000 through the Housing Fund. The €600,000 figure still widely published is the pre-February 2026 rule.
• The €50,000 is no longer a deposit. It is a non-refundable payment to the Andorran Financial Authority, plus €12,000 per dependent, recoverable only if the application is refused.
• Article 38 ter waives that €50,000 for digital economy, entrepreneurship and innovation projects meeting the regulatory criteria. That is the cheapest legitimate door left.
• Buying property costs 10% in tax, not 4%. A 4% transfer tax plus a 6% foreign-investment charge on a first dwelling — and you count as a foreign investor until you can show three years' residence out of the last ten.
• Days matter more than people think: 90 a year on the passive and digital nomad routes, 183 on anything involving work in Andorra.

What Llei 2/2026 actually changed

The instrument is Llei 2/2026, del 22 de gener, de continuïtat i consolidació de les mesures per al creixement sostenible — the second of Andorra's "omnibus" laws. It was published in the Butlletí Oficial del Principat d'Andorra on 12 February 2026 and took effect the following day.

It is worth being precise about what moved, because three different numbers are circulating for the same threshold and only one of them is the law.

The refundability change is under-reported and it changes the maths most. A bond you recover on departure is a cost of capital; a payment you never see again is simply a cost. On a couple with two children — €50,000 plus three lots of €12,000 — that is €86,000 that used to come back and now does not.

One relief is buried in the transitional provisions: applications for self-employed and non-lucrative residence filed before the law was approved stay under the old rules. If you filed in January 2026, you are not caught.

The routes, and which one is yours

Andorra does not have a single residency programme, and the commercial pages tend to describe the most expensive one because it is the one that generates fees. There are five doors, and they differ on the two things that actually govern a relocation decision: how much money leaves you permanently, and how many nights you have to sleep there.

Read that table against your own life rather than against a brochure. If you want a low-tax base and are content to actually live in Andorra, the bottom three rows are the realistic set and the €1,000,000 is irrelevant to you. If you want a residence permit while spending most of the year elsewhere, the top two rows are yours — and you should read the section on tax residency below before assuming the permit does anything for your tax bill.

Passive residency: the €1,000,000 arithmetic

Article 96.1 requires "una quantitat d'almenys un milió d'euros" — at least one million euros — invested in Andorran assets. The eligible categories are broader than property: Andorran real estate, shareholdings in Andorran companies, debt and financial instruments issued by resident entities, and collective investment funds. Debt and financial instruments carry a 36-month limit before the holding must be reallocated.

The reduced €400,000 figure applies only where the investment goes into the Housing Fund, the vehicle Andorra set up to finance domestic housing. It is a genuine 60% discount on the entry ticket and it is the least-discussed line in the whole reform.

On top of the investment sits the Article 96.2 payment: €50,000 for the main applicant and €12,000 for each dependent, to the Autoritat Financera Andorrana, non-refundable. Article 96.3 gives you six months from authorisation to make the investment, extendable by a further six for force majeure.

Where this route gets expensive in a way the fee tables hide is property. Buy a €1,000,000 home and you pay the ordinary 4% transfer tax and the 6% foreign-investment charge under Article 8.1.a — €100,000 before you have furnished anything. And Article 5.1.b defines "foreign investor" to include Andorran residents who cannot show three or more years of effective, permanent residence in the ten years before the application. Moving there does not exempt you; time does.

Route the same €1,000,000 into Andorran company shares or a fund and that 10% does not arise, which makes the choice of asset a €100,000 decision rather than a portfolio preference. The Housing Fund sits outside a property purchase too, though its subscription terms are set by regulation and worth confirming.

Self-employed residency, and the exemption in Article 38 ter

This is the route that fits this site's readers, and it is where the interesting sentence lives.

Article 38 ter governs residence and work authorisations per compte propi — on your own account. For a qualified professional, you reserve the authorisation and have three months to produce your professional authorisation and professional-body registration. For everyone else, you have six months to obtain foreign-investment authorisation, incorporate an Andorran company in which you hold more than 34%, take an administrative position with effective management control, and pay €50,000 to the financial authority, non-refundable. Within three months of the application you must show the company is trading as a registered, active commerce.

Then comes the exemption. Article 38 ter provides that the €50,000 is not required for digital economy, entrepreneurship and innovation projects that meet the criteria set by regulation. That carve-out descends from Llei 42/2022, of 1 December 2022, on the digital economy, entrepreneurship and innovation, whose Title V created both the digital nomad residence and a relaxed self-employed route for people building something in those fields — and Llei 2/2026 left it standing.

The practical reading, for a software freelancer or an indie SaaS founder: the reform that priced the passive route out of your reach did not touch the door you would actually use. You still need the company, the >34% stake, the management role, 183 days on the ground and CASS. You do not necessarily need the €50,000. Whether your project qualifies is determined against the regulatory criteria, not self-certified, so it is the first question to put to an Andorran adviser rather than the last.

Separately, the digital nomad residence from Llei 42/2022 remains its own category: work performed remotely for clients outside Andorra, a favourable resolution from the competent ministry, 90 days a year, no CASS obligation, and compulsory private health insurance. Secondary sources consistently describe it as running two years initially, then renewals at two, three and ten; the ministry resolution is the gate, not the money.

What Andorra actually taxes

Andorra is low-tax, not no-tax, and the pages calling it "0% income tax" are selling something. The personal bands were untouched by the 2026 reform.

Work an example. A resident with €120,000 of income pays nothing on the first €24,000, 5% on the next €16,000 (€800) and 10% on the remaining €80,000 (€8,000) — about €8,800, an effective 7.3%. That is the number to hold against a Spanish or French bill on the same income, and it is genuinely good. It is also before social security, which is where the comparison usually gets quietly dropped.

The 3% corporate floor matters if you were planning to reduce an Andorran company's charge with reliefs. Since 1 January 2024 you cannot take it below 3%.

CASS: the monthly bill nobody prices

If you take a route that involves working in Andorra, you contribute to the Caixa Andorrana de Seguretat Social. Self-employed contributions run at 22% of a base you select from seven brackets tied to the previous year's average monthly salary. The published quotas:

Newly registered self-employed people can request the 25% bracket — €146.99 a month — for their first twelve months, on producing the required documentation. That is a real and legitimate softening of year one, and it is absent from every competing guide I read.

Note what the bracket choice buys: contributions feed pension entitlement, so the lowest bracket is cheapest now and thinnest later. It is a decision, not an optimisation.

All-in first-year cost, by route

Here is the table the top-ranking pages do not have. Figures are the money that leaves you in year one, separating what stays yours as an asset from what does not.

Company formation, foreign-investment authorisation, legal fees, translations, apostilles, rent and the deposit on a home are on top of all four columns and vary too much to publish a figure for. The point of the table is the bottom row of unrecoverable cash, where the spread between the first column and the last is roughly eighty-five to one.

That spread is the whole story of the 2026 reform. It did not make Andorra expensive; it made the passive routes expensive and left the working routes broadly where they were.

Not the EU, not Schengen, and not a second passport

Three limits worth internalising before anyone gets attached.

Andorra is not an EU member state and not in the Schengen area. An Andorran residence permit is not a Schengen residence permit, and it does not confer the free movement an EU or EEA status would. In practice there are no routine border controls on the roads in from Spain and France, which is not the same as a legal right and should not be planned around. If EU mobility is the objective, the comparison set is countries with golden visas and the easiest EU citizenship routes, and the Schengen 90/180 rule is what actually governs your movement in the meantime.

Andorra's treaty network is growing — the Andorra–UK double taxation convention entered into force on 22 December 2025, applying in Andorra from 1 January 2026 and in the UK from 1 February, 1 April and 6 April 2026 for withholding, corporation and income taxes. Spain, France, Portugal, Luxembourg and the UAE are long-standing partners. I am not going to give you a count, because the sources I checked say ten, eleven and twenty-one and I cannot reconcile them; check the Andorran tax authority's own list for the partner you care about.

Naturalisation is not a plan. It generally takes twenty years of residence, plus Catalan language and Andorran history and culture examinations, and it requires renouncing your existing nationality — Andorra does not permit dual nationality. For anyone thinking in terms of a second passport that is close to disqualifying, and the honest alternatives are in the easiest countries to acquire citizenship.

Separate immigration residency from tax residency as well. Ninety days a year gets you a permit; it does not reliably win a tie-break against a country where you spend a hundred and eighty. If your plan depends on ceasing to be tax resident somewhere else, that country's exit rules govern the outcome, not Andorra's welcome — the failure modes are in tax resident nowhere.

Who Andorra still works for in 2026

Three profiles, and the reform sorted them sharply.

It works well for the founder who will actually move. If you run a genuinely digital business, will incorporate in Andorra, hold more than 34% and can live there 183 days a year, the Article 38 ter exemption puts your unrecoverable entry cost in the thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands. A 10% top personal rate, a 10% corporate rate and no wealth tax, against 183 nights in the Pyrenees, is one of the better trades in Europe. This is the reader who should look hardest.

It works badly now for the part-time resident. The 90-day passive route was the one people wanted, and €1,000,000 plus a non-refundable €50,000 plus 10% transaction tax on property has moved it out of reach for anyone in this site's income band. The Housing Fund's €400,000 softens that without fixing it. If the appeal was a low-tax permit with minimal presence, compare Monaco tax residency — expensive but honest about it — and the zero-percent tax residencies that ask less capital.

It works badly for the passport seeker, and always did. Twenty years and a renunciation is not a Plan B.

For the freelancer earning €60,000 to €150,000 who wants low tax without a seven-figure commitment, the sober comparison is not Andorra's passive route at all — it is Georgia's 1% regime, a Cyprus non-dom structure, or the working routes here. Andorra is still a serious option for that reader. It is just no longer the cheap one, and any page still telling you €600,000 is quoting a country that stopped existing in February.

Related guides

• Second residency options ranked — cost, speed and days on the ground across the alternatives Andorra now sits above on price.
• Monaco tax residency — the other European microstate route, and a fair comparison on capital required.
• Zero-percent tax residencies — where 0% actually exists, and what it costs to get there.
• Tax resident nowhere — why a 90-day permit does not settle your tax residency.
• Countries with golden visas — the EU routes Andorra cannot offer, at comparable capital.
• Digital nomad visas compared — the programme-by-programme table, for readers who want presence without a company.

FAQ

How much do you need to get Andorra residency in 2026?

It depends entirely on the route, and the spread is enormous. Passive residency now requires an investment of at least €1,000,000 in Andorran assets under Article 96.1 of Llei 2/2026, reduced to €400,000 through the Housing Fund, plus a €50,000 payment to the Andorran Financial Authority that is no longer refundable. The self-employed route under Article 38 ter requires an Andorran company, a stake above 34% and the same €50,000 — unless the project qualifies as digital economy, entrepreneurship or innovation, in which case Article 38 ter waives it. The digital nomad residence from Llei 42/2022 has no investment threshold at all.

Is the €50,000 Andorra deposit refundable?

Not any more. It used to be a bond you recovered when you left. Llei 2/2026, in force since 13 February 2026, converts it into a final non-refundable payment — €50,000 for the main applicant and €12,000 per dependent under Article 96.2 — returnable only if the application itself is refused. Any page still calling it a refundable deposit is describing the pre-February 2026 rules, and on a family of four the difference is about €86,000 you never see again.

How many days a year must you spend in Andorra?

Ninety per calendar year on the passive and digital nomad routes, and 183 on the routes involving work in Andorra. The 90-day figure is what made passive residency attractive to people who did not want to live in the Pyrenees, but it is also why the permit alone does not reliably make you an Andorran tax resident. Immigration residency and tax residency are separate tests, and 90 days rarely wins a tie-break against a country where you spend more.

What is the Andorra digital nomad residence, and does it still exist?

It does. Llei 42/2022 of 1 December 2022, on the digital economy, entrepreneurship and innovation, created a residence category in its Title V for people whose work is not tied to a location and is carried out through telecommunications. It turns on a favourable resolution from the competent ministry rather than a large investment, carries the 90-day requirement, and brings no obligation to contribute to CASS — which is exactly why private health insurance is compulsory on it. Llei 2/2026 did not remove it.

What tax would you actually pay as an Andorran resident?

Personal income tax runs 0% on the first €24,000, 5% from €24,001 to €40,000 and 10% above €40,000, and the 2026 reform did not change those bands. Companies pay 10%, with a 3% minimum effective rate since 1 January 2024 under Llei 5/2023. IGI, the VAT equivalent, is 4.5% standard. There is no wealth, inheritance or gift tax. On €120,000 of income the personal charge is about €8,800 — an effective 7.3% — before social security.

How much is CASS for a self-employed resident?

Self-employed contributions run at 22% of a base you choose from seven brackets of the previous year's average monthly salary. At the 100% bracket the published base is €2,672.52 and the quota €587.95 a month, about €7,055 a year. The lowest bracket, 25%, is a base of €668.13 at €146.99 a month, and newly registered self-employed people can request that reduced quota for their first twelve months. Contributions feed pension entitlement, so the cheapest bracket is also the thinnest one later.

Does Andorra residency lead to an EU passport or Schengen access?

No to both. Andorra is not an EU member state and not in Schengen, so an Andorran permit is not a Schengen residence permit and does not give EU or EEA mobility. Naturalisation is separate and long: generally twenty years of residence, Catalan language and Andorran history and culture examinations, and renunciation of your existing nationality, because Andorra does not permit dual nationality. Treat Andorra as a tax and lifestyle decision, not a passport strategy.

Why do some sites say €600,000 or €800,000 instead of €1,000,000?

Because both were true at some point and neither is the law now. €600,000 was the threshold before 13 February 2026, and many pages calling themselves 2026 guides have not been updated. €800,000 appeared in Andorran press coverage while the bill moved through the Consell General. The enacted text — Article 96.1 of Llei 2/2026 — says one million euros, with the €400,000 Housing Fund alternative. Read the article number, not the headline.

Sources

• Portal Jurídic del Principat d'Andorra — Llei 2/2026, del 22 de gener, de continuïtat i consolidació de les mesures per al creixement sostenible — the enacted text, and the source for every figure in this article: Art. 96.1 (€1,000,000, the €400,000 Housing Fund alternative, eligible assets, the 36-month limit on debt instruments), Art. 96.2 (€50,000 and €12,000, non-refundable), Art. 96.3 (the six-month deadline), Art. 38 ter (the >34% stake, the €50,000 and the digital-economy exemption from it), Art. 8.1.a and 8.1.b (6% and 10%), Art. 5.1.b (three years in ten) and the transitional provision preserving the old rules for earlier applications.
• Portal Jurídic del Principat d'Andorra — Llei 42/2022, de l'1 de desembre, de l'economia digital, l'emprenedoria i la innovació — Title V, creating the digital nomad and foreign entrepreneur residence categories and the relaxed self-employed route for digital economy projects.
• Caixa Andorrana de Seguretat Social — Cotitzacions dels treballadors per compte propi — the seven brackets, the published bases and quotas from €146.99 to €808.44, and the reduced 25% quota for newly registered self-employed people.
• Govern d'Andorra — Normativa i legislació d'immigració — the immigration service's own legislation index.
• KPMG — Andorra: Income tax treaty with UK enters into force — in force 22 December 2025; applying from 1 January 2026 in Andorra and 1 February, 1 April and 6 April 2026 in the UK.
• Augé Legal & Fiscal — Omnibus Law 2 — the 13 February 2026 commencement date and the before-and-after on refundability.

Figures are current as of September 2026. Andorra changed these thresholds twice in as many years, and the criteria governing the Article 38 ter exemption are set by regulation rather than by the law itself, so verify both against the primary sources above on the day you file. Whether a project qualifies for that exemption is a determination for the competent ministry, not something a guide can self-assess. Tax outcomes depend on facts this page cannot know, including your other income, residence history and treaty position. This is editorial research, not legal, immigration or tax advice.