The threat is in committee, and the election holds the key
Five lawmakers from Latvia's Progressives party filed bill 1521/Lp14 on 3 September 2026 with a single object: to delete Article 27(1)(36) of the Immigration Law, the provision that created the €150,000 state-fund residency route. The Saeima sent the bill to the Defence, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Committee on 10 September. Nine days later, on 19 September, Latvia held its parliamentary campaign, and on 3 October 2026 — one week from this desk's publication date — the country will vote to elect its 15th Saeima. That election will determine what happens to the bill. The committee's composition in the outgoing Saeima is a detail; the next Saeima's will be the moment that moves bill 1521 forward or lets it expire.
The route the bill targets came into force on 15 September 2026, replacing the property and deposit routes that had served since 2002. So the timeline is compressed: three weeks from the route's opening to the parliamentary ballot that will decide whether it survives its first month. And the sponsors of the bill — faction chair Andris Šuvajevs of the Progressives, plus four colleagues — are not trading in abstractions. Their explanatory note argues that grants of residence in exchange for "a financial, and in this case very minimal, investment" create "disproportionate and heightened" risks for money-laundering, sanctions evasion, and reputational harm to Latvia. The bill names no applicants — because there have been none yet.
The fund does not exist
Here is the more urgent fact. The €150,000 route is written into law, and on 15 September it became lawful to apply for it. But the state apparatus it depends on does not exist. The law specifies that applicants must place their capital with a "state-established alternative investment fund manager." No such manager has been established or named. Get Golden Visa, the Lisbon advisory, reported on 18 September 2026 that Latvia's Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs confirmed the fund has not been created. The government has a deadline: 1 December 2027 to issue secondary regulations that will set up the machinery. That is 14 months away.
IMI Daily reported that the bill's explanatory note carries an argument in its favour that sounds like it is condemning the route: there would be no budget loss from deleting it, because no payments under it have reached the state budget. No applicants means no fund. The state fund, like the applicants, does not yet exist.
The desk's numbers: no demand yet
What happens next depends on two things. The first is the election on 3 October. The second is whether, even if the bill dies in committee, the government establishes the fund at all before the 2027 deadline. And the third — though it may be only a logical detail — is whether any foreigner actually wants to use it. The property route, in its final 15 years, had drawn a steady stream: the Israeli venture-capital investor, the London property speculator, the Middle Eastern family setting up a satellite office. All three were rational actors: property is a known asset, it produces yield or occupancy value, and it sits in a jurisdiction with clear tenure. A fund locked for five years in a state apparatus that does not yet exist is a different proposition.
The €150,000 figure gets repeated in every briefing and every analysis. What it conceals is the scale of the barrier that precedes the money. A family that wants to use this route must first decide to trust a state that has not yet appointed a fund manager, created the fund, or demonstrated that the fund will meet any return threshold whatsoever. The visa is the smallest part of the transaction. The bet on the state's execution is the large part. No applicant has made it.
What this means for a Hong Kong family
For the mobility reader, the story is simpler. You cannot use the €150,000 route yet, even if you wanted to. The state has not switched it on. For families that moved to Latvia for property — it is closed. For families that parked cash in bank deposits — that is closed. What is left is the company routes: €50,000 for a small firm with a €40,000-a-year tax floor, or €100,000 for a larger one with €100,000 annual tax. Both require an operating business in Latvia, both require a Latvian accountant, and the permit lapses if the tax floor is not cleared. For a family that treats residency as a base for life and work in three continents, neither route replaces what was withdrawn.
And that, from the perspective of an applicant who wants certainty, is not a problem that bill 1521 solves. It is a problem that pre-dated the bill by two weeks.
What to watch
The 3 October election is the first checkpoint. The Progressives and their sponsoring coalition will either gain seats and voice — raising the bill's chances — or lose ground. That tells you the immediate politics. Beyond that, watch two other things: whether the newly constituted Saeima fast-tracks the bill in its opening weeks, or lets it lose urgency as other business piles up; and whether the government issues the fund manager's terms and applies for bids before the 1 December 2027 deadline. A government that sees an election bill gathering sponsor votes may deprioritise the machinery to make the fund real. The fund route is law. It is not yet a product anyone can use, and it is not clear that anyone will.
See also Latvia golden visa 2026: property route out, a €150,000 fund route in law, the September report on the new Immigration Law.
Primaries accessed: saeima.lv (Parliament bill register, 10 September 2026 referral); likumi.lv (Immigration Law text, Article 27, 1 September 2026 gazette publication); vestnesis.lv (Latvijas Vēstnesis No. 167, 1 September 2026). State fund status: Get Golden Visa (18 September 2026 — confirmed non-creation with OCMA). Bill rationale: IMI Daily (17 September 2026 — explanatory note, budget impact, security risks). Election date and scope: Central Election Commission (3 October 2026, 15th Saeima election). No data available on current demand or applicant count for either fund or company routes — no applications received to date.
