The Real All-In Cost of an EU Founder Visa in 2026: France vs Portugal vs Spain
Government fees for a founder visa in France, Portugal or Spain are small and similar — €90 to €450. The real bill lives in the lines nobody adds up: per-document apostille and sworn translation, private health insurance, legal or EOR fees, and the capital you must show but don't spend. Here is the full 2026 stack for all three, including France's 1 May 2026 permit-fee increase.
If you are pricing a move to Europe in 2026, the number every guide quotes — the visa fee — is the one that matters least. Government fees for a founder visa in France, Portugal or Spain all sit in the low hundreds of euros and are roughly comparable; the real bill is the apostille, sworn-translation, insurance and legal stack that no single page ever sums. France is the most expensive on official fees after a 1 May 2026 increase (€99 visa + €350 permit tax), Portugal sits in the middle (€110 visa + about €160 card), and Spain is cheapest if you file from inside the country (€73.26 + a small card fee, no consular visa). But once you add the documents you must translate per page, the private health insurance all three require, and the legal or employer-of-record work behind a credible file, the official fee becomes a rounding error. This article puts the whole 2026 stack on the table — what you pay, and the capital you must show but never spend. It is general information, not legal or tax advice; confirm your own numbers with a qualified adviser before you file.
What a founder visa actually costs in 2026
Here is the honest answer most cost pages avoid, broken into the three layers that make up the real bill:
- Government fees — small and similar. €90–€450 per applicant across all three countries. This is the number people Google, and it is the least important.
- The document and insurance stack — where the money goes. Per-document apostille and sworn translation (commonly €300–€800 per applicant), plus mandatory private health insurance (€600–€1,500 a year per adult). This layer is 3–6× the government fee and varies with your situation, not the country.
- Legal or EOR fees — the largest controllable line. France Talent dossier preparation, Spain’s ENISA-plus-UGE-CE filing, Portugal’s D2 business plan or D3-plus-payroll setup. We don’t publish prices in articles — they depend on the engagement — but this is usually the biggest single cost, and the one that buys you the approval.
On top of those three layers sits a fourth thing that is not a cost but feels like one: the proof of funds you must show. You keep that money, but it is locked up while you apply. We treat it separately at the end, because conflating “money you show” with “money you spend” is exactly how the real budget gets misjudged.
The numbers at a glance
The table below is government fees only — the official, non-negotiable charges for the founder routes Relovisa files. Figures are per main applicant and verified to June 2026.
| France (Talent — founder) | Portugal (D2 / D3 / D8) | Spain (Startup / DNV) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long-stay / consular visa | €99 | €110 | ~€80 (skipped if filing from inside Spain) |
| Residence-permit tax / card | €350 on collection (€300 tax + €50 stamp) | ~€155–170 AIMA card | €73.26 authorisation (modelo 790-038) + ~€16–21 TIE card |
| Renewal (official fee) | €250 (€200 + €50) | similar card fee on renewal | €73.26 + card on renewal |
| Government total, year 1 | ≈ €449 | ≈ €265–€320 | ≈ €90–€170 |
| Service-centre fee (VFS, where used) | varies | ~€40 | varies |
| Legal minimum capital | none for the innovation route* | none set (D2 practice €50k+) | none set |
* France’s talent — porteur de projet (the founders’ route, the French Tech Visa) carries no statutory capital minimum when your project is recognised as innovative by DRIEETS Île-de-France. The €30,000 figure you may have seen applies to the plain création d’entreprise route without innovation recognition, not the innovative-project track. We cover the distinction in the French Tech Visa for Founders 2026 guide.
Two things stand out. First, the spread on government fees is real but small in absolute terms — about €350 separates cheapest (Spain from inside) from most expensive (France). Second, that €350 spread is dwarfed by the next section, which is where 70–90% of the real out-of-pocket money lives.
France: €99 visa + a €350 permit, after the May 2026 increase
France has two government charges, paid at different stages. The long-stay visa fee is €99, paid to the consulate or visa centre when you apply from abroad; it is non-refundable even on refusal. Then, once your permit is issued, you pay the residence-permit tax and stamp on collection.
That second charge went up on 1 May 2026. Under Article 128 of the 2026 Finance Law, the normal first-issuance tax rose from €200 to €300 and the fiscal stamp from €25 to €50 — so a first talent or EU Blue Card permit now costs €350 to collect, up from €225. Renewals are €250 (€200 tax + €50 stamp). Applications decided before 1 May 2026 were charged the old €225, which is why you will still see that figure on older pages. For a founder arriving in 2026, budget €99 + €350 = €449 in government fees for year one.
France’s porteur de projet founder route has no statutory capital minimum when DRIEETS recognises the project as innovative; the resources test is to show at least the annual gross SMIC per applicant (about €22,400 after the 1 June 2026 SMIC revaluation). That is proof of funds, not a fee — more on that distinction below. For how the SMIC moves but the salary thresholds mostly don’t, see the 2026 SMIC and Talent threshold explainer.
Portugal: €110 visa + about €160 for the card
Portugal’s government fees are the middle of the three and the simplest to state. The consular D visa is €110 per applicant for the D2 (entrepreneur), D3 (highly qualified) and D8 (digital nomad / freelancer) routes — unchanged in 2026 after an earlier rise from €90. Once in Portugal, the AIMA residence-permit card costs about €155–170 — AIMA’s fee table is CPI-indexed and was last raised on 1 March 2026, so confirm the current line before you file. Where a visa centre (VFS) handles your submission, add a service fee of roughly €40.
So Portugal’s government total for year one is roughly €265–€320 per applicant. What that figure hides — and what genuinely dominates the Portuguese timeline — is not money but waiting: AIMA processing routinely runs many months past its targets. The cost consequence is that your private health insurance and any interim arrangements run longer, which is a real budget line even though it is not a fee. Founders weighing D2 against the freelancer route should read the D8 freelancer tax stack and D2 as a rescue lane, because the tax you pay after arrival dwarfs any visa fee.
Spain: €73.26 — and the route that skips the visa fee
Spain has the lowest government fees of the three, and a structural quirk that makes it cheaper still. The core charge is the residence-authorisation fee, paid via modelo 790 código 038 — €73.26 in 2026. After approval you pay a small TIE card fee (modelo 790-012), roughly €16–21. If you apply from abroad, add the consular national visa fee (around €80).
Here is the quirk: for the Spain Startup visa and the digital nomad visa, you can often file the residence authorisation from inside Spain through the UGE-CE while on a legal Schengen stay — and that route has no consular visa step at all. File from inside, and your government fees can be as low as €90 all-in. We explain the from-inside route in the Spain Startup Visa 2026 guide.
One caveat on Spain’s proof of funds, because the figures are widely misquoted: the Startup visa runs a means test that is IPREM-based, not a flat “200% SMI” number, and the exact add-ons for family members change yearly — check the current figure rather than trusting a blog’s round number. The digital nomad visa floor is clearer at €2,849/month (and the social-security cost of doing it as a freelancer is its own story — see the autónomo cost breakdown).
Not sure which of the three fits your situation and budget? Tell us your profile and we will give you a real, all-in number rather than a headline fee — start with France Talent, Spain Startup or Portugal D2.
The costs nobody adds up: apostille, sworn translation, insurance
This is the section the single-country cost pages skip, and it is where the real money is.
Per-document apostille + sworn translation. All three countries require your foreign civil documents — at minimum a criminal-record certificate, often birth and marriage certificates, sometimes diplomas — to be apostilled in the issuing country and then translated. The translation rules differ and they affect the price:
- France requires a traducteur assermenté (sworn translator on a court list).
- Spain requires a traductor jurado (officially appointed sworn translator).
- Portugal accepts certified translations and is sometimes more flexible, occasionally accepting English at AIMA.
Sworn translation runs roughly €30–€80 per page, and an apostille costs a per-document fee in the issuing country. A founder with a spouse and two children, each needing a criminal record and civil-status documents, can easily reach €300–€800 per adult in apostille-and-translation costs — frequently more than the government fee. This is the single most under-budgeted line in every move.
If your documents originate in a country that is not a member of the Hague Apostille Convention — for example Nigeria or the UAE — there is no apostille at all; you go through full consular legalisation, a longer and costlier chain (home-country authentication, then destination-embassy legalisation). Founders relocating from those markets should plan for that explicitly.
Private health insurance. France, Portugal and Spain each require full-coverage private health insurance for the visa (Spain notably requires a policy with no co-payments). Depending on age and cover, budget €600–€1,500 a year per adult. For year one this is almost always larger than the government fee, and in slow-processing Portugal it runs longer than you expect.
Legal / agency / EOR fees. The largest controllable cost, and the one that actually changes your approval odds. France Talent dossier preparation, Spain’s two-stage ENISA-plus-UGE-CE filing, Portugal’s D2 business plan or the D3-plus-Portuguese payroll setup all sit here. We don’t quote prices in articles because they depend on the engagement — but treat this, not the visa fee, as the line that decides your real budget.
Add it up and the hard out-of-pocket cost per adult, before legal fees, is roughly €1,000–€2,750 — government fees plus the document stack plus year-one insurance. The official fee is 5–30% of that.
Money you must show, not spend
The last number that distorts budgets is proof of funds — capital you must demonstrate but keep. It is not a cost, but it locks up cash during the application, so plan for it:
- France (porteur de projet): resources of at least the annual gross SMIC per applicant — about €22,400 in mid-2026 — shown as available funds. (The €30,000 capital requirement applies only to the non-innovation création route.)
- Portugal D8 (freelancer/nomad): income around €3,680/month plus roughly €11,040 in savings (twelve months at Portugal’s 2026 minimum wage); D2: about €11,040 in savings plus your actual business investment (practice favours €50,000+ for credibility).
- Spain Startup: an IPREM-based means test (check the current figure) plus family add-ons; digital nomad visa: €2,849/month.
You don’t pay these to anyone — but a €22,000–€50,000 demonstration of funds tied up for months is a genuine cash-flow consideration that belongs in any honest cost comparison.
So which is actually cheapest?
On government fees alone, the ranking is clear: Spain (from inside) < Portugal < France. Spain filed through the UGE-CE can be ~€90; Portugal ~€265–€320; France ~€449 after the May 2026 increase.
But that ranking rarely decides the real bill, because the document stack, insurance and legal work — which scale with your family size, your origin country’s legalisation rules, and your chosen support — are several times larger and don’t track the government-fee ranking at all. A single applicant from a Hague country with simple documents might spend the least in Spain; a family relocating from a non-Hague country with heavy legalisation needs could find the country with the lighter document and insurance requirements cheaper overall, regardless of the headline visa fee. And the passport at the end is a separate calculation entirely — we compare that in the EU citizenship timeline for founders.
The honest takeaway: stop comparing visa fees and start comparing total stacks. The €350 spread on government fees is noise next to the €1,000–€2,750 document-and-insurance layer — and next to the legal work that actually wins the case.
How Relovisa prices this — a real number, not a headline fee
We file France Talent, Spain Startup and DNV, and Portugal D2/D3 with Portuguese payroll — so we can give you a complete, itemised budget for your exact situation: government fees, the per-document apostille and translation count for your family and origin country, insurance, and our engagement, with the proof-of-funds you must show called out separately so you don’t confuse it with money you spend.
Want the real all-in number for your move? Tell us your profile and target country and we’ll build the line-by-line: France Talent · Spain Startup · Spain DNV · Portugal D3 + payroll · Portugal D2.
FAQ
How much does a founder visa cost in France, Portugal and Spain in 2026? Government fees are small and similar: France €99 visa + €350 permit tax on collection; Portugal €110 visa + ~€155–170 card; Spain €73.26 authorisation + ~€16–21 card, plus the consular visa only if filing from abroad. The real bill is per-document apostille and sworn translation (€300–€800 per adult), private health insurance (€600–€1,500/year per adult), and legal/EOR fees. Budget €1,000–€2,750 per adult in hard costs before any agency fee, plus funds you must show but don’t spend.
Why did the French residence-permit fee go up in 2026? The 2026 Finance Law (Article 128) raised residence-permit taxes for all permits issued from 1 May 2026: the normal first-issuance tax went from €200 to €300 and the stamp from €25 to €50, so a first Talent or EU Blue Card permit costs €350 instead of €225. Renewals are €250.
What is the cheapest EU founder visa in 2026? On government fees, Spain is cheapest when you file the residence authorisation from inside Spain through the UGE-CE (no consular visa fee). But fees are the smallest part of the bill — the cheapest option for you depends on your document-legalisation load, insurance and legal support far more than on the headline fee.
Do I really have to apostille and translate every document? For most documents, yes — criminal-record certificate, and often civil-status documents and diplomas, apostilled in the issuing country and translated. France and Spain require a sworn translator; Portugal accepts certified translations. Sworn translation is ~€30–€80 per page, and this stack is usually larger than the visa fee. Documents from non-Hague countries (e.g. Nigeria, UAE) need full consular legalisation instead, which costs more.
Is proof of funds a cost? No — it is money you show, not spend. France asks for ~€22,400 (annual gross SMIC per applicant); Portugal D8 ~€3,680/month plus ~€11,040 savings, D2 ~€11,040 savings plus business investment; Spain runs an IPREM-based means test for the Startup visa and €2,849/month for the DNV. You keep it, but it ties up capital during the application.
Sources
- service-public.gouv.fr — Titres de séjour : augmentation du montant des taxes (2026 Finance Law, Article 128; new rates for permits issued from 1 May 2026; first-issuance tax €200→€300, stamp €25→€50) — service-public.gouv.fr — verified June 2026
- France-Visas (france-visas.gouv.fr) — long-stay visa fee €99 — verified June 2026
- FrenchEntrée — 2026 fee increases for French visas, residence permits and citizenship (first Talent/Blue Card permit €225→€350; renewal €250) — frenchentree.com — verified June 2026
- Sede electrónica, Ministerio de Inclusión, Seguridad Social y Migraciones — Tasa 790 modelo 038, residence and work authorisations (€73.26) — sede.inclusion.gob.es — verified June 2026
- Sede electrónica, Policía Nacional — Tasa 790 código 012 (TIE / foreigner identity card fee) — sede.policia.gob.es — verified June 2026
- Vistos — Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros (Portugal) — national visa fees (D visa €110) — vistos.mne.gov.pt — verified June 2026
- AIMA / Portugal immigration fee guides — residence-permit card ~€155–170 (fee table CPI-indexed; last raised 1 March 2026); VFS service fee ~€40 — aima.gov.pt — verified June 2026
- Relovisa — internal route guides for income thresholds and tax stacks (France Talent, Spain Startup/DNV, Portugal D2/D3/D8) — relovisa.co — verified June 2026
