Invest in companies, not just real estate.
Diaspora capital is one of Kosovo’s great strengths. Where most of the investment ends up today isn’t ideal, for Kosovo or for many investors.
The money
The capital already comes home.
- 500,000+
- Kosovars living abroad, mainly in Germany and Switzerland
- ~17%
- of Kosovo’s GDP arrives as remittances from abroad
- 55%
- of foreign direct investment comes from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the heart of the diaspora
- 75%
- of foreign direct investment went into real estate in 2025
Few countries depend on their people abroad the way Kosovo does. Remittances alone were €1.35 billion in 2024, around 17% of GDP on World Bank figures. Add visits and investment, and the central bank has put the total above €3 billion in a single year.
Most of that money does exactly what it’s meant to do: it supports parents, pays school fees and keeps households going. We have no argument with any of it. Our interest is in the part people choose to invest.
Where it goes
It built the housing stock and bypassed the businesses.
- Real estate
- €770m · 75%
- Everything else
- €260m · 25%
Of the €1.03 billion in foreign direct investment Kosovo received in 2025, €770 million went into real estate. It isn’t a one-year anomaly: a Riinvest Institute economist put the share at about 72% over three years. Over half of that investment came from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where the diaspora lives.
Official statistics don’t separate diaspora money from other foreign investment, so nobody can give a precise diaspora share. But the direction is clear enough. Capital arrives every year, in large amounts. It’s the destination that’s narrow.
The problem
Why this isn’t ideal as of now.
A finished building employs few people
A new building creates real work while it’s going up. Then it mostly sits there, and if it’s only used in August, it may not even earn rent.
Kosovo needs jobs more than apartments
People don’t leave because there are too few apartments. They leave because too few jobs pay well and lead somewhere. Companies create those jobs.
Companies are the economy
Small and medium-sized enterprises are 99.8% of registered companies and 79% of employment. Yet in 2025, only a quarter of foreign investment went anywhere other than real estate.
Too much rests on one market
When three-quarters of foreign investment heads for one kind of asset, that’s where the competition is, and a family’s savings depend on how that one market behaves.
The knowledge stays abroad
An apartment can’t use what you’ve learned in Stuttgart or Zürich. A company can: how to keep the books, manage a team, or sell into the country you live in.
Nobody made a mistake here. An apartment is a sensible purchase when you live a thousand kilometres away. You can see it, your family can check on it, and a title deed feels safe. But when almost everyone makes the same sensible choice, the result is a country with new towers and too few new employers.
The obstacle
Investing in a company is too hard today.
The diaspora isn’t short of money or goodwill. What it lacks is visibility. If you live in Munich, how do you find out which Kosovo companies are looking for capital, whose numbers are reliable, and which owner wants to retire? Today, the honest answer for most people is that you ask a cousin.
Protection is the other half. Kosovo’s laws meet international benchmarks, but enforcement remains weak, so a minority stake held from a thousand kilometres away depends on a clean contract and on knowing who you’re in business with. Founders have the same problem from the other side: they know the money is out there, and they have no way of reaching it.
Ortaku is built to close that gap, by showing you real businesses and helping with the unglamorous work that makes them safe to act on.
The comparison
An apartment and a stake in a business are different things.
| An apartment | A stake in a business | |
|---|---|---|
| What it creates | A home, and construction work while it’s being built. | Jobs, wages, tax revenue and skills that last as long as the company does. |
| How you earn | Rent, and any rise in the property’s value. | A share of profits, and the value you help build if the company is later sold. |
| What you can influence | The finish, the tenant and the rent. | Strategy, hiring, new markets and the know-how you picked up abroad. |
| How hard it is from abroad | Easy. You can walk through it on your summer visit. | Harder. You need to see the books, trust the people and hold the right rights. |
| The risk | Usually lower, though returns depend on a market that many others are crowding into. | Higher. A company can fail and you can lose your investment. |
We’re not telling anyone to sell their apartment or to put all their savings into one company. Private investment can go badly wrong. The argument is about the next euro, and whether a real alternative exists.
How it pays
Never invested in a company? Here’s how it pays.
Hold for the long term
Keep your shares for many years, much as a family keeps land. Your share grows in value if the company does.
Receive dividends
When a company makes a profit, its owners can decide to pay part of it out. If you own 20%, you receive 20% of whatever is paid.
Sell your share later
If the company grows, your share becomes worth more. You can sell it to another investor, to the other owners, or as part of a sale of the whole company.
Take money out using a loan
A strong, stable company can borrow from a bank and pay part of that to its owners. You get cash without selling, but the company takes on debt, so this only suits healthy businesses.
Earn interest on a loan
If you lend to a company rather than buy shares, you earn the agreed interest and get your money back over time. It’s simpler, but you don’t share in the growth.
Get paid for your work
If you also take a real role, as a manager or adviser, you can be paid for that work as well as for your shares.
A simple example, with invented numbers
- Today
- You pay €100,000 for 20% of a company worth €500,000.
- Along the way
- The company pays €50,000 in dividends one year. You receive €10,000.
- Year 5
- The company is worth €1.5 million. Your 20% is now worth €300,000.
This isn’t a forecast. A company can also shrink or fail, and you can lose everything you put in. Shares in a private company can take years to sell, so only invest money you can leave in for a long time.
Sources and how we count
- Total diaspora inflows: the Governor of the Central Bank of Kosovo put them at more than €3 billion in a single year, counting remittances, spending during visits and investment. Central Bank of Kosovo
- Size of the diaspora: estimates vary widely with the method. 500,000 is a deliberately conservative floor. Kosovo’s statistics agency has said more than 600,000, and press estimates reach 800,000. KOSOVAPRESS
- People of Kosovar origin in Germany: about 542,000 in 2022. GAP Institute
- Remittances: 17.3% of GDP in 2024 on World Bank figures. The OECD, using a different GDP estimate, puts the same €1.35 billion at about 13%. World Bank data
- Remittances, OECD estimate: €1.35 billion in 2024. OECD
- Source countries and real estate: over a three-year period, 55% of FDI came from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and about 72% went into real estate (Riinvest Institute economist, reported by BIRN). BIRN
- 2025 FDI: €1.03 billion in total, of which €770 million went into real estate (GAP Institute, reported by Gazeta Express). Gazeta Express
- Companies: small and medium-sized enterprises are 99.8% of registered enterprises and 79% of employment. OECD SME Policy Index 2026
- A caveat: official statistics count all FDI as one figure and do not separate diaspora money, so source-country shares are the closest available measure. Kosovo 2.0
- Growth: real GDP grew 4.6% in 2024 and 3.6% in 2025, with about 4% expected over the medium term. The same report names political uncertainty as the main domestic risk and calls for less informality. IMF, 2026 Article IV
- Age: an average of about 34.8 years in the 2024 census, against 44.5 in the EU. UNFPA Kosovo
- Corruption Perceptions Index: 28 in 2010, a high of 44 in 2024, and 43 in 2025, on a scale where 100 is very clean. This measures perceived corruption, and we use it as the closest long-running indicator for the rule of law. Trading Economics, from Transparency International
- Enforcement: laws are consistent with international benchmarks for protecting investment, but enforcement remains weak. US State Department
- Tax: a flat 10% corporate income tax. PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries
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