Portugal has acknowledged the termination of its successful golden visa program after ten years of operation.
Nairametrics reported that all new golden visa applications received after February 16 are reportedly no longer valid, while residence permits for investment will continue to be valid, according to SchengenVisaInfo.com.
The way the system worked made it possible for affluent foreign investors to purchase residency in Portugal by making investments there.
Between 2012 and 2023, 89 percent of residence permits were exclusively for the purchase of the real estate, with only 22 cases in which investors created jobs.
Despite the fact that the golden visa program helped boost the country’s economy by billions of dollars, it decided to stop because of Portugal’s ongoing property problem.
According to the prime minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa, “nothing justifies a separate system for golden visas.”
Costa emphasized that residence permits already awarded under the Golden visa program will now be changed into ordinary residence permits in order to ensure that everyone is treated equally under national law.
Golden visas for entrepreneurship are still available to those who are interested, enabling international entrepreneurs who seek to start a project in this field in Portugal to do so.
While assessing these new visa applications, the relevance of the investment will be determined in relation to the economy, society, science, technology, or culture taken into account.
According to the Foreigners and Border Service, during the previous ten years, real estate investments done with golden visas have raised Portugal’s GDP by €5.9 billion. El Pais reported that between October 2019 and February 2023, Portugal’s government issued 11,758 Golden Visas in total.
A Portuguese residency permit has been given to about 31,000 individuals and their family members from outside the EU.
Brazilians (at 10% of all granted golden visas) and Chinese nationals (at 45% each) are the next most common recipients, followed by a sizeable number of Americans, South Africans, Turks, and Nigerians.
