Portugal has become the second country in Europe to put to an end its Golden Visa Program this week, after earlier on 14 February, Ireland also announced it would close its Immigrant Investor Programme (IIP), known as the Irish Golden Visa.
The decision to scrap the Portuguese Golden Visa is part of a wider package of measures to tackle a housing crisis in the country, and was announced by the Council of Ministers. As informed by a news report in Schengen Visa reports.
The Council read out six measures part of the package. Part of the fourth measure is the decision to no longer grant new Golden Visas, while permitting “the existing ones to be renewed, if they are real estate investments, only for own and permanent housing or if it is placed on the rental market for a long time.”
While the government claims that the program is not amongst the main factors for rising housing costs, it believes that ending it is the right move, in order to combat real estate speculation.
The decision has been taken in spite of a 41.9 per cent increase in the investments made in Portugal in 2022 through the Golden visa program, reaching the total investment amount of €654.2 million(approx. USD 696.15 mn). While the total profit of Portugal for this program since it was created in 2012, is as high as €6.9 billion (approx. USD 7.34bn ).
The top countries of origin for Golden Visa beneficiaries are China, Brazil, Turkey, the United States, and South Africa. Golden visas will not be the only ones affected by Portugal Council’s new housing package, as short-term rentals as Airbnb and Booking will also be affected due to a ban on new licenses. “The current licenses will be reassessed in 2030, and thereafter there will be periodic reassessments; the issuance of new licenses will be prohibited, with the exception of rural accommodation in interior municipalities where there is no urban pressure and where they can contribute to the economic dynamism of the territory,” the package reads.
According to a ranking published last month, only in Milan and Paris housing rent is higher than in Lisbon. The report, amongst others, points out that rents increased by 36.9 per cent in Lisbon in the fourth quarter in 2022 alone. The plans to scrap Portugal’s Golden Visa have been discussed by the country’s authorities for over three years now, after the same was sternly criticized by the EU authorities, alongside with other Golden Visa programs operated by several other EU Member States, including here the Greek Golden Visa Program.
In the following months, the next country to scrap its Golden Visa, at least partially, might be Spain, as its political party Más País has submitted a bill to the Congress to scrap the Golden Visa by the purchase of property, under the argument that the practice has driven up housing prices in the country.
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