The Portuguese parliament voted on Jan 11, to extend the current golden visa scheme in Portugal and rejecting the call for closing the scheme.
New option Green visa to be introduced to the ARI/Golden visa scheme requiring for €500,000 investment in eco-green projects including
- Organic agriculture,
- Ecotourism,
- Renewable energy and
- Other environmental projects
Portugal introduced golden visa scheme on Oct 8 , 2012 for non-EU persons to revive the economy requiring 500,000 in Lisbon real estate or €350,000 refurbished properties in Portugal. One of the major benefits of the scheme was foreigners were not required to permanently move or live in Portugal after buying real estate, they only need to visit Portugal for one or two weeks.
The scheme in 6 years collected some €4.25 billion euro revenues, 90% flowed into real estate investment in Portugal. As of 2019, some 18,8777 residence permits issued under golden visa scheme to foreigners. Chinese top for golden visas in Portugal followed by Brazilians and Turkish nationals.
Amendments to golden visa law, offered foreign investors a path to permanent residency and citizenship.
As of Jan 9, 2019, SEF Border service began issuing the new Permanent Residence Certificate of the European Union, identical to the national Citizen’s Card in a new standard format.
Portugal directly competes with Greece, Spain, Latvia, Malta, Italy operating similar golden visa schemes in Europe.
