Golden visa programs exploded since the past couple of years reaching historic highs, but in just two months of Covid-19 pandemic, things are pretty much slowing down as expected with Portugal is showing first signs of slowdown in the industry, according to the latest figures released by SEF.
Greece so far remains unaffected according to the latest application figures.
In Portugal, The number of golden visas issued to investors sees a decline in March with just 55 golden visas issued to investors. In March 2019, Portugal issued 83 golden visas, when compared to same timeline previous year. This is a 33% decline.
| GV Investors | Portugal |
| Jan | 81 |
| Feb | 70 |
| Mar | 55 |
Source: SEF statistics – Golden visas issued to investors (applications filed not available)
SEF announced the closure of immigration offices from March 30 and reopens in July 1. The applications for golden visas can still be filed online but appointments will be assigned chronologically from July 1.
The situation in Greece which operates another popular golden visa program is quite a different story.
According to Greece immigration office figures, show as far as the number of applications were approved,
- January – 1,253
- February – 1,311
- March – 1,343
bringing down a total of 3,907 applications. From these statistics, we don’t know how many family members applied with the same application each month, but we know that for the whole 3-month period the applicants and their family members were 7,414.
We reached out to a lawyer in Greece, to further investigate the impact of Covid-19 in Golden visa market in Greece.
“The Covid-19 crisis has a significant impact in the Greek real estate market. Especially for the Golden VISA program, the Chinese market is approximately 70% of the clientele, therefore all the action on this side has stopped. There is also a slowdown on the real estate market as all authorities from brokers till notaries and the public services are currently working on a safe mode, therefore there is a big decrease in the new contracts from late March till today”, says Mr. Konstantinos An. Delidakis, Managing Partner of Delidakis & Associates P.C. , a financial consulting serving clients since 1997 in Greece.
Despite Greece announcing closure of immigration offices, last month The applications for golden visas remains open and not suspended yet.
According to Mr. Konstantinos, regarding filing of applications
“The Greek authorities are currently working on Golden Visa applications that have been registered before the start of the Covid-19 crisis. The process for new golden visa applications hasn’t been yet suspended, but there are significant delays as all papers have to be submitted electronically and the public personnel is very limited, thus the procedure cannot be concluded as no new in-person appointments are made with the interested parties.”
Greece was considering some changes in the Golden Visa scheme last year, such as upgrading the total value of the property for applying in the program to 300,000 euros in the big towns such as Athens and keeping it to the 250,000 euros for other parts of Greece, but this is still into consideration and of course every plan and talks have been frozen for the following months.
