Portugal Golden Visa 2022 suffered changes since 1 January. But what really changed?

The most important change is that from January 1st on, Golden Visa eligibility doesn’t apply to residential real estate investments made in metropolitan and coastal areas including Lisbon, Porto, and most of the Algarve. In addition to this, the minimum investment for capital transfer increased from €1 million to €1.5 million, and the fund investment minimum increased from €350,000 to €500,000. Capital transfer for R&D and company incorporation won’t be affected by the changes.

Since 1st January 2022, investment in any one of the non-real estate routes is required at the increased levels, as detailed below:

  • Investment by capital transfer increased from €1,000,000 to €1,500,000;
  • Investment by capital transfer in research activities increased from €350,000 to €500,000;
  • Investment by capital transfer for the acquisition of units of investment funds or venture capital funds, designated for the capitalization of companies, increased from €350,000 to €500,000;
  • Investment by capital transfer through the establishment of a commercial company with a head office in Portugal, and the creation of a minimum of five permanent jobs, increased from €350,000 to €500,000.

In addition, new changes have been designed in order to promote international investment in low-density territories, after the majority of investments in Portugal through this scheme has been focused in the metropolitan areas.

Portugal updated the residency-by-investment program in order to attract more international investors towards low residency regions.

Internationals who make an investment in Portugal are also eligible to include partners, dependent partners as well as dependent children in this program, including children up to the age of 18, or children over the age of 18 who are unmarried and enrolled in full-time education for the duration of the process.

It is also worth mentioning the fact that the Golden Visa program has already attracted over 10,000 citizens to invest in Portugal since its creation. The investment made by the investors was above 6 billion euros. After 5 years of the investment, an investor may as well obtain Portuguese citizenship.

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