Portugal resumes requests for “golden visas” after a half-year stop
Applications for golden visas in Portugal have resumed and several new applications for Residence Permit for Investment (ARI) have already been submitted, after a 6-month stoppage.
According to the Portuguese Association of Real Estate Developers and Investors (APPII), “the platform for the insertion of new ARI of the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) is finally operational”.
The update platform has already received several requests for Residence Permit by Investment, after being inactive since the beginning of this beginning.
President Hugo Santos Ferreira, conceived by the association, considered or renegotiated the presentation of new projects that were taken into account by APPII.
“We are once again experiencing a social and economic crisis whose duration and consequences are still unknown. But, unlike the other recent crises, this one represents an important opportunity for Portugal. Our country offers unique conditions to those who seek us as an investment destination, due to security, location, quality of life, among others”, he said.
“It is essential for residency to have the investment authorization process operational to carry out and receive with those who underline the investment process in our country”,
Recently, the Journal that the lack of ‘gold took effect in January, the restriction on the submission of new applications to the investment regime that came into force on new visa applications’.
Soon after, the Secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, André Moz, stated that the law in question does not need to be regularized and can be “directly applicable”. The deputy minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Ana Catarina Mendes, also stressed that “the law, as it stands, does not need to be regulated by the Government”.
Data released by the SEF on Monday indicate that investment captured through ‘golden visas’ grew by 94% in May, compared to the same month of 2021, to 53.8 million euros. In the past, 17 ‘golden’ visas were granted to China, 16 to the United States, 10 to Brazil, eight to Lebanon and seven to India.
In the first five months of the year, the investment raised amounted to more than 238 million euros. This refers to requests sent before the recent outage of new submissions.
Referring to Portuguese, “in recent years, real estate investment has intensified particularly in the market, and today its importance is recognized by all – regulators, institutions and the general public”, APPII stressed that, “in 2019, the real estate investment investment in Portugal amounted to 30,000 million euros, which represents 15% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), constituting one of the main pillars of the national economy.
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