Portugal Golden Visa Statistics – Updated in January 2023

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Portugal Golden Visa is a highly favored residency by investment program in our community. Thanks to its multiple investment options, low stay requirements, and profitable nature, it’s very popular among digital nomads, frequent travelers, and families.

Portugal Immigration and Borders Service (SEF) releases the monthly and cumulative data for Golden Visa. Here are Portugal Golden Visa statistics as of January 2023.

Portugal Golden Visa Statistics for December 2022

According to the latest data released by SEF at the end of December 2022,

  • 151 main applicants received their Golden Visa,
  • 192 family members accompanied the main applicants as their dependents.

Below is the breakdown of the nationalities for December:

  • 25 China
  • 24 USA
  • 21 UK
  • 14 South Africa
  • 10 Brazil

In terms of investment type, here is the breakdown for December:

  • 105 applicants opted to proceed with real estate acquisition
    • 65 applicants for €500,000+ properties
    • 40 applicants for €350,000 renovated properties
  • 46 applicants opted to go for capital transfer
    • 41 applicants for Portuguese Golden Visa funds
    • 4 for capital transfer
    • 1 donation

Portugal Golden Visa attracted €79,164,626.20 to Portugal in December.

All Time Portugal Golden Visa Statistics: 2012-2022

Nationalities That Have Applied for Portugal Golden Visa (2012-2022)

Since the start of the Golden Visa program in Portugal, the Chinese have continuously been the main source of applications. Brazil is second in terms of nationalities, followed by Turkey.

Since October 2012, 11,535 investors have received their Golden Visas and 18,809 family members have accompanied them. €6,754,091,807.50 has been invested in Portugal Golden Visa since then.

Investment in Real Estate: 10,593 residence permits

  • Real Estate / €500,000: 9,108 residence permits
  • Real Estate / €350,000 Urban Rehabilitation: 1,485 residence permits

Capital Transfer: 920 residence permits

  • Capital Transfer in a Portuguese Bank: 535 residence permits
  • Donation to research activities: 1 residence permit
  • Investment Fund: 371 residence permits
  • Capital Transfer + Creation of Jobs: 7 residence permits
  • Donation to cultural heritage in Portugal: 6 residence permits

Creation of 10 Full Time Jobs: 22 residence permits

Changes to Portugal Golden Visa (effective as of January 2022)

In February 2020, the Portuguese Parliament passed a budget proposal that aims to modify the Portuguese Golden Visa program. The parliament’s goal is to encourage investment in low-density areas, urban rehabilitation, employment creation, and cultural heritage preservation.

According to this;

  • The minimum investment amount for the Investment Fund option increased to €500,000 from €350,000.
  • The minimum investment amount for the Capital Transfer option increased to €1.5 million from €1 million.
  • Only property investments made in low-density areas of Portugal are going to qualify for a Golden Visa. This means that purchasing residential property in Lisbon or Porto no longer qualifies. However, commercial properties still do.

The changes to the Portugal Golden Visa took effect on January 1, 2022.

What Else You Need To Know

As we’ve briefly mentioned in the introduction, Portugal Golden Visa is highly popular in our community, especially among the ones from the US. Even one of them, Barbara was so kind to share her journey with us and our readers. Make sure you check out her Portugal Golden Visa journey for the first-hand experience. If you have any questions for her, please feel free to drop us an email and we’ll be more than happy to introduce you to each other.

Portuguese parliament votes against ending Golden Visa program

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In a highly-anticipated Portuguese parliamentary session this week, the legislative body rejected a proposal from the Communist Party to end the country’s popular Golden Visa program, a residency-by-investment program that brought in nearly €7 billion of investments to Portugal since its launch in 2012.

However, in this week’s parliamentary session, the majority Socialist Party rejected the Communist party proposal, with the government deciding instead to create a working group made up of the ministries of Economy, Foreign Affairs and Internal Administration, to assess the impact of the program on the country and its economy and help decide on the way forward for the program.

“This means that although the program is under revision, the Government, by itself will not be able to introduce any amendments to the relevant law during 2023,” explains Sara Sousa Rebolo, partner at Lisbon-based Prime Legal.

“However, one must note that this does not prevent the [parliament] to legislate about the program during 2023. The Socialist Party currently has an absolute majority, with a mandate until 2026, so there’s no possibility of dispute when it comes to the voting.”

In other words, all cards are in the hands of the Socialist Party when it comes to any legislation put on vote in the Parliament, including all matters and future decisions relating to the Golden Visa.

“The government doesn’t want to end the program,” says Tiago Gali Macedo, managing partner at Gali Macedo & Associates. “They just want to focus it on more productive investments like funds, companies, productive real estate, etc.”

The Portuguese Golden Visa has been incredibly beneficial to the country’s economy, explains Diogo Capela, co-managing partner at Lamares, Capela & Associados. “The Portuguese Golden Visa was created in 2012 as a response to the financial crisis Portugal was facing,” he explains. “There were numerous benefits that the program has brought to Portugal, top of them is the huge amounts invested in the country, totaling more than €6 billion of foreign direct investment so far,” says Capela.

“Since its launch, Golden Visa Portugal has had a huge support, with about 11,263 investors and 18,479 family members benefiting from it,” he adds.

The Portuguese Prime Minister’s statements on the Golden Visa 

Earlier this month, the parliament’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa had said the program is ‘no longer justified’, sparking fears that the program’s end is in sight. Is this still the case?

“I believe the Prime Minister’s statements may have been excessive, possibly the result of media pressure in the face of recent news about some cases of social support obtained by Golden Visa holders, as well as cases of real estate pressure in large urban centers,” predicts Rebolo.

“Notwithstanding, we also believe that the program must have changes and improvements, as well as a more environmental and social character as those needs are now very clear. These are also the hot matters that EU is concerning in addressing so there is room to achieve a compromise solution that allows using this instrument to attract investment as a tool to respond to these needs,” she adds.

Backlog for Golden Visa investors resolved? 

Being one of the most popular residency-by-investment programs in Europe, the Portugal Golden Visa program has been suffering a backlog that meant that new applicants can anticipate a processing time of nearly 18 months – is this going to continue to be the case in 2023?

“Currently the Portuguese Government is also moving forward with the restructuring of the Immigration Office, also adopting measure to reduce the backlog that all the immigration programs are suffering,” reveals Rebolo.

“Such improvements and measures will also solve the delay in the processing of the applications under the Golden Visa program,” she expects.

The delay of issuing the visas and processing the applications is offset by the many perks it offers, according to Rebolo, including ‘the flexibility that the program allows, by requiring only 7 days a year to stay in Portugal, without tax impact and with access to the application for Portuguese citizenship and therefore European citizenship for the investor and direct family, through different investment options starting from €200,000.

Tighter golden visa rules highlighted

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In its most recent report, for 2021, on “Migration Prospects 2022”, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) highlights that since January of this year “stricter requirements for obtaining a “golden visa” have come into force in Portugal.

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“Residence permits for investment will no longer be possible based on real estate investments in Lisbon, Porto, the Algarve and on the coast. Once acquired, properties intended for housing only allow access to this regime if they are located in the Autonomous Region of the Azores and of Madeira or in territories in the interior of the country”, says the part of the report referring to Portugal.

It points out, on the other hand, that “there is, however, no change in the limit amounts for real estate investment, which remains at €500,000 or €350,000 if the building is more than 30 years old”.

“Residence applications for investment for other reasons will be subject to higher investment thresholds. The limit for capital transfers has increased from €1 million to €1.5 million”, says the OECD.

It also says that the minimum requirement for transfers for research activities, participation in investment and/or venture capital funds and the incorporation of commercial companies has increased from €350,000 thousand to €500,000.

“Continuous commitment”

The OECD points out that Portugal has had a “continuous commitment” to promoting “safe, orderly and regular” migration and says that the new version of the National Plan for the Implementation of the Global Compact for Migration is being prepared, which will take into account “best practices, but also current challenges”.

In the analysis of Portugal, the OECD also highlights the work done by the Portuguese government to minimise the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the processes of visa and residence permit applications, which have been suspended.

In this sense, it highlights that “all foreign citizens with pending cases at the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), who have submitted a request until December 31, 2021, are temporarily in a situation of regular stay in the country and have access to health, social support, employment and housing”.