Portugal’s government is considering enhancing its Golden Visa Program to attract a large number of foreign investors.
The new changes include potential new tax benefits, such as a 20 per cent flat tax on local income as well as a ten-year exemption from most taxes on foreign income, Schengen.News reports.
Recently, Portugal’s Minister of the Presidency, Antonio Leitao Amaro, told Bloomberg that his government was considering making its Residency-by-Investment scheme more attractive for internationals.
The Golden Visa Program offers residency to foreign nationals in exchange for financial investments made through various routes.
In the past year, approval rates increased by 72 per cent, with the majority of them Americans, based on the statistics from Portugal’s immigration agency, AIMA.
In 2024, the government approved a total of 4,987 more applications compared to 2023’s statistics, marking a new record. Among the reasons for the increase is that the Golden Visa Program is less present among the EU countries.
In spite of the fact that Portugal’s Minister of the Presidency, Antonio Leitao Amaro, didn’t provide any details, the idea is to allow new Portuguese residents to benefit from a 20 per cent flat tax on local income as well as a ten-year exemption on most international income.
He emphasized that Portugal is not planning to end the golden visa program in Portugal. Amaro said that AIMA is working on clearing a backlog of about 45,000 golden visa applications that are waiting to be reviewed.
Portugal Resumes Processing Golden Visas
In April this year, the President of Portugal’s Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA), Pedro Portugal Gaspar, said that the agency has resumed processing golden visas at a slow pace.
A report from Publico revealed that the resumption of the processing of Residency-by-Investment applications is not yet at the pace desired by those interested.
Some of these processes are being conducted. They are not at a standstill. Now, naturally, there is a capacity to respond, given the various process flows.
The President of Portugal’s Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA), Pedro Portugal Gaspar
AIMA’s waiting list consists of over 50,000 investors and their families. Some of them have been waiting for more than three years.
In a bid to better manage the housing crisis, authorities in Portugal removed the real estate investment route from the Golden Visa Program. However, other options offering residency in exchange for investments continue to remain effective, attracting a large number of investors from other countries.