According to Bloomberg, the Portugal´s Minister of Presidency of the current centre-right government, Leitão Amaro, gave an interview where he presented statistics showing a strong growth in the number of Golden Visa approvals, a supportive statement about the outlook of the program and highlighting that new measures to increase the appeal of the Portugal´s Golden Visa are being studied at governmental level.
In 2024, almost five thousand Golden Visa applications were approved by the immigration agency AIMA, the highest yearly number ever, an increase of 72% over the previous year and with U.S. citizens leading the pack.
Leitão Amaro also indicated that there are no plans to end the Golden Visa program, a huge contrast with the previous Socialist Government and with countries like Ireland, Spain, Netherlands and UK that have all closed the respective residence by investment programs.
Finally, the Minister also stated that they are considering enhancing the tax benefits for Portugal´s Golden Visa program in a more effectively and economically efficient way. However, he didn´t provide any details on this matter.
In our opinion, these are good news for the Golden Visa program, with a set of enhanced benefits on the way and a serious effort of cleaning the current backlog left by the previous Socialist government. In fact, according to our sources, it is expected that during the third quarter of this year, we will have a significant number of applicants being called for biometrics exams, the last phase of the approval process, just before receiving the residency card.
Also is being reported that in January 2026, a new Golden Visa IT platform will be launched by the Portuguese Government. On the renewals front, a Golden Visa card holder will be able to renew using his/her lawyer and will not need to come to Portugal if the biometrics are within a 5 year period validity.
The Portuguese Golden Visa is currently one of the few remaining reputable Golden Visa programs in Europe and being Portugal well known for its high quality of life, safety, welcoming environment with friendly people, we expect that a new set of measures to improve the program, will lead to an increase of the demand for Golden Visa to levels higher than ever before.
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