Golden Visa: Just 241 jobs in nine years

While attracting over €6Bn in overseas investment, mostly through property transactions, Portugal’s Golden Visa programme has done little to generate direct employment as a result of either setting up or becoming a partner in a company, according to the Portuguese borders and immigration service SEF.

Over the past nine years only 241 jobs were created, 86 of them in the Lisbon area, from the company creation option provided by the scheme.
However, thousands of direct and indirect jobs have been created through the property purchase option of the programme, particularly for estate agents and lawyers, since 2012.
The Government’s overseas investment programme Authorisation for Residency for Investment (ARI) started in October 2012, and one of the criteria for the concession of visas is the creation of at least 10 jobs either by investing in an existing company, or setting up a new company.
In terms of where the investment came from, Ukrainian investors created 11 jobs in the IT consultancy sector, and Algerian investors created 10 posts from the import/export trade of services. Investment from Iraq was responsible for providing 10 jobs in creating and running professional training courses in the Lisbon area.
Investment from Syrian investors was responsible for 11 jobs in the area of educational activities, while 32 jobs were created in civil construction from Brazilian investment, and 22 from the watch and jewellery sector.
Moroccan investment created 12 jobs from distributing telecommunications products and technology, and numerical R&D solution development.
As to the distribution of jobs throughout Portugal, 86 were in Lisbon, 16 jobs in Fundão, 20 jobs in Águeda, 36 in Setúbal, 33 in Paredes, 20 in Portimão, 10 in Viana do Castelo and Porto, and 10 in Cascais.
Since the programme was set up in 2012, €6,057,663,503,12 has been invested in Portugal from the ARI programme, of which €5,471,573,948,60 was from the acquisition of property, and €350,507,722,90 came from urban rehabilitation. Investment from capital transfer amounted to just €586,089,554,59.