Golden Visa investment at 2019 levels

 In Golden Visa, News

The avalanche of Golden Visa applications expected from property investors to beat the start-of-year deadline to changes which rule out Lisbon, Porto and parts of coastal Algarve has not materialised — quite.

Nevertheless, the ‘Day After’ doomsday scenario painted by many estate agents and property developers locally also didn’t happen.
In fact, investment for January has already returned to pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019, but also does include applications put in late last year to beat the deadline.
In January, according to data from Portugal’s border and immigration services SEF, 94 Golden Visas were issued, bringing in an investment of €48 million, up 45% like-for-like in 2021 and up 6% on January 2020 with a variation of 14%.
The exact figures for 75 Authorisations for Residency for Investment (ARI) or Golden Visas for January was €38.7 million, above the like-for-like period in 2021 (€32 million), and €35.5 million in December 2021. But it was slightly less than the €39.5 million in the first month of 2020.
Lisbon was by far the region that attracted the most interest, with 41 Golden Visas in exchange for property acquisitions to live in, or do up for rental.
In Porto there were just 10 Golden Visas issued (Editors note: makes you wonder why the Government changed the rules to exclude Portugal’s second city!), and five in Évora in the Alentejo, the others being divided between other parts of the country.
The most expensive investment was made by a Brazilian citizen who spent €3 million on a house in Cascais.