Cashouts in funds eligible for ‘Golden Visas’ surge at the start of the year; sector blames new nationality law

Investors in funds eligible for Portugal’s Golden Visa programme are cashing out because they don’t like the changes made to Portugal’s Nationality Law.

Between January and May of this year, €94.7 million was redeemed from Portuguese investment funds eligible for ‘Golden Visas’.

This figure is nine times higher than that recorded during the same period last year.

It doubles the total withdrawn from these funds in the entirety of 2023 — which stood at €45.3 million—according to data provided by the Portuguese Association of Investment, Pension and Asset Management Funds (APFIPP) to the weekly newspaper *Expresso*.

Nevertheless, total subscriptions reached €283 million through May, far outpacing redemptions, though this represents a slowdown compared to the same period a year earlier.

The main driver of these redemptions has been the new Nationality Law, the amendments to which came into effect on May 19.

The new regime extends the minimum period of legal residence required to apply for naturalization from five to seven years for citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries and the European Union, and to ten years for others.

Furthermore, for those who invested in these funds via the “Golden Visa” programme, the residency clock no longer starts upon the application date but only upon the actual issuance of the residence permit—a change that can delay processes by several years.

Eligibility for the “Golden Visa” extends to all funds—excluding real estate funds—that invest at least 60% of their assets in commercial companies based in Portugal.

Also according to Expresso, a complaint was formally lodged this week with the Office of the Ombudsman, signed by 1,260 people who had already met all the requirements for obtaining citizenship but were excluded due to delays by the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA).

Furthermore, as previously reported, at least five hundred investors have been preparing a potential lawsuit against the State.

Source: Expresso