āSafeā as in unlikely to be the subject of fraud and have your money disappear? Yes.
āSafeā as in not a high risk of loss? In my view, no. Private funds are very risk. Even if you simply get your money back you will have lost of lot of value due to inflation. You could consider one of the funds that invests into public markets, but I think that is also quite āriskyā.
I would not recommend investing your life savings into this scheme.
Itās a much smaller country so by definition even a ātotal stock marketā fund would be less diversified than the US equivalent.
I have 3 pieces of feedback to share:
Regarding the duration of investment, I would plan on 8 years, not 5. 5 years only take you to the point of applying for citizinship, but you need to keep renewing your golden visa until citizinship is granted. This takes more than 2 years in average.
In terms of funds that qualify for Portuguese golden visa, I think that open-ended funds (mutual funds) are better suited for your criteria (rather than private funds you mentioned. See: Portuguese Golden Visa Investment Funds: The Ultimate Guide ā Nomad Gate ). They are very diversified (as they attempt to track the market index), you can join and exit any time, and fund performance and risk levels are publicly available. You can look up the performance history of these funds. Historical performance is not a guarantee of future performance, but it is an important indicator.
Note that the fact the Portuguese golden visa program currently makes you qualify for citizinship is not a guarantee that this will continue to be the case until you complete the process. We have experienced frequent changes to legislation. I have seen no discussion or proposal to stop golden visa investment leading to citizinship so far, but there is a nonzero risk this could happen in the next 5 years. Having said that, if you have invested in a qualifying mutual fund and this happens, you can simply pull out.
Thank you! Very helpful advice. I really appreciate it.
To pull out there needs to be someone who wants your shares of the fund, yes? If you buy a fund popular with GV applicants, then GV goes badā¦everyone will want out at the same time.
In this case I wouldnāt expect to get out without a haircut. And, just because you CAN sell, it doesnt mean there will be a buyer.
Retroactive legislation is illegal in Portugal. If you get in you are in. If you wanted to pull out of a fund that had a lifespan early you would have to sell at a discounted price. Iām comfortable with letting my money sit for the duration.
Wellā¦ SEF/AIMA taking more than 90 days to approve/deny a GV application is also against the law, but only in some judgesā opinions - certainly not all.
The end of NHR 1.1 was also retroactive, and it took quite an uproar before PT came up with a grandfathering scheme - which ends this year and many GV applicants still wonāt be approved in time to get old NHR.
It seems like the OP already had their mind made up on this decision before posting. Not sure itās worth any further advice or warnings.
I very much appreciate the advice, and people sharing their first hand experiences who have been through the process of the Golden Visa by investment. My question is less about whether I should or should not be making the move, and more about what peopleās experiences were with feeling secure in their investments after having done it. I am collecting data so that I can make my own decision. Thank you.
It might make sense to work backwards and look at potential funds and look at the track record of other funds offered by the same managers. I think its hard to ask for a blanket view on whether funds in general in Portugal are safe. Itās impossible to say anything about funds generally. Best thing is to look at track record and also to find out if there are funds that are optimized and designed for long term stability and not keyed for growth (whcih would mean more risk). I am sure there are funds designed for different obejctives and different investment horizons so its just a matter of looking and talking to the people that would be managing and making decisions on a specific fund. Not sure any general views really would add much to that.
Telling this to the forum who have been through the āMais HabitaĆ§Ć£oā ordeal takes some guts! 
Itās just what I was told from a Portuguese man who works with immigrants. I could definitely be mistaken as I am new to this process.
Yes, several of us have been put through the ringer. And we still have not come out the other side yet. We can largely thank an unnamed person heading the European Council, but even now the situation has not improved. To my point, I would be very concerned now if I had invested most of my available net worth in this scheme.
Emphasis mine. Outside of things like bonds, which you cannot make your sole investment for this scheme given the current options, you cannot make this a principle of your investing path at all. Even index funds can get brutalized by world events overnight. Do you remember what happened to your retirement account when COVID struck? I sure do.
If your criteria is to make sure you can withdraw what you put in then youāve put an immovable obstacle in your path.
Now, that aside, you should take a look at IMGA or Optimize if you want a diversified and low risk option. Theyāre both open ended funds based on an index style blend of assets with low fees (relative to this space) that donāt have super high yields but would be comparable to an index fund youād see in the US. You probably wonāt make a ton of money, but youāre also unlikely to lose much money, and you can withdraw since itās open though doing so early will mean scrapping your GV.
I invested in IMGA, whilst I agree with you on a few things here, they are not advertised as āindex fundsā , secondly they are nowhere near ālow feeā. In the US we get a index fund from Vanguard / BlackRock for for 7bps, IMGA works out at 2.42% in total per annum - over 20x the standard index fee in the US.
Very fair criticisms; I amended my previous post and feel free to push back if itās still off the mark. I also amended my low funds statement in that theyāre low relative to what youāre dealing with in this space: itās not the 20% rate on profit that happens with other private equity options.
There are a few people who started the GV process with children in their teens and they had to go through a process with their attorneys after they turned 18 to amend their applications. They may be ELIGIBLE to be included on your application until theyāre 26, but I do think it gets more complicated once they reach adult age. Full disclosure: we donāt have children and havenāt experienced this ourselves so Iām just reporting on what Iāve seen from members of this community. Also, weāre currently 3+ years in and we havenāt received our initial approval or first visa. Realistically, youāre looking at probably 8+ years to get approval if you apply now and 10+ years for passports, based on what the community is saying. I believe your assets have to be invested the entirety of the application, so if I were you, Iād plan for 10-11 years, not 5. Whatever you do, donāt just take your lawyerās word for it. Theyāve told us repeatedly that things would move MUCH faster than they have and I have a feeling thatās because they make money off of us, so they want to keep us in their book of business.
This information not accurate.
Thanks for fact-checking this. As I mentioned in the post, I was reporting what Iād read, so I appreciate you double-checking my work. 
Look into Optimize fund. It is not private equity, it is traded on P stock market, you can review it on Bloomberg and MorningStar. You can withdraw at any time. Also, you can invest thru your IRA directly if that is what you are looking for- no additional LLCās required!