Interesting. Have you had success investing through IRA? How would you get the letter that proves the investment, which I understand is generally provided by a Portuguese bank
Optimize, because of its status, takes care of it. Iām not sure how to explain it properly. But Optimize has many funds (I think of them like Fidelity is the US? Different mutual fund options?), one of their funds meets criteria of GV in terms of what it invests in. But, it was not created specifically for GV as mamy of these private equity seem to be. The Optimize fund that qualifies for GV actually had more Portuguese investors. Optimize manages pension funds etc. So, they have the bonus of being a āBankā.
How it works for IRA. First, you must have Self Directed IRA account, from there you directly invest in Optimize, just like you would invest in a US mutual fund.
So, you save yourself a lot of hassle & expense while still keeping you investment under its IRA tex shelter. Our whole struggle issue with GV was we needed to keep the funds as Retirement sheltered. You can do for private equity too, but lots more steps, moving parts and on-going expenses. Once we looked at Optimize everything quickly fell into place.
We have not yet completed everything, as soon our FBI letters get their apostille we can submit our application.
Sorry, this is long-winded. Anyway, happy to chat more & give you more specifics. We Spoke to lots of folks here in US regarding the retirement funds aspect and how to make that work on the US side. Optimize is a qualifying GV investment on the Portuguese side.
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Well, semi-accurate though! We are in the aging-child bucket, and had to supplementarily submit a statement of single status for the teen who turned 18 when our application was still in process, but that was a fairly minor thing.
My understanding is that you also have to prove dependency. That children without a disability that qualifies them as dependent, would need to be enrolled in school and also cannot make any money? If the process is drawn out it will be pretty difficult not to let them have any kind of employment.
This is true. For ours, we had to provide this at age 16+ (I donāt know if that is the regulation, but that is what we needed to do).
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Agreed with the above recommendation of the Optimize fund as that is what we used for the point of low risk and liquidity. I also agree with other posts that it is very risky to invest all or most of your savings into any one investment.
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No.
The basic requirement is that the investment has to be in assets that are based in Portugal.
Portugal is a second rate, smallish economy. There arenāt a lot of companies, nor a lot of capital available. The economy is not especially well diversified, it doesnāt have a lot of large companies, it is heavily dependent on tourism, and not at all dynamic. There is a lot of overhanging debt.
There is basically no comparison with the US, which has huge, deep, liquid markets with a ton of capital everywhere.
The entire GV market is saturated with a lot of funds ofā¦ dubiousā¦ quality at best. You can invest in something like IMGA, but you have to consider that itās investing in like 20 stocks; how stable and diversified can this possibly be?
Private equityā¦ you need to do a lot of research. I happen to be in the space and understand what I am getting into. I hope to get my money back. I have also decided that I will be ok losing all of my money, if thatās what happens.
Is your investment safe, as in someone will go steal your money through fraud? Yes, Iād say so.
Is your investment likely to be stable, as in āI will probably not lose moneyā? Letās just say it is not at all the same risk profile as the United States.
There is no guarantee of course that you will get your money back with investments in the US. I assume you already known and accept that.
Given equivalents, it is considerably more likely you will lose money than in the US. And it is not possible to use a managed-account like you have in the US, if you wish to qualify for GV; it has to be invested in fairly risky assets. So no, you cannot be sure of it.
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Hello all, I am new to this forum. We have close to retirement age and definitively have considered eventually moving from the USA to somewhere in Europe that would welcome us. After visiting Portugal in 2019 and again in 2022 and 2023, we fell in love with it for many reasons. In any case, we considered investing in a condo in Porto while applying for the GV but were soon turned away when the seller told advised us that the real estate ownership program was soon to become closed last year. Hence, we are now looking into obtaining the GV by means of the new investment option. As is customary for seasoned stock investors like us, I naturally look forward to diversify in order to reduce risks. The questions I have are 3, as follows : a) how much is the required investment into Portugalās capital market for USA citizens?- in some prospectuses I read it is 500K euro but in other places I read it is 250K, and some funds have minimums as low as 50K to open an account. In case of PT mutual funds, it is even less. b) we like 2 of the open ended funds (IMGA and Optimize) and one of the venture funds (New Frontiers Energy). Thus, is it allowed to split the said GV required amount (250 or 500K) among these 3 to minimize investment risks or would this complicate the process too much? c) If I am applying with my wife, can we have one under her name and another under my name, since part of the investment money is coming from one of her IRAs and the other from my IRAs?
If you want to live in Portugal I urge you to consider D7 instead of GV. The Facebook group āAmericans and Friends PTā has lots of relevant info.
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No reason to do ARI if you want to move to PT. Agreed.
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IIRC thereās also at least one open-ended fund that invests up to 40% in global markets (the maximum allowed), if youāre looking for even more diversification. I donāt recall the name at the moment but it should be listed in our list of funds.
ā¬500,000
Yes.
I am pretty sure the full investment needs to be in the main applicantās name.
With the current processing delays I wouldnāt recommend doing GV if youāre planning on moving in the next 3-4 years. If youāre planning on moving in 4-6 years it is more likely (
) to work out, but Iād recommend filing lawsuits to move the process along as soon as you are legally allowed to do so.
D7 is a good option if youāre OK spending a minimum of 8-10 months per year in Portugal until you get citizenship (which best case would be 7-8 years after moving).
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Is what we were told as well. Hence my name is all over the house deed, electricity, water, IMI, etc. while my spouse who put up half the cash doesnāt get a mention (other than āDependantā on the ARI).
It is fine to have your spouse named on the house deed if you are married under ācomunhĆ£o de adquiridosā regime, which is a default regime anyway in many countries. In fact it would be mandatory to have their name on the deed in that scenario.
Good point, but Iām guessing that wouldnāt apply to a fund investment made via a two separate self-directed IRAsā¦
Sure. I was just commenting on the house deed point, but the RE option has been long gone anyways.
Being really blunt here, there are no GV investments that are āsafeā - whatever the managers may tell you. You should be prepared to lose a big part, or even all of your money in these types of investments, and you should not invest anything you canāt afford to lose.
If the investment would be all of your money, I would find another way to get an alternative citizenship.
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This applies to every type of investment everywhere in the world. However, your conclusion might not be the reality. Barring less than 10% of the funds in PT, almost every fund did make a profit till dateā¦ Even the ones which didnāt make a profit havenāt lost a big chunk either. The rules, regulations and oversight is draconic in Portugal to protect the investors, thus you wonāt earn much or wonāt lose much eitherā¦
Regarding your pursuit of citizenship within the EU, you always can find different routes in different countries if you are willing to live there.
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Itās true. Also, as someone whose family is applying for citizenship next year, Portugal is amazing once you are are through the long and tortuous ordeal of getting through your first residency cards.
My real estate investment has doubled in value, and some of my friends fund based investments have also grown considerably. You can take your investments out once you get your citizenship approved or get permanent residency.
It is true of all investments, but itās particularly the case for venture capital funds, which these are. They are designed for sophisticated / professional investors, not retail investors. Someone putting all their savings in would be a retail investor. (And Iām saying this from professional experience - I work in fund management, and we are an advisor to a GV fund).
This is one of the worst outcomes from the abolition of the real estate option for GV investors IMV - itās pushing many investors in to investments with an unsuitable risk profile for them. Setting aside the desire for an EU passport, an investor really shouldnāt be putting more than about 20% of their net worth in to such high risk investments.
The least worst option from a risk perspective are probably the listed open ended funds, but still going all in on the Portuguese market is very high risk.
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If I had invested most of my available net worth in the Portugal Golden Visa scheme, I would probably be institutionalized by now. Unless you have the detachment of the Dalai Lama, cannot imagine how someone could maintain sanity in that case.
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