Hi all, it’s been difficult to find applicants that have gone the Arts & Culture investment route (€250,000 regular/€200,000 in low-density areas), so I’m posting to see if anyone would be willing to share their stories.
Additionally, even if this is not the route you took, what are your thoughts on it in 2024, given the recent legal/electoral changes in the country? For context, I’m a US citizen looking for a long-term option for an EU residency and citizenship. If the process takes 5-9 years, I don’t mind, as long as it works out in the end.
The question, of course, is if the Arts & Culture pathway is at all realistic for these purposes. If you have any lawyer recommendations for this specific pathway, I’m all ears too!
I don’t see why you’d throw your money away if you have the option between this and the investment option. Plenty of relatively good open ended funds available, I think. More monetary commitment but you get something out of it, rather than essentially burning all that money
We used EDGE because of their experience with the cultural pathway, but I haven’t been super impressed with them. Granted, most of that disappointment is probably with ARI itself, but I have had better lawyering experiences (all in the USA and not flat-rate, however.)
Mostly because I’ve struggled to find even a single person who managed to get a residency through it, coupled with some mentions of the path being not well-trodden and the process for it thus not being established. Would be great to know they exist, even if they aren’t online!
I suppose this depends in large part whether the latest immigration law change RE: residency application wait time counting toward residency requirement for citizenship covers GV applicants (and from the moment the application is actually filed, not biometrics)?
It’s mostly about locking up 2x the capital. I won’t say that by saving EUR 250-300k I’ll fully make up the EUR 200-250k loss because of some sagacious investments, but once you factor in today’s taxes to be paid on liquidating enough capital to get ~500k liquid, it ends up being at least a wash. (I’m on the younger side and in a higher tax bracket atm).
As for the EDGE recommendations, thanks folks, seems like a worthwhile start!
I’ve read through your comments and I would love to hear the story of your GV process and where you are now with it. It seems like you are not happy with the Cultural Investment option and I’d like to hear why since I am considering that option. Thanks.
Why would anyone be happy with giving away 250k and receiving absolutely nothing that was promised, over two years later?
That isnt to say I might not still end up happy eventually, but all the uncertainty makes me wish I had an opportunity to at least recover some of the money via investment fund or real estate.
Not sure why anyone would choose this route now, knowing what a shit show ARI has become.
Understood. From my standpoint, I’m looking at funding this from an IRA, so I either pay ~$200k in taxes on pulling money for a E500k fund investment, or I pay E250k to the Portuguese cultural project. Unless I do the IRA fund rollover option with Mercan, I lose ~E200k either way and frankly I’d rather give it to Portugal at this point. Hopefully, you’re approval will come through soon. Thanks for the response!
Be careful about Mercan or other sponsors if “buildings with beds” or “buyback promises” are ultimately associated with the investment option, both aspects are reportedly coming under focus in PT. Here’s one source of insight to that effect:
There are ways of financing GV investment from an IRA if it is a self-directed one. There are funds that comply with this scheme. It would save you from pulling money out of IRA and triggering associated tax liabilities.
Thanks for the info. Do you have any info on this from a US perspective. I understand from a PT perspective it is fine, but from a US perspective is there a bank or entity that you know of that can take care of this? I have a friend interested in doing via a SDIRA
Sorry, I don’t. I was looking into it back in 2020/2021, but opted to bite the bullet and shell out 500K € for the real estate option (which is no longer available).
@bittersweet123 I have spent months learning about SDIRA and how to do the GV using my retirement funds (keeping it in IRA). There is one fund I found that so far seems to allow the most straight-forward and least costly path- that is Optimize Portugal. Through a Self Directed IRA you can invest in a wide variety of things. However to do so under GV you need to have a US LLC for your SDIRA, and then you need to have the same thing on the Portugal side. The expenses for these do add up, plus for me this is a lot of steps where it could be easy to make a mistake and cause yourself a Distribution. I found the Optimize Portugal investment to be the best fit. It is still a little concerning to have all your money in on place, but when you learn about the fund you feel a little better. Due to their status, they act as the bank in Portugal. If you go to their website they have a pretty good explanation of the process. Also, I recommend you speak with them directly. They were excellent at explaining everything and very familiar with how things work on the US side in terms of keeping your money in your IRS. So, you can have your SDIRA invest directly to Optimize- no LLC , no Portugal LLC required. Investing here works just like investing in a mutual fund on the US market, very straightforward. Optimize is on the Portuguese stock market, and you can follow it on Bloomberg and MorningStar. There is no time requirement, you can get your money out at any time, unlike most all the other GV fund options. Full disclosure, my investment process is not yet complete, but everything should be done within the next two weeks. If you want to check back then I can let you know if everything went as smoothly as I anticipate! It took me a long time and lots of research on the US side to this point, we almost gave up on the GV because I did not want the ongoing expense and hassle of the LLC situation, nor having my money locked up! I am happy to help anyone skip some of the goose chase in figuring out how to do this!
If you have any lawyer recommendations for this specific pathway, I’m all ears too!