Portugal Golden Visa - The New Law of 2023

[ryankriz (Ryan)]

Apologies… it as 700, not 7000.

[syrenity (S)]

Nif should be fine

[mikemuks62 (Mike)]

In the mean time the Petition mentioned earlier has already got some 2100 odd signaturesn

[emailtoasifali]

Another interesting article about Coercive Leasing by Lisbon Mayor:

Lisbon mayor vows city won’t be adhering to government’s plan for ‘coercive leasing’ - Portugal Resident

[gcb1 (GCB)]

Portugal’s housing programme threatened by “massive recourse to courts” -...

[joelvogel (Joel)]

EVERYONE! Huge Applause to the whole GV community, we are getting our side of the story out there. While I wished the petition had more leave the ARI scheme alone. It is getting people and press. We need to keep going.

How can we put faces on GV investors who have invested in property, spent money, created jobs, etc. PM Costa makes us out to be a bunch of thieves, money launderers and criminals. He is doing the typical populist move and scapegoating the immigrants. Many countries are doing it now. Blame the immigrants! We are normal people just like the Portuguese and want to invest, spend money, enjoy our time and live in their country.

We also need to keep the press on other areas. Jason has reached out to a number of prominent lawyers and has more contacts to get their legal opinions that we can publish. I have reached out to Dr. Sérvulo Correia, and Dr. Madalena Monteiro. I am currently working up a very rough draft of the situation and offer a proposal like some of the senior constitutionalists Like Dr. Sérvulo Correia have proposed.

I will publish the extremely rough draft which will need major clean up once I am further.

[Garbonzo (Paul Pierce)]

Well done Natasha, however, one important point missed is that converting non-residents into residents will necessarily consume more housing. Hmm… Costa didn’t think of that, did he?
It’s important to point out the logical absurdity of these proposals.

[joelvogel (Joel)]

That is a good point. I still am having a hard time with the absurdity I am having to spend days working to protect my rights after spending 100,000’s of Euros in an EU country that is supposed to be in the first world. Rant over. Back to my drafting.

[tkrunning (Thomas K. Running)]

Hi everyone, I’ve been on vacation in the Philippines for the past two weeks (will return this weekend), but I’m checking in on this thread every few days. If I didn’t I would probably spend a week catching up once I’m back anyway. Luckily, I have an understanding wife!

While there’s no surprise that we don’t yet have much more information to go on than when I left it’s extremely encouraging to see the community coming together in a constructive way to try to impact the trajectory of the proposal. So I’m just popping in to say that I’m happy to help in any way I can, such as:

1. I’ll post the link to the petition in a separate thread, make it sticky, etc. Has anyone gotten solid info (e.g. from their lawyers) regarding whether those without a Portuguese residence card should use their Portuguese NIF or foreign passport number in the N° B.I/Cartão Cidadão field? EDIT: I answered my own question: You should enter the number of any other valid ID document (so passport), not NIF. Source.
2. If there’s need for any private groups on the forum (for organizing lawsuits, media efforts, etc) let me know via PM. They function in the way that one or more community members are the managers of the group and others can apply to join (and the manager approves).

If you can think of anything else, also let me know!

[cj807 (Chris J)]

‘Golden’ investors force discussion in Parliament before moving forward in court

"Lawyers, agents and real estate developers are moving forward with the right to petition against an “unconstitutional” amendment to the rules of golden visas. Legal route will have thousands of plaintiffs against the Portuguese State.

In a few hours, over the weekend, more than 200 professionals linked for more than a decade to gold visas in Portugal, including some of the country’s leading lawyers, developers and real estate agents, joined a WhatsApp group to assess the response to the “clearly unjustified and discriminatory” proposal of the Government to change the residence permit (AdR) regime granted to these investors to that of “entrepreneurial immigrants”

The first “piece” of the challenge to the diploma approved at the last meeting of the Council of Ministers, under the More Housing package is a public petition with the title “For the defense of Portugal’s image and reputation with international investors” The initiative came from PAIIR, the Portuguese Association of Immigration, Investment and Relocation, a small association that was joined in a few hours by a group of other lawyers. The document began circulating around 16 p.m. on Sunday and has been signed so far by nearly 2,400 people.

André Miranda, a partner at Pinto Ribeiro Advogados, who drafted the first version of the petition that will later be registered in the Assembly of the Republic, explained to ECO that the objective is to participate in the parliamentary debate and influence a legislative process that is still in the middle. It is that the deputies should still promote consultations and there are parties with pending proposals on the subject in the parliamentary committee, such as those of the PSD. “We believe that there will be an attempt at consensus and, therefore, there is still time, in terms of specialty, corrections to be made. Because what is proposed is clearly unconstitutional,” he argues."

Investidores “dourados” forçam discussão no Parlamento antes de avançar em...

[Snufkin (Paul Hancock)]

Hi all, I understand we should use passport number for the petition but I can’t enter alphanumerics in the respective field and my passport is alphanumeric. Has anyone else has this problem?

[PGV_Buzz]

While the future of the ARI program hangs in the balance, Iberis Capital is not wasting any time protecting their interests.

Iberis is quietly, without any warning or discussion, extending the lock-in of the venture capital fund effectively holding the participants’ funds for twice the amount of time required to qualify for a GV.

If the GV program is canceled or future renewals are affected, then everyone will want their money back and that would be awfully inconvenient for them.

Please keep an eye on your own service providers, property developers, management companies etc. You can expect them to act selfishly protecting their interests over yours.

If you are an Iberis client, details here: Iberis is extending the Greytech II fund lock-in... probably without your knowledge or consent.

[eugyppius]

Another story from Natasha:

Golden visa ‘axing’ violates law, say constitutionalists - Portugal Resident

[Garbonzo (Paul Pierce)]

Garbonzo Bean

8m

@Prinz-Eugen

So that means a large percentage of 11k GV applicants/holders AND their dependents will be required to get some form of (non hotel) housing to meet the 6 months requirement. How is that improving competition/availability for housing…?

It’s just half baked fruitiness for the sake of cheap political points scoring…

Yep, THIS is the message that needs to get out asap. The Portuguese are being sold a lie.

[jb4422 (Jeff B)]

@jb4422

No. Remember that over 90% of the visas on record involve people having bought real estate. So it’s not adding very many people buying houses. And then, how many will actually do it, versus just bailing out entirely?

I’m sure the hope here is that most of those people owning houses will give up and sell, flushing a bunch more houses on the market. Maybe most Portuguese will not be able to afford them, but some will, and of course all the forced sales will lower prices.

@Garbonzo

ter if it’s only 1 additional GV holder buying a house. It’s not creating “more housing “ but less . The premise of the law is a lie.

In any event it’s probably best to try to stay on track thinking of constructive ways to help but not accidentally undermining the narrative .

just moving this to the right thread.

Oh, I’m not saying the proposal isn’t stupid, or counterproductive in any broader sense, just that it does, in a very short term, potentially put more houses on the market by screwing the existing owners, if you want to look at it like that, and some people in PS may well do so. That’s all. Of course we want to focus on the short-sightedness and counter-productivity of the whole thing.

[joseph.c.lapierre (Joe)]

Got this from our agency today. We are now looking into selling our IMGA fund and getting a Greek GV. Much fatser, good for 5 years for the first card.

Please be assured that we are working closely with our legal team and their interpretation of last week’s announcement, and analysis of the PowerPoint document that was issued by the Government, is as follows:

• The Golden Visa regime will be terminated in its current form
• This termination applies to all past, present, and future visa applications
• This termination means that:
(i) pending applications will be reviewed, and then either refused or granted under the normal residence permit regime for immigrant entrepreneurs (D2 Visa)
(ii) a Golden Visa bearer when renewing their visa will have to comply with precisely the same requirements as an entrepreneur immigrant

As it stands, the D2 visa requires applicants to live in Portugal for more than 6 consecutive months per year. The understanding of the law firms is that all Golden Visa applications will be transferred to D2, and this would mean that holders would need to comply with the D2 requirements including the residency requirement. This is the current interpretation in the absence of any further information.

[joelvogel (Joel)]

Joe,
I got the same thing. That is why we need to focus on changing the direction of the law now. Switching to Greece is a good idea. Having spent time there, the bureaucracy, slow response times and discrimination will be worse. Greece only did GV with Henley creating their program because they needed direct investment like Portugal. The same will happen there as the EU clamps down.

Just my thoughts.

[joseph.c.lapierre (Joe)]

Yes, I agree. Greece does grant a 5 year residence permit though, versus the 1 or 2 year in Portugal. Every year in Portugal will be wondering if we get bumped into the D2 visa. Portugal is more desirable as a country for us, but the chaos is silly at this point.

[Prinz-Eugen (Stand with Ukraine)]

I have heard, (only anecdotally I admit) that Greece makes the final application for Citizenship more difficult - both objectively with the language test (it’s all Greek to me) and subjectively with the desire to limit the number granted - maybe in response to EU pressure/s or other xenophobic fears…

[nikessng (Nik)]

Is the stay requirement not 183 days there also?

Note also - you may not work in Greece (even for a remote firm) on that visa.