Any thoughts from lawyers as to whether existing visa holders will be grandfathered in? It would be pretty pointless to be approved for a 2 year golden visa (initial), but have no way to renew it.
How about those who are still in the middle of the application process?
One would hope that there’s a sunset date, where they just stop accepting applications, maybe at the end of this year. I imagine there will be quite a bit of lawsuits if you invest all this money and have been waiting for two years to get approved, only to have the rug pulled out
If I haven’t been approved yet, I might be sweating a bit. But you are right; it’s not right or fair to end the program after someone has already invested their money.
Yeah, there are two layers here:
Some people are currently stuck in various initial application stages: submitted, pre-approved, post-biometrics, etc. Are they out of luck if the scheme is sunset?
Some already have their first permit, but would need to renew at least once or twice more to get to PR/citizenship eligibility. Will they be allowed to renew if the scheme is sunset?
Those who invested in funds with a fixed duration (e.g. Mercan among others) are particularly disadvantaged if their funds don’t give them an option to exit given the lack of initial approval/lack of ability to renew.
Yep, I’m in the fund boat. Wish I had now down the RE route so I could enjoy a property. Wonderful news before a US election. . .
It seems highly unlikely that permit holders will not be allowed to renew. There are just a hell of a lot of issues that go into that.
Those in various stages of application… lots of rabbit holes there. Anyone looking to apply now, well, you have the option of trying to get your app in the door before it closes - but IMO you take a risk that your foot will get whacked off.
even if it will take time to be shutdown, what will happen to those who started it already?
It’s gonna be a mess!
From what I have been experiencing the process in Portugal, it will take them years to actually turn it into action. There is only one exception that they reacted with lightning speed is to provide residency to the ukrainians. Other than that, if things happen normally, it takes up to 3-5 years for a little problem which probably takes 1 week -1 month in other countries. Therefore no need to worry about it. Of course no one can be sure 100%. But still, if they want to stop it seriously, they should have stopped it by now. If they are now only re-assessing, it could take 50 years for the process of reassessing (just like the airport project in Montijo - constantly discussing 50 years now but still comes to no conclusion).
Agree. It’s not light the government is all of a sudden going to move at lightning speed on this one project
I read people saying “don’t worry, it will be 2024 until this takes effect”. Well, let’s be honest. It is taking over 1 year now for pre-approval so its very possible that approval for those people won’t even happen until 2024. If someone decides to apply anew right now to beat the deadline, is it possible or likely that no one will be there to answer the phone when you call to check the status of your application? “What is ARI?” might be the answer from the other end. As for real estate advisors saying that everything is fine, hurry up and get in your application before it end… I can’t imagine what their motivation might be to be overly optimistic about this.
You are missing the point. Yes, it does take awhile for thing to affirmatively happen. But it takes nothing for nothing to happen. In fact, you can see even when the program is running often nothing will happen. Just imagine if the program is de-prioritized. I would not want to be on the other end of that.
Once you are approved , I think everything will be fine going forward but for those not yet approved, be cautious.
Whatever the timeline for this to happen (if it even does), if you look at how Portugal has handled similar changes in the past it’s pretty clear that anyone who has applied for the program before the end date will be grandfathered in. While I’m not a lawyer, the lawyers I’ve talked to have stressed that this is a legal principle in Portugal.
The only thing that could have been up for discussion is what stage you must have reached to be grandfathered in. However, we already know what that was for the change at the end of 2021 (application submitted), so I see no reason why it would be different for the end of the program.
If you look at how the end of the tax free pensions through NHR were handled, you see the same thing. Those who applied for NHR before the change have been grandfathered in, still enjoying their zero tax pensions.
For the Golden Visa we are talking about actual residence rights, which is even more clear that wouldn’t be revoked as long as you continue meeting the requirements as they were when you applied.
This assessment sounds accurate to me. The only problem is that the GVs are taking so long to process, some of us are considering a change to D7, simply to be able to be in PT sooner. Then reapply for GV once have residence permit. So this change makes that all a lot riskier.
The comments of the PM, Antonio Costa, at the web-summit yesterday were an aside to a question on visas for digital nomads. The prime minister defended the continuity of the policy of attracting investors in Portugal, especially in the technological area, but made a distinction between such visas and the regime of gold visas.
To give local context, there is a report in the local newspapers accusing (more than two dozen) GV investors of having apparently received a €125 monthly handout, meant for those in urgent need: https://www.dn.pt/sociedade/milionarios-dos-vistos-gold-estao-a-receber-o-apoio-do-estado-de-125-euros-15296195.html.
Costa’s statements were against this background. “Nós estamos neste momento a reavaliar. Um deles é o dos vistos gold, que, provavelmente, já cumpriu a função que tinha a cumprir, e que neste momento não se justifica mais manter… ”. His comments were echoed in the 2 November Parliament session, debating next year’s budget for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Minister stated that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Administration and also the Ministry of Economy will carry out an assessment of golden visas and, after this assessment, “probably there will be a decision to eliminate this modality”.
The implication was that the GV’s days are/may be numbered and that the evaluation in question would be discussed (and a decision taken) in Parliament.
During the 2023 budget discussion, the Minister of Internal Affairs confirmed that the planned restructuring of Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (SEF) - which currently manages the ARI as well as other visas - will be implemented as planned. The administrative functions currently handled by SEF will be managed by the new entity, the Portuguese Agency for Migrations and Asylum (APMA). The Minister added that the Government’s intention is that the legal model for APMA be concluded before the end of November 2022, enabling the transition to be implemented with confidence thereafter in 2023. These dates have already been discussed with SEF.
SEF online all applications are available now, since yesterday only ARI (golden visa) cannot be reached, is this just a coincidence?
Must be a coincidence. Can’t go from a stated position, to implemented action, without proper legal process.
i just checked and the ari.sef.pt site is still unavailable:
HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable.
I see no reason why Portugal would change their law on citizenship which applies to all residents. There’s no special citizenship law for GV investors.
In theory you could have a GV for 4 years, and then get a D7 for 1 year and be eligible for citizenship. As a practical matter, this probably has never been done before so its unclear how it would be interpreted by the government, but there are tens of thousands of people applying for citizenship each year in Portugal. Its just another application to process for them.
Yes thats sounds reasonable and hopefully all will go well to citizenship. As others have said the residency rights are less important than the actual citizenship for us. And thats a long way away. The SEF also seems to have slowed down drastically these last 3-4 weeks. Earlier there were regular postings on this community on pre-approval coming through and updates on the date of application versus getting the pre-approval. Suddenly there seems to be no updates and no movement beyond applications made first week of December 2021