I have to keep pushing back on this idea that the âintentâ of the program was permanent immigration, that the program has been âexploitedâ by those who donât live in Portugal, and re-posting comments that only people who move to Portugal permanently are the âright type of immigrantâ.
Everyone who applied for the golden visa in good faith, followed the rules, and invested their hard earned money in Portugal is the âright typeâ. The majority of ARI holders chose to not reside in Portugal permanently for whatever reason, and that is both legal and aligned with the intent of the legislation. People who want to move there permanently have much cheaper options like the D7.
The government established this program to raise capital in the midst of a post-GFC debt crisis. It was specifically designed with minimal residency requirements to make it an attractive investment proposition. It has never required people to live in the country permanently. Even to obtain citizenship after your ARI ends, you are only required to have spent 35 days in the country. Portugal could have easily required ARI holders to live in the country permanently, given them a 5 year grace period to move there so they did not have to âdrop everythingâ, required people to live in the country for a period before applying for citizenship - but successive governments did none of those things. And even now that the political winds have changed, the government has not changed the low residency requirements, in fact they are potentially making citizenship even easier by backdating the residency requirements to ARI application date. They understand that is the selling point.
I invested in Portuguese businesses and only spend a couple of months each year in the country. Iâve learned to speak reasonable Portuguese. It has been a great experience, but I would not have looked at Portugal had I been required to live there permanently. There are much more attractive investment yields out there, and the Portuguese government knows that. They set the conditions that they knew would entice investors like me to invest capital.
It is not âexploitingâ the system to live elsewhere in the Schengen after obtaining a Portuguese passport, nor is it wrong to legally use this program to that end. Portugal is part of the Schengen agreement. Freedom of movement in the Schengen zone is a right granted to all Portuguese citizens, including those who obtained it via ARI. I would be very surprised if EU access was not top of mind for the vast majority of people on this forum.
You keep claiming the Portuguese government didnât count on investors not actually moving to Portugal. If that were the case, they could have easily increased the residency requirements when they reformed the program last year, or at any point over the past decade. Instead they shut down the housing option and increased the amount of capital required for the investment options ⊠because they want more wealthy foreign investors, not just people buying houses. Who knows what the future of the programs is, but that gives you ample information about the âintentâ of the program to date.
And I will repeat this every time the association is made on these forums. The vast majority of empty properties in Portugal are not owned by golden visa holders. Much as happens elsewhere in the world, Portugalâs politicians are whipping up local enmity against foreigners for their own short term power plays. Scapegoating is much easier than tackling the economic reforms needed to fix their cost of living issues and low wages. The golden visa program did not create Portugalâs housing crisis, and shutting the program down will not solve it.
