The most popular routes of Portuguese Golden Visa program – residency permit for investment activity – are, respectively: acquiring a real estate property and subscribing to an investment fund.
As to the former, it ramifies into two sub-routes. The first involves the mere property acquisition, for a minimum of €500,000 (five hundred thousand euros). The second sub-route, on the other hand, has additional requirements to be considered: acquiring a property built at least 30 years ago, or located in an area of urban rehabilitation, and performing rehabilitation works on the property, for a minimum investment of €350,000 (three hundred fifty thousand euros), in total. In other terms, the property value, plus the rehabilitation works cost, are included in the referred threshold.
In the scope of both sub-routes, there is a reduction of 20% to the minimum investment for properties located in low-density areas. Hence, the threshold of €500,000 becomes €400,000 (four hundred thousand euros), and the €350,000 decreases to €280,000 (two hundred eighty thousand euros).
Concerning the property use categories, residential and non-residential, there is a restriction in force associated to eligible locations for the Portuguese Golden Visa program. More specifically, unlike non-residential properties, that may be acquired anywhere in Portugal (mainland and the Autonomous Regions), investing in residential properties is only possible in the designated interior territories (Ordinance 208/2017, of July 13th) and the Autonomous Regions of Madeira and Azores.
Finally, the second most popular Portuguese Golden Visa route consists in a minimum investment of €500,000 (five hundred thousand euros) in a fund meeting certain requirements – namely, the fund must be dedicated to companies’ capitalization, have at least five-year maturity by the time of subscription and destine at least 60% of its capital to finance Portugal-registered companies.
Regardless of the selected route, it is to consider that an essential step of the process is the due diligence to confirm beforehand if the intended investment’s eligibility to the Golden Visa program.
