Portugal Golden Visa Performance through the Pandemic

• Portugal Golden Visa performs well despite the pandemic.
• The program generates income close to its full potential.
• Alternative investment routes within the program gain popularity.

Portugal closed its public services as an early response to the Covid-19 threat. These services include immigration, too. Thus, since mid-March, the country did not have its offices open. Still, Portugal Golden Visa Program continues to receive applications, and voluminously so.

Portugal Golden Visa Had a Great Quarter

SEF (The Portuguese Borders and Immigration Service) issued its 3-month report in April. According to the data, 53 main applicants and 93 dependents received their Portugal Golden Visas only in April. The investment for these individuals amounted up to 28 million euros. February performance of Portugal Golden Visa Program was even better. In February, 70 main applicants obtained their visas. Although March brought 55 new investors – 2 more than April –, the capital generated was around 28 million euros again. These numbers add up to around 60 percent of Portugal Golden Visa’s average. However, during a global pandemic, this ratio is incredibly impressive.

Alternative Investments are More Popular than Ever

The most popular investment option within the Portugal Golden Visa Program is the regular real estate investment option. This method allows applicants who invest at least 500,000 euros in Portuguese real estate to receive their Golden Visas. This option, until 2020 since the program’s inception, is responsible for 90 percent of the total applicants. Therefore, all the other options within the program are called alternative routes. Cumulatively amounting to 10 percent, these alternative routes started to gain popularity recently.

For instance, the other real estate investment option which requires a minimum of 350,000 euros as an investment is responsible for 22 percent of the applicants in 2020. The share of this option was no more than 10 percent in 2018. Another alternative option is the venture capital option with the same minimum investment requirement. This option had 7 investments until 2020. Now, it has 17.

So, the alternative routes now constitute more than 30 percent of the total investments made into the Portugal Golden Visa Program in 2020. This ratio was 24 percent in 2019 and only 1 percent 3 years ago.

According to SEF’s report, 259 main applicants and 515 dependents obtained their Portugal Golden Visas in the first 4 months of 2020.