Is the Portugal Golden Visa Still Worth It?

Portugal's Golden Visa still exists, but it isn't the product most people remember. You can't get it by buying a flat any more. The route you'll hear about most now is a €500,000 subscription to Portuguese investment funds. The road to citizenship it leads to is now twice as long for most non-EU nationals as it used to be. And if you're American, the fund itself can create a US tax problem that's easy to miss while you're being sold it. This guide covers what's left, what each part really asks of you, and who it still makes sense for.

Two honest caveats first. This area has changed several times in a few years, so check every rule with a lawyer at the point you apply. And this is friendly guidance, not legal, tax or investment advice. We don't recommend funds, and nothing here is a view on any particular one.

What the Golden Visa actually is

The official name is the Autorização de Residência para Investimento, or ARI. It's a residence permit under Portugal's foreigners' law, for people from outside the European Union who make a qualifying investment. Citizens of the EU, the wider European Economic Area, Switzerland and Andorra can't use it, and neither can Portuguese nationals.

AIMA, the agency that handles immigration, sums up what it gives you. You can enter Portugal without a residence visa, live and work here, and travel in the Schengen area without a visa. You can bring your family. Later, you can apply for permanent residence, or for citizenship if you meet the nationality law's separate rules.

What it isn't matters just as much. It isn't a tax status, and it isn't a passport. Both are separate decisions with their own rules, and we cover them below.

What the housing law took away

For years, buying property was the best-known way in. Three routes on the old menu are now closed. One was buying property worth €500,000 or more. Another was buying and renovating older or regeneration-area property for €350,000 or more. The third was transferring €1.5 million of capital. Portugal's Mais Habitação housing law stopped new applications under all three.

It also added a rule that changes how you should read every remaining route. None of them may be aimed, directly or indirectly, at real estate investment. A fund that quietly owns buildings, or a company set up to hold them, doesn't qualify.

If you already hold a property-based permit, you can still renew it, and so can your family. The law turns it into an entrepreneur-immigrant permit on renewal, with the same minimum stay. Applications that were already pending when the law came in stayed valid.

The routes that are still open

Each of these has to stay in place for at least five years. That clock starts on the date your permit is granted, not the date you invest. The investment also has to be made before you apply. You can make it in your own name or through a single-member company in which you're the sole partner, a sociedade unipessoal por quotas.

• Investment funds. At least €500,000 into units of qualifying Portuguese funds. This is the route most people mean today, and we cover it in detail next.
• A company with jobs. At least €500,000 to set up a company based in Portugal that creates five permanent jobs. Or the same amount put into an existing Portuguese company. It then has to create at least five permanent jobs, or keep at least ten jobs (five of them permanent) for at least three years.
• Job creation. Creating at least ten jobs.
• Scientific research. At least €500,000 put into research by public or private institutions that belong to the national science and technology system.
• Arts and heritage. At least €250,000 to support artistic production or the recovery and upkeep of national cultural heritage, through the public and public-interest bodies the law lists.

The job, research and heritage thresholds can be up to 20% lower when the investment goes into one of Portugal's officially designated low-density areas. That discount doesn't apply to the fund or company routes. Those areas are defined by low population or low income, so if you're basing yourself in Lisbon, plan on the full figures.

The fund route, in plain English

The law sets four tests. You transfer at least €500,000. The money buys units in collective investment funds set up under Portuguese law that aren't real estate funds. When you invest, the fund must have at least five years left to run. And at least 60% of the fund's investments must be in commercial companies based in Portugal.

You can split the amount across more than one qualifying fund, as long as the total reaches the threshold and the money arrives as an international transfer. On the investment side, AIMA asks for three documents:

• A declaration from a bank authorised in Portugal confirming the transfer.
• A certificate showing you own the fund units, free of any charges or liens.
• A declaration from the fund manager confirming the capitalisation plan is viable, the maturity is at least five years, and at least 60% goes into Portuguese companies.

What that means in practice: your money is tied up for the life of the fund, and fund units can fall in value. A fund described as "Golden Visa eligible" is making a claim, not giving a guarantee. The companies that manage these funds are supervised by the CMVM, Portugal's securities regulator, so check the fund and its manager there first.

Before you subscribe, put these questions to the fund manager in writing. Then have your own lawyer read the answers against the law.

• Is this a Portuguese-law fund, and is it free of real estate exposure, including through the companies it buys?
• When does it mature, and can the manager extend it?
• How does it reach and keep the 60% in Portuguese companies?
• What are the subscription, management and performance fees, and how do I get my money out?
• Will you issue the declaration AIMA needs, and whatever it asks for at each renewal?
• If I'm a US person, how is the fund classified for US tax, and will you send me a PFIC Annual Information Statement every year?

One timing point deserves its own line. You have to keep the investment for five years from the date your permit is granted. If AIMA takes a long time to decide, that date moves later, and so does the earliest point you can exit. Make sure the fund's life covers that, not just five years from the day you subscribe.

How much time you have to spend in Portugal

This is the Golden Visa's real selling point. To renew, the regulation asks for 7 days in the first year, consecutive or not, and 14 days in each two-year period after that. AIMA's own page words the later requirement as 14 days in each following year, so it's sensible to plan above the minimum. Keep proof of your stays, such as boarding passes and accommodation records.

That minimum keeps the permit alive. It does nothing for your tax position, and it won't get you through the language and culture requirements for citizenship on its own.

How long the permit lasts, and renewals

You enter Portugal legally first, and the law gives you 90 days from your first entry to regularise your stay. The first card is valid for two years from its issue date. After that, it's renewed in two-year periods, as long as you can show the investment is still in place. Ask to renew at least 30 days before your card expires.

AIMA has moved investor renewals online. Renewal requests and fee payments now go only through its Renewals Portal, and you're called in person only if AIMA needs to take your biometrics again.

After five years of temporary residence, you can apply for permanent residence. The general conditions are no prison sentence of more than a year in the last five years, enough means to live on, somewhere to live, and basic Portuguese. Investors get a special permanent permit that isn't cancelled for long absences abroad, the way an ordinary permanent permit can be.

Bringing your family

Your family can apply at the same time as you, though their permits depend on yours being approved. Most residents have to hold their permit for two years before they can bring family over. That wait doesn't apply to investor-permit holders.

AIMA lists who counts as family:

• Your spouse, or a partner in a de facto union that can be proven under Portuguese law.
• Children under 18, or dependent children who can't look after themselves, of the couple or of either spouse.
• Dependent adult children up to 25 who are single and studying, in Portugal or elsewhere.
• Dependent parents of you or your spouse.
• Brothers and sisters under 18 who are in your legal guardianship, under a decision Portugal recognises.

You'll need suitable housing and enough money to support everyone without social benefits. The amended foreigners' law also expects reunited family members to take Portuguese language and civic-integration training, with the detail set by regulation, and this can affect their renewals. Ask your lawyer how it's being applied when you file.

AIMA: what to expect from the wait

The process starts online. You, or a lawyer you've registered as your representative, create an application on AIMA's Portal ARI, upload the documents and pay the analysis fee. AIMA then reviews the file and books a single in-person appointment at one of its offices to collect your biometrics.

The hard part is time. AIMA took over from the old immigration and borders service, SEF, with a very large backlog of cases. The government told parliament it had deliberately left investor files to the end of the queue, behind other immigrants' cases, and planned to clear most of them over the following year. AIMA doesn't publish a processing time for investor permits, and we won't invent one.

So plan as if the date is open. Don't tie a job start, a school place or a house sale to the permit arriving. And remember that the five-year investment clock only starts when the permit is granted. If a file stalls or comes back refused, your lawyer can tell you what options you have and how long you've got to use them. Our explainer on how AIMA works covers the agency more broadly.

Citizenship: the clock got longer

This is the biggest change for anyone who chose the Golden Visa as a route to an EU passport. Portugal's amended nationality law, the Lei da Nacionalidade, is now in force. It changes three things that matter to investors.

• Longer residence. Naturalisation now needs 10 years of legal residence for most nationalities. Citizens of EU countries and of Portuguese-speaking countries need seven. Americans, Britons and most other non-EU investors are in the ten-year group.
• Waiting time no longer counts. A rule added a few years ago let the time spent waiting for AIMA to decide your permit count toward citizenship. That rule has been repealed, so in practice your clock runs from when you hold a permit. For most non-EU nationals, separate periods of legal residence can be added together if they fall within a 12-year window.
• New tests. You have to prove, by test or certificate, that you know the Portuguese language and culture, history and national symbols. You also need to know a citizen's basic rights and duties and how the state is organised. Then there's a formal declaration of commitment to democratic principles, and proof you can support yourself.

Is it settled? The law is in force. Before it passed, a group of members of parliament asked the Constitutional Court to review the first version. The court struck down four provisions, including one on criminal records and one on how pending applications would be judged. It let the repeal of the waiting-time rule stand, and the longer residence periods weren't part of that challenge. Parliament then passed a revised version, which is the text in force now.

If you'd already applied for citizenship before the new law took effect, your application is decided under the old rules. The law also told the government to update the nationality regulations to match. How the new knowledge tests work in practice depends on those rules, so check what's in place when you get there.

The honest summary: the five-year citizenship story that sold a lot of Golden Visas is over for most non-EU investors. If a passport is your main goal, plan on ten years of holding the permit and real Portuguese study, not a week or two of visits.

US investors: the PFIC problem

The US taxes its citizens and resident aliens on their worldwide income, wherever they live. Moving to Portugal, or just holding a Portuguese permit, doesn't change that. What makes the fund route awkward for Americans is a set of US rules aimed at foreign investment funds.

Under US tax law, a foreign corporation is a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, if 75% or more of its gross income is passive. It's also a PFIC if at least half of its assets produce passive income or are held to produce it. An investment fund that the US treats as a corporation can meet those tests easily, because holding investments is what funds do.

If you hold a PFIC and make no election, the default rules are harsh. Any gain when you sell is treated as an "excess distribution", and so are distributions well above your recent average. That amount is spread across every day you held the units. The share that falls in the current year is taxed as ordinary income. The share for earlier years carries a separate tax plus an interest charge.

There are two ways around the default. A qualified electing fund election lets you report your share of the fund's earnings and capital gains each year instead. It only works if the fund gives you a PFIC Annual Information Statement every year. A mark-to-market election exists too, but only for marketable stock. Either way, you'll generally file Form 8621 for each PFIC you hold.

Whether a particular Portuguese fund counts as a corporation for US purposes depends on how it's classified under US rules, and that's a question for a specialist. Get US tax advice before you subscribe, not when your first return is due. If you're also moving here, our guide to moving to Portugal from the US covers the wider US filing picture.

Tax residency is a separate decision

Holding a Golden Visa doesn't make you a Portuguese tax resident. Portugal's income tax code makes you resident if you spend more than 183 days here in any 12-month period starting or ending in the tax year. It also does if, on any day of that period, you have a home here in conditions that suggest you mean to keep it as your usual residence.

So an investor who visits for a couple of weeks and has no home here will usually stay non-resident. One who moves to Lisbon and rents a flat is likely to become resident, with everything that follows. The old NHR regime closed to new applicants and was replaced by a narrower one, IFICI, tied to specific kinds of work. Our guide to NHR and IFICI covers who qualifies.

So, is it still worth it?

It can be, for a narrower group of people than before. It tends to make sense if:

• You want a legal right to live in Portugal, with Schengen travel, while spending very little time here.
• You're comfortable leaving €500,000 in a Portuguese fund for longer than five years, with the risk that comes with any investment.
• You can live with an open-ended wait from AIMA.
• You see citizenship as a long-term option, not the reason you're doing this.

It's probably the wrong tool if:

• A passport within five or six years is the point. That timeline no longer exists for most non-EU nationals.
• You actually plan to live here most of the year. A residence visa based on your income, like the D7 visa, asks for far less capital, and you'd be living here either way.
• You need the permit by a fixed date.
• You're a US person and the fund can't tell you how it's treated for US tax.

Doing it from Lisbon

If you're basing yourself in Lisbon, this is the usual team.

• An immigration lawyer to run the AIMA file, register as your representative on Portal ARI, and read the fund documents against the law.
• A tax adviser in Portugal to look at whether you'll become tax resident, and what follows if you do.
• A US tax preparer, if you're American, who handles PFIC reporting regularly.

Our guide to finding an English-speaking immigration lawyer covers what to ask before you hire one.

How Locallista helps

The Golden Visa is a lot of Portuguese law, official forms and cross-border tax to take on, often from another country and in a language you're still learning. We're a directory of English-speaking local service providers in cities like Lisbon, Barcelona and Madrid, built so you can find someone who'll explain it in plain English.

Every business is screened before it's listed, reviews are phone-verified, and the ranking reflects real expat experience rather than who paid the most. It's free to browse and free to get in touch. When you're ready, find a vetted English-speaking immigration lawyer in Lisbon to check the route and the paperwork with you. For the tax side, there are tax consultants in Lisbon and tax lawyers in Lisbon who work in English.

Frequently asked questions

Can you still get a Portugal Golden Visa by buying property?

No. The Mais Habitação housing law closed the property routes and the plain capital-transfer route to new applicants. The routes that remain can't be aimed at real estate, directly or indirectly, so a fund or a company that holds property doesn't qualify either. People who already hold a property-based permit can still renew it.

How many days a year do I have to spend in Portugal?

The regulation asks for 7 days in the first year and 14 days in each two-year period after that, consecutive or not. AIMA's own page describes the later requirement as 14 days a year, so plan above the minimum and keep proof of your stays. These days keep the permit valid. They don't make you a tax resident.

How long does it take to get Portuguese citizenship through the Golden Visa?

Under the amended nationality law now in force, most non-EU nationals need 10 years of legal residence, and EU and Portuguese-speaking nationals need seven. Time spent waiting for AIMA to decide your permit no longer counts. You also have to meet the new language, culture and civic requirements. Applications filed before the change are decided under the old rules.

Does a Golden Visa make me a Portuguese tax resident?

Not by itself. Tax residency depends on spending more than 183 days here in a 12-month period, or having a home here that you seem to intend as your usual residence. Many Golden Visa holders stay non-resident. If you move here properly, you'll probably become resident, so get tax advice before you do.

I'm a US citizen. Is a Golden Visa fund a problem for my US taxes?

It can be. A non-US fund that the US treats as a corporation can easily count as a passive foreign investment company, which brings harsh default rules and yearly reporting on Form 8621. Ask the fund in writing how it's classified for US tax and whether it provides a PFIC Annual Information Statement every year. Then speak to a US tax adviser before you subscribe.

Can my family get residence too?

Yes. Your spouse or partner, your children and dependent parents can apply, at the same time as you if you like. So can dependent adult children who are single and studying, and younger siblings in your guardianship. Investor-permit holders don't face the usual two-year wait before bringing family. You'll need suitable housing and enough means to support everyone.

How long does AIMA take to decide a Golden Visa application?

AIMA doesn't publish a processing time for investor permits. The government has told parliament it left investor files to the end of the queue, behind other immigration cases. Plan as if the date is open, and remember that your five-year investment period only starts once the permit is granted.