Portugal looks to lure talent with revamped Golden Visa and tax perks

Key topics:Portugal plans to enhance its golden visa and expat tax incentivesMove contrasts with Spain, which scrapped golden visas over housing fearsVisa approvals surged 72% in 2023; backlog of 45,000 being addressed.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.The auditorium doors will open for BNIC#2 on 10 September 2025 in Hermanus. For more information and tickets, click here..By Henrique Almeida and Joao Lima.Less than two months after Spain scrapped its golden visa due to concerns about its effect on the housing market, Portugal is considering whether to sweeten its golden visa program and make a special tax regime for expatriates even more attractive. Minister of the Presidency Antonio Leitao Amaro said in an interview that the measures being discussed would aim to bolster foreign investment and lure global talent to Portugal’s economy. While declining to provide specifics, he said the goal was to burnish Portugal’s image as an “investment destination.”Portugal’s golden visa, among the most popular in Europe, offers non-Europeans a fast-track to residency through options including a minimum €500,000 ($572,780) investment in eligible funds. New Portuguese residents may also be eligible for a 20% flat tax on local income and a ten year exemption on most foreign income..Referring to the golden visa and tax programs, Amaro said that the government is looking into organizing them in “a more effective and economically efficient way” while ensuring that any changes are “economically and socially fair.”Portugal’s approach stands in contrast to not only Spain, which scrapped its golden visa program in April over complaints that it was driving up housing prices, but also to other European nations. Malta, Ireland, the Netherlands and Greece have all either ended or tightened the rules around their golden visa or equivalent programs in recent years. .Demand has risen for Portugal’s golden visa, which only requires participants to spend about a week per year in the country. Golden visa approvals also rose 72% last year to a record 4,987 from the previous year, according to the country’s immigration agency AIMA. Since the program launched in 2012, Americans have been among the top three recipients of golden visas along with Chinese and Brazilian nationals.Amaro, whose center-right government won a second mandate in an early election last month, said there were no plans to scrap or “demonize” the golden visa. That’s a reversal from the previous socialist government, which removed real estate investment as a basis for golden visa eligibility in 2023 as a way to fight speculation in the housing market, where prices have surged to record highs. It previously threatened to scrap the program entirely. “There’s no plan to end it. It’s not on the table,” said Amaro. He said AIMA is working on clearing a backlog of almost 45,000 golden visas applications currently awaiting review. “We expect that by the end of the year this process will be largely taken care of,” he added..2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Portugal looks to lure talent with revamped Golden Visa and tax perks

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