Immigration lawyers and financial advisers are telling clients to speed up their investments in European golden visas after the bloc’s top court moved to ban Malta’s program earlier this week.
Malta was the last country in the European Union to offer citizenship in exchange for investment. While EU countries such as Portugal, Greece and Italy offer residency — not direct citizenship — on the basis of investment, Tuesday’s ruling will also subject these programs to greater scrutiny.
Lawyers and advisers now worry that if people wait too long to apply for golden visas, further restrictions and costs may be imposed.
“I think the message is clear: whoever moves sooner will be in a better position,” said Bettino Zanini, an immigration lawyer at Lisbon-based FiO Legal.
The EU Court of Justice decision also specified that a member state could not issue a passport unless an applicant had a “genuine link” to the nation. Portugal, for example, only requires golden visa holders to spend 14 days in the country every two years to maintain residency, and allows investors to apply for a passport after five years.
“I don’t think Portugal’s golden visa program is at risk,” said Pedro Lino, chief executive officer of Optimize Investment Partners, a Lisbon-based firm that allows foreigners to qualify for golden visas through providing them with investment opportunities that start at €500,000. “But we’re also advising our clients to hurry up because there may be some changes to the current rules.”
The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has long warned that golden visa programs expose the bloc to money laundering and security risks. The war in Ukraine has also generated concern that sanctioned individuals may have used them to acquire EU citizenship or privileged access to the bloc.
The UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Greece and Spain have all either ended or tightened the rules around their golden visa or equivalent programs. In 2023, Portugal amended its program — among Europe’s most popular — by removing real estate investment as a basis for applications.
In response to a massive uptick in immigration in recent years, Portugal’s ruling AD coalition has proposed beefing up citizenship requirements if it wins a snap election on May 18. The coalition wants to extend the period that foreign residents must wait before they can apply for citizenship from five to up to 10 years.
In a statement on its website, Tejo Ventures, a Portuguese investment fund for golden visas, called the EU decision “a clear warning to similar schemes across Europe.” While residency-by-investment programs likely won’t disappear anytime soon, “increased scrutiny from Brussels is inevitable,” it said.
