It’s not really jacking up housing prices in Portugal. Only 33k ever used the golden visa route there and that includes the non-real estate investment options. If you look at total real estate sales, golden visa transactions accounted for like 1%. That said, the perception caused them to eliminate the real estate investment route. The real issue in Portugal is they let 1 million people in on other visa types for a country that only has a population of 10 million.
The anger on the golden visa is odd. People are basically risking money in a country, not even living there, or consuming its resources, and may never. Some golden visas just involve giving the government a huge sum of money with no chance of recuperating it. In exchange, they get citizenship after a decade without even using a single government service.
There was a program across many European countries where the wealthy could basically legally buy visas: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/realestate/europe-homes-sale-americans-lisbon-barcelona.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8k8.8kzm.JXddN45A1l0k Was being phased out country by country due to jacking up housing prices, though, but on the other hand some countries have kept it while removing housing as a route: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/business/golden-visa-spain-europe-housing-crisis.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mE0.RznS.5NJdOYdNsasA
It’s not really jacking up housing prices in Portugal. Only 33k ever used the golden visa route there and that includes the non-real estate investment options. If you look at total real estate sales, golden visa transactions accounted for like 1%. That said, the perception caused them to eliminate the real estate investment route. The real issue in Portugal is they let 1 million people in on other visa types for a country that only has a population of 10 million.
The anger on the golden visa is odd. People are basically risking money in a country, not even living there, or consuming its resources, and may never. Some golden visas just involve giving the government a huge sum of money with no chance of recuperating it. In exchange, they get citizenship after a decade without even using a single government service.