NEW Investment Options – Golden Visa – Portugal Investor Visa

Golden Visa Residence Card Sample

We are now happy to announce that submissions for the new investment options on Golden Visa are already 100% active and we are now in conditions submit your application. Please check bellow the new options for golden visa which will enlarge the initial ones. For current holders of Golden Visa Residence Permits please note that nothing have changed in regards to your class of investment and you are able to continue your program without any change.

i. Capital transfer with a value equal to or above 1 million Euros; (keeps unchanged)
ii. The creation of, at least, 10 permanent job positions; (now is already working with 10 job positions instead of 30 )
iii. The purchase of real estate property with a value equal to or above 500 thousand Euros; (keeps unchanged)
iv. The purchase of real estate property, with construction dating back more than 30 years or located in urban regeneration areas, for refurbishing, for a total value equal to or above 350 thousand Euros; (new)
v. Capital donation with a value equal to or above 350 thousand Euros for investing in research activities conducted by public or private scientific research institutions involved in the national scientific or technologic system; (new)
vi. Capital donation with a value equal to or above 250 thousand Euros for investing in artistic output or supporting the arts, for reconstruction or refurbishment of the national heritage, through the local and central authorities, public institutions, public corporate sector, public foundations, private foundations of public interest, networked local authorities, local corporate sector organizations, local associations and public cultural associations, pursuing activities of artistic output, and reconstruction or maintenance of the national heritage; (new)
vii. Capital transfer with a value equal to or above 500 thousand Euros, for purchasing shares in investment funds or in venture capital geared to capitalize small and medium companies that, in turn, must present a feasible capitalization plan. (new)

Please note that for areas with less than 100 citizens per Km2 you are now able to perform the investment option iii) with 400.000 Euro or above and option iv) with 280.000 Euro or above.

Our range or options is now enlarged and you can perform your real estate investment from a minimum of 280.000 Euro up to a minimum of 500.000 Euro depending on what type of investment you prefer.

New Regulation in practice also allows you to make any of this investment under a copy name which you can be sole owner or co-ownership as long as your share capital is equivalent to the minimum invested.

For more information or any clarifications do not hesitate to contact us.

Citizenship - Portugal, Golden Visa, Investment

UPDATE: Now Accepted – OLD Alert: Open Investors process without documents is no longer accepted at Immigration Department

Update: We are now able to submit your biometric data at your first trip without any documentation ready. Please disregard the communication bellow.

We have been receiving investors in Portugal within the past 2 years that are coming without the full set of documents to present to Immigration Department. Due to the changes on internal procedures inside Immigration Department for the following period of time all Investors which decide to travel to Portugal to submit their finger prints and their biometric data need to have their documentation required.

Due to this changes, we are now requesting all Investors to collect their Police Clearance Report duly stamped by Portugal Embassy of their document issuing country before traveling to Portugal. In case you are bringing your family please also collect their Police Clearance Report, Marriage Certificate or Birth Certificate in order to be able to start the process (all documents need to be duly stamped at Portugal Embassy).

Since the demand of the program is increasing quickly it is now requested that Investors advise their travel intentions 4 weeks before their traveling date in order to assure a visit to Immigration Department. In case you are planing to fly in a much shorter period than the one announced here, please contact us in order to identify the risks and possible solutions.

For those who intent to travel without the documents, please be aware that after your investment is completed and your process is been approved you will need to travel to Portugal to submit your biometric data in order to be able to receive your residence permit card.

The Golden Visa Immigration procedures are being revised, for the time being those are the current rules, once the system has been updated we will inform you.

Citizenship - Portugal, Golden Visa, Investment, Real Estate - Portugal

Golden Visa Numbers 2014 – Stats for Investor Visa

Investor Visa 2014 in Review

Its easy to make a simple and easy short evaluation of what was the Investor Visa Program during 2014. At this moment all institutions are very happy with the course of this program and Investors are welcome to continue to boost Portuguese economy to leverage the capacity of the Government to revitalize our beautiful country.

The Published Numbers are:

2014 – 1526 Investors Approved

2013 – 424 Investors Approved

2012 – 2 Investors Approved

Number of Family Members Approved

2014 – 2395 Family Members

2013 – 494 Family Members

The Total Investment Generated by this Program:

By Acquiring Real Estate:

1.110.702.081,12 Euro (1.110 million euro)

By Capital Transfer:

117.271.745,77 Euro (117 million euro)

The Total Number of Investors per Type of Investment:

1916 Investors choose Real Estate Option – 95%

103 Investors choose Capital Option – 5%

3 Investors choose to create over 10 Jobs – 0%

Main Nationalities

China: 81%

Brazil: 3%

Russia: 3%

South Africa: 2%

Lebanon: 2%

After seeing the results it is easy to understand that 95% of the Investors choose to purchase Real Estate and elected this option as their preferred, in average they added 1,18 persons to their program which is less than 2 persons per investor and in 1 years the demand for this Golden Visa Program has increased over 350% compared to previous year. The expectation that is 2015 will beat the record of applicants and will reach at least 2000 application successfully approved within one year. The origin of the Investors is clearly dominated by China.

Uncategorized

Immigration Department Inspectors Claim Lack of Staff

Portugal Immigration department inspectors which are responsible to provide Investors Visa ( Golden Visa ) claimed today they are running with too little staff and can not cope with the amount of demand from this program. The Inspectors Union launched a communication where they say the system is fragile because of lack of training to inspectors not allowing them to be able to control well the rules and details of the investment. This week Internal Affairs Ministry announced that the internal procedures inside Immigration Department will be modified to ensure the procedures are performed with best practices avoiding mistakes or delays as such as we have been experiencing the last months.

Inspectors Union refers to all this problem as lack of staff and lack of training with a natural consequence of extra work and overload per each inspector. The conclusions of the last audit to Immigration Department refers to disorganization and lack of clear rules and procedures to process all this applications.

It is already known that the new manual of procedures should be in place within 30 days and after an initial phase of training improvements should start to be noticed. At this current moment they apology for the delay they have been creating in so many applications and expect this issues to be resolved for the near future.

For all our investors which are having their applications in process, please note that quick resolutions are expected soon.

Citizenship - Portugal, Golden Visa, Investment

UK Travels Alert

As we known, all citizens with valid residence permit in European Union have freedom of traveling around European Union Countries. In this sense, all citizens from non-EU countries with a valid residence permit should be able to freely travel within European Union Space (Schengen and Non Schengen Countries).

As recently British Prime Minister David Cameron is restricting the access to foreign citizens to UK, they have been rejecting access of Non-European Citizens with valid residence permits in European Countries.

As principle, this violates the main European Union statements and recently a Colombian Citizen with valid residence permit in Spain have appealed in UK Courts based on the fact that was rejected to enter UK with Valid European Union Residence Permit and won the case with European Union Court counseling.

For all Investors which hold residence permit cards from Portugal please note that by law and principle you should be granted access into UK for traveling purposes not for residence or work purposes however due to the latest behavior of UK Immigration Border Offices it becomes unstable to take it as a guaranteed entry. It is very important that in case you decide to try entering UK (at your own risk) with Portugal Residence Permit Card that you state that you are living in Portugal, otherwise your entry will be refused.

Attached please find a newspaper article with a court case with this matters.

Citizenship - Portugal, Golden Visa, Investment

Capital Investment Over 1.000.000 Euro – Rules Changed

For all investors considering to apply for 1.000.000 euro capital investment option, please note that Immigration Department is now restricting the assets in which you can apply the capital. You are able to buy Portuguese companies stocks or leave the money in a time deposit at the bank. All investments to be done in foreign assets will not be accepted. This also involves all investment funds which are located outside of Portugal and investing in Portuguese stocks or Portuguese Investment Funds which are exclusively investing outside of Portugal.

Due to the fact that several Investors when applying for their Investors Visa have choosen to buy sovereign bonds from other countries or by investing in their own investment funds, government is not restricting the options on which you can choose for investment to make sure the spirit of the law is respected.

For those investors which have already performed their investments, Government clarified that will be checking randomly the types of investments they have been doing and in case they do not respect the law spirit will be notified to reconvert their assets. By the time of renewals any investor which holds a capital investment in the bank by using foreign titles, it will be required to reconvert their assets in acceptable investment options in order to have their applications successfully processed.

Golden Visa

Director and several persons from Immigration Department have been detained for corruption. Several Ambassadors under surveillance.

Several persons that work at Immigration Department, such as Director Manuel Jarmela Palos and Maria Antónia Anes and Antonio Figueiredo the Presidentof National Registry and Notarial Services and other 8 persons from their staff members have been detained by the police after Corruption charges from Public Prosecutor.

They are all suspects of corruption and from exercising influences over the process of golden visa / investor visa and approving several processes without proper conditions. The Division of Special Forces for National Corruption are already investigating this process and Justice Minister have invited all the persons who are damaging the credibility of this program to leave the public service.

Today the Vice-Prime Minister have reinstated that Portugal Investor Program ( Golden Visa ) is extremely important for the country and Portugal economy and everything has to run smooth and without problems. Only in October 2014, a total ammount of 108 million euro have been invested in Real Estate by foreign investors .

There are several Investigations going on about this cases and it is already said that several Ambassadors will be also put under surveillance for the same reasons.

All services at Immigration Department will continue to run as usual and will not be affected. Please note that none of this

Manuel Jarmela Palos – SEF Director – Charges of Corruption

Golden Visa, Investment, Real Estate - Portugal

Golden Visa : Invest in Rural Properties with High Income Returns

Since the Golden Visa Program started in Portugal, lots of investors have chosen the option of buying an apartment in Lisbon city center or a Villa around Cascais as their main priorities. However with prices increasing and rental market still focused on Portuguese people which is far away from booming, the return rate of residential properties investments is becoming lower and lower.

This raises the opportunity to find other locations or to diversify the investments into Rural properties. Portugal Rural properties or agriculture properties are at this stage sold with a very big discount and at incredible prices, however is necessary to understand the cost structure of each specific unit to be able to feel confident about this kind of investment. Since Portugal was for many years developing agriculture of subsistence which consists in producing your own food just for living, most of available properties in the market are small fractions of land which do not reveal to be productive and able to generate high income returns.

According to our experience it is very important to choose properties which have already in place plantations over 50 hectares and that costs structure is lean enough to generate high returns. Costs of electricity, water and other products have increased substantially within the last years and food price is pretty much stable. If you plan to invest in Rural Properties which have a high return we recommend you to choose between the following cultures: Cork Trees, Olive Trees, Vineyards with own Wine Production, Pine Trees or Eucalyptus. Those are the plantations which offer you a stable and high return that can even reach 20% a year. Since there are very good perspectives of seeing land price increase within the next years, you might be investing in a business that is able to generate over 20% a year within the next 5-10 years.

We have already selected a numerous rural properties with high income returns, in case you would like to visit them feel free to get in contact with us by email or phone.

Portugal Rural Properties at Right Stage for Investment

Golden Visa

Overstay with a Portugal Short Term Schengen Visa – Tourist or Business

Since several of our investors got a problem of too short term visas while deciding to travel to Portugal we took the decision to post the current solution for their problem.

When you feel frustrated by seeing that embassy where you applied your visa only gave you a 7 days schengen visa or if your visa is expiring and you will not be able to travel since they will not give you a new schengen visa before the expiration of the old one, please find bellow the procedures and considerations which you have to make before do your trip.

1) Schengen Touristic / Business Visa are pretty easy to extend so the key point is to book an appointment for your Visa extension to be able to stay longer than you have permission

2) When coming to Portugal is important that you fly out of Lisbon/Faro/Oporto directly from out of Schengen space. You will not be able to make the following procedures if your flight has a stopover in Germany, or France or any other Schengen country.

To be able to extend your visa you need to state the following things:

a) Hotel Booked and ideally paid till the end of your planned stay

b) Flight ticket with the date of departure over the Schengen Visa expiring date

c) Means of Subsistence something like a Visa credit card or a bank statement will work or cash over 1000 Euro will work.

d) 2 Passport Pictures

Those are the required documents to be able to extend once you arrive for the extension meeting at Immigration Office. Please be aware that Immigration Office only allows you to book the appointment for one day before your expiration visa date, in that way leaves you only one day to react in case you need to leave Schengen space the next day.

How does it normally happen the procedure? The answer is simple, usually Immigration Office is so crowded with work that if you try to apply for this appointment they will give you a meeting much over the date of your visa expiration. If this happens than you are one of the lucky one which can overstay till the date of the meeting and just need to present the paper with appointment booked at immigration office. No fines or other issues will be raised, but please be aware that you can only do this if you leave schengen space from Portugal directly to outside. Usually delay is about 3 weeks from booking time which will provide you plenty of time to enjoy the best of Portugal. In the meanwhile you should not leave the country to other Schengen country since this document will not be valid outside of the country and you might get into troubles with authority.

For any other details we recommend you keep updated with Immigration Office (SEF) before making a trip where you plan to overstay. For Investors is very important that comply with regulations to avoid having problems issuing the Investor / Golden Visa.

How to Overstay with a Schengen Visa in Portugal

Schengen Visa Example

Golden Visa, Investment, Real Estate - Portugal

Portugal: Real Estate Prices Rising Fast vs Tourism Industry

Yesterday Lisbon was considered a touristic destination able to beat Barcelona within the next 2 years by a leader of a major Low Cost Airline while visiting the country for contract signing. Major low cost airlines are uniting efforts to improve the amount of passengers they bring to Portugal in order to take advantages of huge discounts on airport taxes. The amount of visitors that landed in the city exceeds 15 million passengers per year. This equals to 1.5 times the Portuguese population and explains why the economy is surrounded by tourism industry all around the country.

With Portugal Investors Program, golden visa ( temporary residence permit for investors ) bringing a lot of Real Estate Investors into the country, the effect is awaking other investors non related to visa deal to come back to Portugal for Real Estate Investments. With Financial crisis still in place, Banks are unable to lend money for developers com back to their jobs and start building new properties, leaving the market without enough supply for the amount of demand that is arriving every day.

Some Real Estate companies are still not that optimistic because the product they are bringing to market are not attractive for foreign investors and on this I am considering badly located properties, low quality construction properties, old properties not in conditions of usage or properties which have no perspectives of generating income.

Investors are being very rational when approaching Portugal Real Estate market, they are not coming here to fall in love for properties which they might identify themselves with, they mostly choose properties where the foresee price increase within next years and at same time have a good rental income.

For properties which fall into this category the supply is getting less and less every day and I do not foresee any changes on this situation for the next 3-4 years since in order to build a new development might take at least 2 years to complete everything.

The message is clear to those investors out there if you have any intentions of investing in Real Estate in Portugal as soon as you land in Lisbon to choose your property as faster you make money. Prices are starting to rise and we will see and uncontrolled prices going up within the next 2 years, please be prepared to make money while enjoying your Residence Permit Card without living in Portugal and wining the ability to live in any Schengen Country at your wish.