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Applications for Portugal’s Golden Visa Programme made after February 16 will be frozen, according to the government of Portugal.
The same confirms that, in the bill of the Mais Habitacao scheme, only applications for Residence Permit for Investment (ARI) submitted by February 16 and awaiting a decision from the competent authorities remain valid, while the rest will be frozen if submitted after that date, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
The announcement raised concerns among wealthy foreign investors, with the Ministry of Housing of Portugal already clarifying the issue, confirming that requests after February 16 would not be considered valid.
According to the announcement of the Ministry, provided by Jornal de Negocios, the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) will continue to accept requests until the scheme becomes effective, still, from the moment of the revocation of the regime, all requests that have been submitted after that date are aware of such a condition, thus there is no guarantee of analysis as well as decision, the procedure being extinguished when the law becomes effective.
Portugal’s Golden Visa scheme, also known as Residence Permit for Investment (ARI), permitted wealthy foreign investors to acquire residency in this country if they made a financial contribution. But a large number of reports which considered the scheme an open door to many unlawful affairs led authorities in this country to terminate this programme.
Portugal’s Golden Visa scheme was officially abolished in February last month, becoming the second country to put an end to this scheme after Ireland. Portugal’s government halted the issuance of golden visas, despite a total of 41.9 per cent increase in investments made in Portugal through this programme last year.
However, according to local media reports, the abolishment of the golden visa scheme by the government led a large number of foreign investors to run investing in this programme. Several Portuguese law firms admitted that they received a large number of people interested in holding a golden visa in Portugal.
“Ensuring that there is a safeguard period for analysis of requests for ARI already entered in the competent services until February 16 makes sense since, in these cases, there was a legitimate expectation of a decision that is intended to be maintained, given that nothing had been said about the continuity of the regime until that date,” according to the Housing Minister’s office, Portugal News report notes.
Authorities in EU countries have continuously urged all European countries that offer Golden Visas to terminate such a programme as soon as possible, while Spain is the following country to abolish its Residency by Investment scheme.
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