PORTUGAL: Prime Minister Antonio Costa on Thursday stated that Portugal would cease issuing “golden visas” to well-off foreign investors to handle the issue of affordable housing and increase the amount of available housing. The residence permits will be renewed only if they adhere to the controversial visas.
This will be implemented if people buying properties stay there permanently or rent them out to other residents. Costa stated that in the last ten years, house rents have been surging more than the rate of inflation. “Current prices are much too high for the Portuguese market,” he said.
The measures would be out for public consultation, and the government would implement the same and adopt its policy by March 16.
As stated by the European Union Statistics Agency, housing prices in Portugal increased by 75% between 2010 and 2022. Rents in that period augmented by 25%, whereas there have been 730,000 lodgings that are currently vacant or dilapidated.
Lisbon and the Port of Porto have already been excluded from the visa policy to rein in the pressure of the property prices there. In 2012, the golden visa policy was introduced after Portugal’s economy grappled with a shortage of foreign capital.
This measure has already been implemented in other European countries but has been tweaked several times. This measure, however, augmented the house prices with foreign arrivals willing to buy the property market.
Portugal has purchased nearly 6.8 billion euros in the last ten years instead of issuing 11,600 residence permits, whereby every candidate should pay a minimum of 500,000 euros to purchase the property.
This 900-million-euro budget introduced by the new-government package would aid families in managing the increasing rent or mortgage payments and provide tax incentives for the rental markets.
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