Portugal Golden Visa

The list of investment routes published by the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum contains five possibilities, and no real estate route at all.

The first route is the creation of at least 10 jobs, sub-paragraph ii. The second is a capital transfer of 500 thousand euro or more applied to research activity carried out by public or private scientific research institutions within the national science and technology system, sub-paragraph v.

The third is a capital transfer of 250 thousand euro or more applied to investment in or support for artistic production, or the recovery or maintenance of national cultural heritage, sub-paragraph vi. It is also the cheapest of the five, at exactly half the level of the other three.

The fourth route is a capital transfer of 500 thousand euro or more to acquire units in non-real-estate collective investment undertakings constituted under Portuguese law, sub-paragraph vii.

This one carries two conditions on the structure of the fund rather than on the sum alone: the fund must have a maturity at the time of investment of at least five years, and at least 60% of the value invested must be made in companies with their seat in Portugal.

The fifth route is a capital transfer of 500 thousand euro or more by one of two means, sub-paragraph viii. The first is incorporating a company with its seat in Portugal together with the creation of five permanent jobs.

The second is increasing the share capital of a company that already has its seat in Portugal, together with the creation of at least five permanent jobs, or together with the maintenance of at least ten jobs of which at least five are permanent.

Either way the position must be held for a minimum of three years.

The regime has been in force since 8 October 2012 and allows third country nationals to obtain a temporary residence permit for investment activity, together with a waiver of the residence visa for entering Portugal. The beneficiary gains six rights.

The first four are usable at once: to enter Portugal without a residence visa; to reside and work in Portugal; to move within the Schengen Area without a visa; and to benefit from family reunification.

The last two look further ahead: to apply for a Permanent Residence Permit under the Foreigners Act, Law 23/2007 of 4 July in its current wording; and to apply for Portuguese nationality by naturalisation, subject to the remaining requirements of the Nationality Act, Law 37/81 of 3 October in its current wording.

The regime does not apply to persons holding Portuguese nationality, nor to nationals of the European Union, the European Economic Area, Andorra and Switzerland

The minimum temporal requirement for maintaining the investment activity is five years, counted from the date the residence permit is granted, and the applicant must file a declaration on their honour undertaking to meet both the quantitative requirement and that minimum period.

Running alongside are two short clocks that can spoil a file prepared too early:

The criminal record certificate must have been issued within 3 months before the full legally required documentation is submitted, and the negative debt declarations of the Tax and Customs Authority and of Social Security must have been issued no more than 45 days beforehand.

The file must also pass through a compulsory online pre-registration on the ARI Portal

The presence requirement is a minimum of 7 days in the first year and a minimum of 14 days in the years that follow, and the authority places that sentence somewhere worth noticing: it sits in the list of what the holder may do, as a duty attached to the right to live and work in Portugal.

The two figures have to be read against the validity of the card, because the page itself does not join the two: the temporary residence permit for investment activity is valid for two years from the date the document is issued, with renewal periods governed separately.

The heaviest point in this cell belongs to the permanent stage, and it is an uncommon exception. Holders of the investment residence permit and their family members who meet the requirements of Article 80 of the REPSAE and apply for permanent residence are issued a Permanent Investment Activity Residence Permit.

That regime excludes point (b) of paragraph 2 and paragraphs 3 and 4 of Article 85 of the REPSAE — that is, it excludes cancellation of the right for absences from Portugal, per Article 65-K of Regulatory Decree 84/2007.

Put plainly: the duty to count days belongs to the temporary stage; at the permanent stage the absence penalty itself is lifted from this route.

The family list on this route is far wider than is usual among comparable programmes: the authority sets out seven categories, not the customary two of spouse and children.

The first four turn on children, and each carries its own condition. The first is the spouse. The second is children up to 17, or dependants unable to care for themselves who are supported by the couple or by one of the spouses.

The third is children up to 17 who have been adopted, and this one carries a reciprocity condition that is easy to read past:

The adoption must be by decision of the competent authority of the country of origin, the law of that country must grant adopted children rights and duties identical to natural filiation, and the decision must be recognised by Portugal.

Fail any one of the three and the child does not enter the list.

The fourth is children over 18 and up to 25, supported by the couple or by one of the spouses, unmarried and in education.

Here the authority page repeats itself: this category is written as two near-identical lines, one requiring study at an educational establishment in Portugal, the other requiring only that the person be studying, without saying where.

Nothing on the page reconciles the two, so anyone preparing a file should ask the authority directly rather than choose the reading that suits them.

The last two are what comparable programmes generally lack. The fifth is direct ascendants in the first degree of the resident or of their spouse, that is parents, provided they are dependent on the resident.

The sixth is siblings up to 17, provided they are under the resident's guardianship by a decision of the competent authority of the country of origin, and provided that decision is recognised by Portugal.

On sequencing, one point governs how the timetable is built: the reunification application may be filed at the same time as the ARI application, but it is always conditional on the ARI being granted. Filing early shortens nothing, because its outcome hangs on the outcome of the principal file.

The status this programme grants, whether a visa or a residence permit, does not replace the holder's passport. The holder still travels on the passport of their own country, so the figure below belongs to the Portugal passport and becomes the holder's only once they are issued a Portugal passport.

According to the Passport Index of Prosperous Intelligence, on data dated 30 September 2026, the Portugal passport reaches 202 destinations without applying for a consular visa in advance. The figure combines three forms of entry and does not count an e-Visa that must be obtained beforehand:

It is therefore a measure of how easily the holder travels, not a count of visa-free countries in the narrow sense.

For comparison, on the same source and the same method of counting, the Vietnamese passport reaches 44 destinations. The two lists of destinations do not nest inside one another, so the difference is an indication rather than a list of places newly opened.

Prosperous Intelligence dates its data and advises checking with the destination’s official authorities before travelling.

The programme page of the administering agency does not use the word tax once across more than twenty-eight thousand characters; the ten occurrences of the word fiscal all sit in the requirement to produce a certificate of the tax identification number of the country of origin.

The programme has no tax regime of its own. One programme figure says more about tax than anything else, and it is the residence obligation: the holder must remain in Portugal for at least 7 days in the first year and at least 14 days in subsequent years.

Set against the tax-residence threshold the gap is wide. Article 16(1)(a) of the Personal Income Tax Code treats as tax resident a person who has remained in Portuguese territory for more than 183 days, consecutive or not, in any twelve-month period beginning or ending in the year concerned.

Paragraph 2 states the counting rule: any day, whole or partial, that includes an overnight stay counts as a day of presence.

The permit therefore does not of itself make the holder a tax resident — and this must be stated as a joining of two sources rather than a quotation, since the programme page does not mention the tax consequence and the tax code does not mention the permit.

Paragraph 1(b) leaves one further door: fewer days still creates residence where the person has a dwelling in conditions suggesting a present intention to keep and occupy it as a habitual residence.

Where a person does become tax resident, the current regime for newcomers is IFICI, in Article 58-A of the Tax Benefits Statute, added by Law No. 82/2023 of 29 December, with procedure in Ordinance No. 352/2024/1 of 23 December 2024 published in Series 1 No. 248 of the Official Gazette.

Entry requires three things at once: becoming tax resident under Article 16(1) and (2); not having been resident in Portugal in any of the five preceding years; and carrying on one of seven listed activities.

And here is the point that matters most for this record: all seven are tied to employment or office.

The first four are higher education teaching and scientific research; qualified job positions within productive investment contract incentives; highly qualified professions specified by ordinance; and job positions in entities recognised by the investment promotion agency or the enterprise support agency.

The remaining three are research and development personnel under the SIFIDE II regime; job positions in companies certified as startups under Law No. 21/2023; and job positions in the Azores or Madeira under regional decree.

None is available to a passive investor. The tax authority tightens it further in terms: the concept of a job position necessarily implies the existence of an employment contract, so a person holding only a services contract with a recognised entity does not qualify.

The content of the benefit, so the reader knows what is being excluded. A special rate of 20% applies to net category A and B income arising within those activities, for ten consecutive years from the year of registration as resident.

Foreign-source income is generally exempt except category H; but income of any category paid by a non-resident entity established in a country or territory with a clearly more favourable tax regime is taxed at 35% under Article 81(5).

Two further exclusions: Article 58-A(10) bars IFICI to anyone who benefits or has benefited from the non-habitual resident regime, or who elected taxation under Article 12-A; and paragraph 12 provides that the regime may be used only once by the same taxpayer.

On procedure: registration is filed by 15 January of the year following that in which residence is established, with the 2024 income year deferred to 15 March 2025.

Article 10 of the Ordinance requires the beneficiary to keep documents evidencing the activity and the corresponding income for every year the regime applies, to be produced on request.

Read this cell within its scope: the tax authority sources cover IFICI and the definition of tax residence, say nothing about property transfer tax, stamp duty or municipal property tax, and do not tie IFICI to any class of residence permit

The general documentation comprises eight groups, and most of the cost on this route lies in producing them rather than in any published price list.

The identity and entry group consists of a valid passport or other travel document, and proof of lawful entry into and stay in Portugal.

The health group is proof of health cover, and the authority allows three ways of satisfying it: a document attesting coverage by the National Health Service, or an internationally recognised health insurance policy for the period of lawful residence applied for, or a policy carrying an automatic renewal clause.

The heaviest group in terms of effort is the criminal record, because it does not stop at one country. A certificate is required from the country of origin, and from every country where the applicant has resided for more than one year where that is not the country of origin.

Each must be certified by a Portuguese diplomatic or consular representation, and each must be translated into Portuguese. For someone who has lived in three countries that means three sets of papers, three certifications and three translations.

The remaining four groups are these. First, proof of the tax identification number of the country of origin, of residence or of tax residence. Second, the application on the approved form, including the authorisation to consult the Portuguese Criminal Record. Third, the declaration on honour.

Fourth, negative debt declarations from the Tax and Customs Authority and from Social Security, or failing those a declaration of no registration with those bodies. Last comes the receipt for payment of the ARI assessment fee, and the figure for that fee is not on this page but in the authority's separate table of charges.