Portugal is speeding up processing times for applications to the Golden Visa program, following long delays in the processes, which ended up “tarnishing” the image of the program.
The Golden Visa offers foreign investors, in some circumstances, the possibility of obtaining a residence permit in Portugal through investments in specific areas, such as real estate, job creation, or capital transfer.
At issue is a program, formally known as the Residence Permit for Investment Activity (ARI) scheme, which has been one of the most popular residency-by-investment schemes in Europe.
According to Bloomberg, the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) has informed potential investors that it will replace the paper application system with a digital one. There are currently between 45,000 and 50,000 golden visa applications awaiting review, according to data provided by AIMA, and applicants can now migrate their applications to the online system.
Immigration lawyers have participated in several group meetings with AIMA to discuss the issue.
The measure is intended to help resolve the backlog of pending cases, the news agency writes, noting that dozens of investors have resorted to legal action to try to force AIMA to speed up the processing of their applications. Some have waited years to schedule a mandatory biometric appointment, where fingerprints and other personal data are collected.
Lawyers predict that with this new system, AIMA will automatically schedule biometric appointments between 30 and 90 days after candidates complete their online applications.
The Golden Visa program requires people to spend around seven days a year in Portugal and has raised more than 7 billion euros since it was created in 2012.
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