Socialist Party decided to end the Golden Visas in Lisbon and Porto, limiting the benefit of this status to the interior regions and the autonomous regions. This is a blow to this fiscal instrument which has brought a lot of foreign investment to the big urban centers but has also helped to raise the price of real estate. Rather than completely remove this controversial status, the government of Antonio Costa has decided to limit the allocation of these golden visas to people investing in CMIs and autonomous regions in order to limit the pressure on property prices in Lisbon and Port. This decision to end the Golden Visas on the whole of Portuguese territory is not only happy, but is less worse than expected. Lisbob, the expatriate assistant in Portugal, tells you all about the Portuguese Socialist Party’s decision to end the Golden Visas in Lisbon and Porto.
End of Golden Visas in Lisbon and Port o
The Portuguese Socialist Party wants to restrict golden visas to interior regions as well as to autonomous regions. In practice, this means that this instrument is no longer available for investment in large urban centers, in particular in Lisbon and Porto, where the price of houses and rents has increased considerably.
The Portuguese government's draft state budget already requested parliamentary authorization to "encourage the promotion of investment in low-density regions", but there was no notion of restricting the allocation of golden visas in large urban centers. Now the PS has just proposed a clarification of the law, which now has a much greater scope.
The new proposal is guaranteed to be adopted. The left bloc, which defends the total and immediate end of the golden visas, has already indicated to the Negocios newspaper that it would approve a proposal in this direction, and their votes are sufficient to make it possible. In addition, the PCP (Portuguese Communist Party) also showed some openness while the PSD was more cautious.
“The housing problem in Portugal is not the result of foreign investment, but rather the decades of ineffectiveness of successive governments”
Asked about the impact of the measure on real estate investment, Ana Catarina Mendes said that the aim of the measure "is not to scare away investors, but to attract them to other regions of the country".
According to the president of the parliamentary group of the Portuguese Socialist Party, as of this year, "whoever invests in the regions (CIM) of the interior and the autonomous regions, as well as those which create jobs, are entitled to a golden visa" .
"With this measure, we are seeking to remove the pressure on the existing real estate market in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto. This measure will contribute to greater territorial cohesion", defended Ana Catarina Mendes.
