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For wealthy Americans seeking an expat lifestyle, Portugal, with its pristine beaches, low cost of living, and easy access to the United States, has long been the most sensible destination. It is simple to acquire a residence permit and obtain citizenship: for 500,000 euros, Americans can obtain the so-called golden visa, and with it one of the country’s most sought-after symbols of prestige: the world’s ultra-rich. But lately, Portugal’s golden visa has lost some of its luster.
In 2024, a growing backlash from the local population led the Portuguese government to limit its visa program. This backlash came as an influx of wealthy foreigners contributed to a real estate crisis, preventing locals from not only buying, but also renting. Still investing and applying for a visa, but doing so through residential real estate (previously the most popular way to obtain a visa) is no longer the case.
“You had the best cocktail so other people couldn’t move there,” says Alex Ingrim, a currency adviser at global monetary company Chase Buchanan, which helps Americans move abroad, noting that Portugal has long been a destination for wealthy Europeans. It is also popular among South American and Chinese citizens: in the 10 years leading up to 2023, the number of foreign nationals in Portugal has exceeded 40%, reaching more than one million people, of which around 30,000 have benefited from the Golden Visa program since its inception. In total, the country has a population of approximately 10. 3 million.
“During Covid, Americans took notice. It’s such a small country that they don’t have the resources to cope with the influx of 10,000 more Americans a year,” Ingrim says.
Today, wealthy Americans are expanding their success beyond Portugal into other still-golden pastures. Here’s how the landscape of citizenship through investment has changed in 2024.
Some countries are clearly more desirable than others. Citizenship anywhere in the European Union, for example, can make it easier for an individual to access some other member state, one of the many benefits of investing in a visa for Portugal.
Available public knowledge about pass-through visa applicants and investments is “sparse, dispersed and limited,” say Laure Brillaud and Maíra Martini of Transparency International EU, an anti-corruption agency. Some passing governments do not publish statistics on investment migration or, if they do, the knowledge is not uniform. To further complicate matters, investors are employing many other avenues to secure their residency based on their investor status, and it’s still early in the year, too early for advisers and other immigration agencies to say with certainty where other people will pass instead of Portugal.
But Ingrim says more U. S. consumers are asking about France and Spain this year. Italy and Greece also have plans, according to investment migration consultancy Henley’s 2023 wealth report.
Spain is especially attractive, Ingrim says, because it still offers a residential real estate investment option, as well as many of Portugal’s other advantages. It’s also been a popular choice for years: The Spanish government recently reported that the number of Americans living in the country increased by as much as 13% between 2019 and 2021. Henley
“Conventional countries have very high and consistent levels of demand,” Ingrim says. “The culture, the food, the fashion, the famous cities, there are other people who love those places. “
Check out this interactive chart on Fortune. com
These countries aside, Malta has one of the most well-known and oldest golden passport systems in the world. By purchasing citizenship in this small country off the coast of Italy, the investor (and his family, paying an additional fee) can now work. and examine in the rest of the smart UE. Es for business insights as well as for the ease of Array
That said, Malta’s program is one of the most options. It currently requires a minimum contribution of €600,000 to a progression fund and 36 months of residency (a quick address costs €750,000 and 12 months of residency), plus a further €700,000 in real estate investment and €10,000 in donation.
Countries like Turkey and Hungary are also very popular, though not necessarily among Americans. Chinese citizens make up the world’s largest investor organization, and Turkey is one of the few countries that still naturalizes wealthy Russians, according to Kristin Surak, an associate professor of politics. sociology at the London School of Economics, in The Golden Passport.
In the Caribbean, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Lucia, which offer citizenship through investments worth much less than Malta, remain very popular. For those investors, usually billionaires, the ease or a new market to start a business are not the main attractions of obtaining a second passport. Instead, the ultra-wealthy seek to renounce their U. S. citizenship to save on taxes. As the Biden administration considers new estate taxes, that trend will only continue, says David Lesperance, an immigration and foreign tax representative who is helping the elite move overseas.
“A sunk charge of $150,000 is being spent to save millions in taxes,” says Lesespérance. “They’re substantial. “
For almost the entire population of the world, citizenship is a legal prestige assigned at birth and retained for life. Obtaining citizenship in some other country is uncommon, whether through immigration, marriage, military service, or ancestry.
But it’s for a maximum of people. For the wealthy, other regulations apply. Naturalization opportunities abound, at the right price. In some countries, you don’t even need to set foot to enjoy it, Surak writes.
Take PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel, for example, who spent 12 days in New Zealand in five years and walked away with an enormous amount of compliant assets to finish global and naturalization documents. Thiel bypassed the typical immigration program, which usually takes years, as Surak writes. “As long as you have enough money and smart connections, it’s possible to negotiate citizenship in many places. “
For the elite who hail from Silicon Valley (or whose net worth is in the millions rather than billions), there are citizenship-by-investment programs. Thanks to this, a few years and a few hundred thousand dollars or so can grant citizenship in a new country, allowing recipients to avoid taxes in the U. S. It is important to use the U. S. or simply have a position to flee in the event of an apocalypse, Lesperance says. Political turmoil in the U. S. The U. S. citizenship in recent years has made dual citizenship, or at least dual residency, even more appealing, Lesperance says. Says.
Although only about 50,000 more people naturalize through those systems each year, according to Surak’s research, they have replaced countries’ economies, disrupting real estate markets and contributing a significant percentage of GDP.
Each government sets the regulations for candidates, adding a timeline, investment characteristics, and due diligence expectations, Surak writes. The individual will donate to an approved government progression fund or other type of investment, real estate. The application will then be reviewed through the background and government check, all within a few weeks, or even around a year in some cases.
Officially, such systems are a way for countries that do not have many other wealth resources (such as oil or gas) to advance economically and exploit foreign capital. But there are many unofficial policies, depending on the country. There is no formal program, sovereigns can grant residency or citizenship on a case-by-case basis to those who know the right people, as in Thiel’s case.
Citizenship through investment has been around since the 1980s, according to Surak, and was once driven basically through island microstates like Malta or St. Petersburg. But it has taken off since the global currency crisis of 2008 and, more recently, has been fueled by the Covid-19 pandemic (especially for Americans: Henley
While some countries are looking to expand their programs, Portugal is far from the only country discovering that all that glitters is not gold. Last year, Ireland also announced it would limit its visa-for-investment arrangement, and the EU opposes it. those schemes, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as golden visas are particularly popular among the country’s oligarchs. That said, many EU countries are offering choice pathways to naturalization, such as citizenship through descent schemes.
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