Portugal has seen an increasing number of Chinese and South African citizens rushing to purchase residency and ultimately citizenship in Portugal via the country’s successful residency by investment programme. This comes following a recent announcement that the popular Portuguese areas of Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve are set to be removed as investment regions from the programme at the end of this year.
In order to attract more foreign investment, the Italian government has implemented changes to its residency by investment (RBI) programme to make it both more attractive and competitive, including slashing some of its minimum investment thresholds by half, and opening it up to third-world country nationals.