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.
Just one of a raft of remote working visas to be unveiled worldwide in the last five months, Antigua and Barbuda’s Nomad Digital Residence (NDR) Programme, which invites remote-working foreigners to reside on the island for up to 24 months, has witnessed a high number of applicants, especially from the US, UK and Canada, and has been receiving up to seven inquiries per day since its launch in September.
With the aim of strengthening the Russian economy and creating new jobs, Russia’s Economic Development Ministry has put forward a draft bill for a residency by investment programme, which would allow foreigners to invest in the country via various routes in exchange for permanent residency.
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.
Following eight months of uncertainty thanks to Covid, the British Virgin Islands (BVI) is the latest nation to announce investor visa programmes aimed at replacing lost tourism dollars. Both the proposed Invest-and-Stay and In-Stay programmes will provide foreigners with residency/remote working visas in exchange for investment.
South African citizens have the opportunity to invest in the five-star Rebello hotel in Portugal’s second city, Porto, as part of its popular residency by investment programme. For an investment of €350,000, investors can expect to receive 3% returns and a residency permit with citizenship and a Portuguese passport after five years.
Following the overhaul and suspension of the citizenship by investment programmes of Malta and Cyprus, respectively, Greece is reviewing its popular residency by investment programme, which has seen a surge of interest in the last few months, with proposed changes including a fee structure aimed at attracting investment to less touristy parts of the country.
From 2021, Portugal’s popular residency by investment programme, which offers an affordable route to Portuguese citizenship and EU membership and which has seen a record number of applications in 2020, will change its conditions, allowing applicants to invest in real estate only outside of Porto, Lisbon and the popular Algarve region.
With the UK set to leave the EU on December 31, and with no deal looking likely, citizenship firms have witnessed a spike in British HNWIs looking to obtain second passports or residency permits via economic residency or citizenship in order to secure easier access to the EU come 2021, with Malta, Portugal and even the Caribbean in demand.
In July 2020, the tourism-reliant Caribbean island of Barbados unveiled a 12-month visa to attract remote workers, and then in September, announced its intention to become a republic next year. With the pandemic having hit its tourism sector hard, could Barbados be revisit its plan from 2016 to launch a citizenship by investment programme?