Can a non-European simply buy their way into the Schengen Area? Or even pay to become a citizen of an EU country?
That’s exactly what so-called golden visas are for — and Portugal is one of the countries that offers them. Anyone who invests at least €250,000 ($285,000) can first obtain a residence permit and, later, if they choose, even apply for a Portuguese passport.
The catch is that the government has recently changed the rules, and many people who have been waiting years for the residence permits they were promised are now planning to take legal action.
Golden visas — much like those US President Donald Trump has proposed for $1 million — are available in several EU countries, including Greece, Italy, and Latvia. In exchange for investments ranging from €50,000 to €500,000, applicants are supposed to contribute to the host country’s economy. At least that’s the theory.
However, these programs have long been controversial because they can attract people with questionable backgrounds — or even criminal ties — who many would rather not see living in their country and, by extension, gaining legal access to the European Union.
A new home in Portugal
Portugal has been issuing golden visas since 2012. According to reports, some wealthy members of the Russian mafia and Chinese organized crime figures managed to obtain them. On top of that, many investors poured their money into luxury real estate, helping drive housing prices in Portugal’s major cities to dizzying levels.
But there are other stories too.
Take Luke Strzegowski, for example. Four years ago, the 55-year-old American sold his house and moved to Portugal with his wife, Kristin, and their two daughters, Emmy and Kira. They invested €350,000 — “It was all we had,” he says — in a home near the town of Sintra, just north of the capital Lisbon, and applied for a golden visa.
“We wanted to get out of America. We wanted to give our girls the opportunity to live in a place less politically charged and safer. Just a better environment for them to grow up in.”
After five years, he expected to be eligible to apply for permanent residency — or even Portuguese citizenship — for himself and his family.
“My 12-year-old daughter is already eying European universities that are in places that she might want to attend.”
Endless delays for residence permits
But things turned out very differently. Strzegowski is still waiting for his initial, temporary residence permit — the one the law says should be issued within 90 days of applying.
“I work in the solar industry. I still need to travel. There is a conference in Munich every year. I can’t go there because of our illegal status in Europe,” Strzegowski explains.
As a result, the permanent residence permit he had been promised — which can be granted five years after receiving the initial permit — has been pushed back as well. And the citizenship he had expected to be eligible for after five years will now take 10, after the current center-right government joined forces with the far-right Chega party to double the waiting period for naturalization for citizens of most non-EU countries.
According to immigration lawyer Madalena Monteiro, around 12,000 other golden visa applicants are in the same situation as the American.
Monteiro runs an agency that advises prospective immigrants and helps them navigate Portugal’s notoriously slow bureaucracy.
“Many people feel they’ve been cheated by the change in the law,” she says. “They want to take legal action against the state. We’ve already collected more than 500 signatures from people affected.”
She argues that while the government is free to change the rules for acquiring citizenship, it is still bound by its own laws — which require golden visa applications to be processed within 90 days.
Instead, she says, processing times currently average nearly five years.
As a result, a petition signed by 1,200 affected applicants has now been submitted to Portugal’s Justice Ombudsperson. A class action lawsuit before the administrative court, along with individual civil claims for damages, is expected to follow. If necessary, the applicants say they’re prepared to pursue their case before European or international institutions.
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“You are in a football game, 90 minutes. And you are changing the rules of the game during the 90 minutes. You are moving the goal post,” fumes American investor Servet Tasman.
At the end of 2021, he invested €350,000 in two houses in the southern Portuguese city of Evora. “My objective was to become a European citizen so I could work for a European company. I work in telecommunications.”
Under Portugal’s previous citizenship law, he would have become eligible in 2028.
“According to my calculation, now it is going to be 2037. In one night I lost nine years. Incredible. I don’t know what they are smoking,” he said.
New citizenship law puts further spanner in the works
If he could, Tasman says, he would leave Portugal. But the money he invested cannot be taken out of the country until he qualifies for permanent residency. Because of the new law, that won’t happen until 2030 — two years later than originally planned.
“Is that justice?” Tasman asks. “Even in a banana republic, the king would say this is not fair.”
Not so, says Rui Armindo de Freitas, the Portuguese secretary of state responsible for the issue.
According to de Freitas, the changes to the citizenship law have nothing to do with the golden visa program itself. The longer waiting period for citizenship, he says, merely brings Portugal into line with other European countries.
Nothing has changed, he insists, when it comes to permanent residency: Golden visa holders can still apply for permanent residence after five years.
The only change, he says, is that the waiting period for citizenship has been extended.
If applicants expected otherwise, de Freitas says, the blame lies with the agencies marketing golden visas, not the government.
Court cases take years
“That’s simply not true,” counters immigration lawyer Gilda Pereira, who heads one of the agencies marketing golden visas.
“The Portuguese government itself advertised the prospect of citizenship for golden visa holders in its consulates, using promotional posters.”
Those posters have since been taken down, she says. “And now the government is trying to pin the blame on us.”
De Freitas has a different explanation. “We inherited more than one million unprocessed visa applications of all kinds from the previous government. We’ve now cleared 98% of that backlog, and from this point on, we’ll focus on the overdue golden visa applications.”
Asked why the government has missed the legal 90-day deadline, de Freitas says: “We have limited resources and have to set priorities.”
Still, the secretary of state is unlikely to lose much sleep over the threat of legal action. Portugal’s courts are considered at least as slow as its immigration authorities, with cases often dragging on for years.
By the time a verdict is reached, many golden visa applicants may well have served out the new waiting period for citizenship.
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