I Looked at 9 Pros & 7 Cons of Portugal’s Golden Visa – Here’s My Opinion

Portugal’s Golden Visa is in a very different place than it was a few years ago.

It’s still one of the last serious residency-by-investment options in the EU, and still incredibly flexible if you don’t want to move to Portugal full-time. But the routes you can invest through and the political mood have all shifted.

So is it still worth it? Or do the cons outweigh the pros.

This guide looks at:

• What the Portuguese Golden Visa actually looks like in 2026
• The real pros and cons (not just “sunshine and beaches”)
• How it compares to the D7, Digital Nomad Visa, and Golden Visa/CBI programs in other countries
• Who it still makes sense for – and who should probably look at something else

This is just one person’s opinion and not legal or financial advice. But having run Portugalist since 2016, I’ve had the chance to speak with thousands of people who want to move to Portugal (or obtain a second citizenship) and this article is based on those thousands of different conversations.

Portugal’s Golden Visa in 2026

The basics

Portugal’s Golden Visa is:

• A residency-by-investment program (not a passport-for-cash scheme)
• Aimed at people willing to invest in Portugal in exchange for a renewable residence permit
• Designed so you only need to spend around 7 days per year in Portugal to keep that residency

The main routes now are:

• €500,000+ into a qualifying investment fund (typically private equity, venture capital, or similar)
• €250,000+ donation into approved cultural projects (reduced to €200k in some areas)
• €500,000+ into research or scientific projects
• Job creation of 10 new full-time jobs (reduced to 8 jobs in low-density areas)
• Capital investment + job creation of €500k combined with the creation of 5 permanent jobs

Crucially:

• Real estate no longer qualifies. You can’t just buy an apartment in Lisbon or a villa in the Algarve and call it a Golden Visa investment – those days ended with the “Mais Habitação” housing reforms in October 2023. Similarly, it’s no longer possible to do the €1,000,000 capital transfer and qualify.

What it can lead to: residency, then maybe citizenship

As mentioned, this isn’t a citizenship by investment program. It’s a residency by investment program. However, residency can lead to citizenship through naturalization (being resident in Portugal for a sufficient amount of time).

If you keep renewing your permit and meet the requirements, the usual path is:

1. Temporary residency (Golden Visa permit)
2. Permanent residency after a number of years (optional, but commonly requested)
3. Citizenship (if you meet the naturalization criteria)

This is where things have changed the most:

• Historically, Portugal had one of the shortest paths to citizenship in the EU: 5 years of legal residence.
• In 2025, the government proposed a change to extend this to 10 years for most people, with a 7-year path for citizens of CPLP countries (Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, etc.) and EU nationals (see the latest updates here).

Important distinction:

Unlike many schemes around the world, Portugal is not selling a passport. It is selling long-term residency, with the possibility of a passport at the end if you tick all the boxes (including passing a basic language exam).

Current Stats & Context

A few numbers help explain where the program sits now:

• Since the 2023 housing law, most new applicants are using the investment fund route. Previously, around 90% chose the real estate route.
• It can take 2-3 years for authorities to issue a residence permit, although Portugal has vowed to decrease the backlog in 2026.
• In 2024, 2,081 ARI residence permits were issued to investors (main applicants) and around 2,909 permits issued under family reunification linked to the Golden Visa. This is similar to 2023 were around 2,901 permits were issued to main applicants and around 1,554 ARI-linked family-reunification permits were issued.
• Many EU countries have closed or gutted their own schemes (Spain, Ireland, Latvia, Cyprus). Portugal is one of the few remaining EU schemes – and one of the very few that offers a path to citizenship while still only spending minimal time in the country
  • (Greece for example offers residency by investment with minimal stay requirements, but to apply for citizenship, you actually need to spend significant time in the country).
• Internationally, Portugal has gone from being treated as “just a cheap, sunny backwater” to being named “Economy of the Year” by The Economist in 2025, with strong GDP growth and relatively low inflation.

The Main Pros of Portugal’s Golden Visa

Let’s start with the positives of Portugal’s Golden Visa.

The physical stay requirements are minimal

This is the key benefit. To keep your Golden Visa residence permit, you only need to spend:

• About 7 days per year in Portugal on average (technically 14 days for the initial 2-year card, then similar patterns with the new card structure).

That means you can:

• Live in the US, UK, Brazil, India, or elsewhere as normal.
• Maintain your business, career, or life where they are.
• Fly into Portugal once a year or once every few years, tick the boxes, and fly out again.

Compare this with other Portuguese visas like the D7 visa (passive income) and the Digital Nomad Visa (remote work and freelancing).

Both the D7 and the Digital Nomad Visa essentially require you to actually live in Portugal full-time. Many assume this means more than 183 days per year, but the official expectation is that you can be absent from Portugal for 6 consecutive months or 8 non-consecutive months per permit validity (e.g. 2 years for the initial permit). In practice, this means you would have to live in Portugal for around 8 months of the year.

If you cannot commit to living here full-time yet, or do not want to, the Golden Visa is essentially the only Portuguese route that makes sense. Not living here can also have other benefits – like avoiding tax residency or some bureaucracy – as discussed in some of the points below.

It offers A flexible “Plan B”

The Golden Visa is particularly useful when:

You want a backup plan in case politics, safety, or quality of life deteriorate in your home country.

Regardless of where you are in the world, you may be looking at the political situation around you and wondering “what do I do if everything goes wrong?”

Having residency in Portugal via the Golden Visa means you can hop on a quick flight to Portugal at any point and then stay for as long as you want.

If instead, you were to then apply for a visa like the D7 or Digital Nomad Visa, you could easily spend months gathering the documents (such as a rental, Portuguese bank account, apostilled background checks, etc). And, if many people had the same idea as you, there could be a backlog – bigger than the one that currently exists.

The Golden Visa is a genuine “Plan B” that you can enact at a moment’s notice.

It suits Family members with different commitments

It’s also useful for couples and families with different commitments over the next few years.

Under the D7 or Digital Nomad Visa, family members typically move to Portugal at the same time (and on a more or less full-time basis). However, if someone in the family is still working or has commitments elsewhere, they would only be able to visit as a tourist – typically for 90 days in every 180 days. That time also wouldn’t count as residency and therefore wouldn’t make them eligible for citizenship (while the family members living in Portugal would later be eligible).

With the Golden Visa, everyone has residency and they can spend as much or as little (minimum 7 days per year on average) as they want in Portugal. And regardless of whether they spend 7 days in Portugal one year and 365 days the next year, both those years would later count towards citizenship.

It’s ideal for kids who want to study in Europe

The Golden Visa can work well if you have children who one day will want to study in Europe one day – or you would like them to, so you can save on college fees.

Yes, the Golden Visa has high costs associated with it (see cons) but those costs are often lower than tuition in the US or international student fees in somewhere like the UK.

• As residents they can study in Portugal, which would be very affordable.
• Once they have permanent residency, they can study at certain EU universities for less than the cost of international fees.
• Once they have Portuguese citizenship, they can freely study across the EU – and without having to worry about meeting specific residency requirements.

Of course, they would get these benefits if they move to Portugal on a different visa (like the D7 or Digital Nomad Visa) but this particular benefits works well for:

• Families with kids who don’t want to move to Portugal full-time (i.e. they want to continue their high school in the US or Canada).
• Families who want to move to Portugal, but one parents wants more flexibility to continue working elsewhere (e.g. in the US, Canada, UK).

It allows you to secure residency now

Who knows whether visas like the D7 will still exist in their current form in a few years.

With the Golden Visa, you can secure residency now and feel confident that no matter what happens, your residency in Portugal has been secured.

• Some keep their primary life abroad, just doing the minimum in Portugal each year. They may wait until they have permanent residency or even Portuguese citizenship before deciding on a move – whether to Portugal or, if they have citizenship, somewhere else in the EU.
• Others slowly transition – spending more time in Portugal as kids grow older or work becomes more flexible.
• Some only decide to fully relocate years after getting the Golden Visa, once they’ve tested the waters.

The D7 and Digital Nomad visas are much more “all-in” lifestyle decisions. The Golden Visa is “let’s see where the world is in a few years, and in the meantime we’ll get an EU passport.”

Of course, with the Golden Visa you could also move to Portugal full-time at any point in time if you wish. But most people choose the minimal stay requirements, at least initially.

There’s a Clear Route to an EU Passport

The big difference between Portugal’s Golden Visa program and other EU golden visa programs is that Portugal’s program allows you to qualify for citizenship – even if you only meet the minimal physical stay requirements (7 days per year).

This is different to other EU programs which allow you to maintain residency while meeting the physical stay requirements, but require you to spend time in the country if you plan to apply for citizenship.

• Greece Golden Visa
  • Property-based, sometimes with minimums of €400k–€800k in popular areas.
  • No minimum stay to keep residency, but to get citizenship you need 7 years of actual residence (183+ days per year).
• Malta
  • Its direct “golden passport” scheme has effectively been killed by EU court rulings.
  • What remains is permanent residency (MPRP) and other residency routes, not straightforward “cash-for-passport.”

And obviously, an EU passport is highly coveted – much more so than a passport from a Caribbean island.

• On most international passport rankings, Portugal sits around 3rd of 4th in the world, with visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to approximately 186–194 destinations, depending on which index and methodology you’re looking at.
• The rankings change every year, but essentially most EU passports sit at the top of the list.
• Portugal ranks slightly higher than some other EU countries due to Portugal’s strong diplomatic relations, particularly with Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) nations like Brazil, Angola, and Mozambique, which often facilitates easier entry compared to other EU passports.
• It’s a full EU passport: you can live, work, and study in any EU/EEA country, plus Switzerland, without needing extra visas.

You can have residency without becoming tax resident

Under Portuguese rules, you generally become tax resident if:

• You spend 183+ days per year in Portugal, or
• Portugal is your “centre of vital interests” (home, family, main economic ties)

For Golden Visa holders who:

• Keep under the 183-day threshold, and
• Genuinely have their life based elsewhere,

…it’s entirely possible to hold Portuguese residence without becoming Portuguese tax resident. Obviously, consult a tax professional before applying.

Compare that to the D7 and Digital Nomad Visa which require you to have an address in Portugal and spend more than 183 days per year here (roughly 8 months on average). With visas like these, it’s almost certain that you will be considered a tax resident.

there’s Less exposure to everyday Portuguese bureaucracy

One of the biggest downsides in Portugal is the bureaucracy and customer service. It can take months (and even years to get an AIMA appointment) and dealing with the tax office, exchanging your driving licence, or even getting Amazon deliveries can be extremely challenging as well.

Obviously, you will still have to deal with AIMA and if you register for healthcare, you will have hurdles like getting an SNS number as well. However, you will avoid a lot of the day-to-day issues simply by not living here full-time. And, thankfully, a lot of the issues you will have to deal with can be handled by a lawyer through power of attorney.

Yes, a lot of Golden Visa permit holders have struggled to get their initial appointments and renewal appointments, but most have been dealing with that challenge while continuing to live elsewhere.

Compare that to D7 and Digital Nomad Visa permit holders who get “stuck” in Portugal waiting for a renewal appointment and are unsure if they can leave Portugal with their expired permits.

You can still enjoy Healthcare and education advantages

Golden Visa residency opens up the same doors as other residence permits:

• You can register for SNS (Serviço Nacional de Saúde), Portugal’s public or universal healthcare system.
• You can also take out private health insurance, where annual premiums for many adults often fall in the €350–600 per year range – a fraction of US private healthcare costs.

It’s EU & OECD compliant, unlike many “golden passport” schemes

Politically, Portugal’s Golden Visa sits in a safer space than many of the quick-passport options:

• The EU has been cracking down hard on citizenship-by-investment (CBI) schemes, especially those that simply sell passports with minimal checks.
• The EU’s top court has effectively ruled Malta’s “golden passport” scheme incompatible with EU law.
• The OECD and EU have repeatedly highlighted several Caribbean CBI program as problematic from a money-laundering and security perspective, and the EU is working on mechanisms to suspend visa-free travel for countries that run such schemes. Norway has also, reportedly, denied entry or deported several investment citizenship holders from five Caribbean nations since August 2025.

Portugal’s Golden Visa:

• Is a residency program, not a direct citizenship sale.
• Has not been placed on OECD “high-risk” lists.
• Operates in a country that, in 2025, was named best-performing economy in the Eurozone by The Economist.

That doesn’t mean there’s no risk. But in the world of investment migration, it puts Portugal in the “respectable, and worth investigating further” camp, not the “might lose Schengen access next year” camp.

The Main Cons of Portugal’s Golden Visa

As with everything in life, there are cons as well as pros to Portugal’s Golden Visa. Let’s look at some potential downsides.

It’s expensive – and the investment can lose money

There’s no way around this.

Minimum numbers:

• €500,000 into a qualifying fund is the standard entry point.
• For a typical family of four, government fees can exceed €55 alone and then there are legal fees (anywhere from around €10,500 to €30,000 or more) and regular trips to Portugal to consider.

And, don’t forget:

• Investment funds can charge 1–2% per year in management fees, plus performance fees.
• Some funds are conservative, have fixed-returns, and are focused on capital preservation; most are more speculative.
• Many are illiquid – you won’t easily get your money back until after a mandatory holding period of 5+ years.

So your €500k is not just “parked”:

• It can grow, but it can also shrink.
• Your returns may or may not offset the fees and the opportunity cost.

There’s Legislative instability and “trust issues”

From an investor’s point of view, Portugal has made significant changes to the Golden Visa program over the past few years.

1. Real estate was removed as a Golden Visa option in 2023, after years of selling the programme as a property investment route.
2. The NHR Tax Regime – which wasn’t part of the Golden Visa program, but was popular with Golden Visa applicants – ended in 2023.

However, most people would accept that a country is allowed to change their Golden Visa program – as long as they gave reasonable warning to potential investors and honored those who had already invested.

In 2025, the government submitted a law that would double the time needed to qualify for citizenship, from 5 to 10 years or 7 for CPLP and some EU nationals (see the latest updates here). Controversially, the initially submitted law included no grandfathering for those who already had golden visa permits or who had applied for the program.

While the proposed law was vetoed by the constitutional court, and will go through changes in 2026, Portugal has shown it’s willing to do this quite abruptly, even when a lot of people are mid-process. Even the changes to real estate investment were announced somewhat out of the blue, although prospective investors were given several months to find a suitable property and make an investment.

There are Backlogs and messy family timelines

Portugal has struggled badly with immigration backlogs:

• As of June 2025, AIMA was still working on clearing a backlog of more than 45,000 golden visa applications that still needed review.
• As of October 2025, there were more than 133,000 lawsuits against AIMA – one of the most common ways to attempt to speed up the process – pending in the Lisbon administrative court.
• However, although AIMA started 2025 with a total backlog of more than 400,000 cases (all immigration types), the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, announced they had dealt with 93% of pending immigration cases as of October 2025.

On the plus side, it looks like AIMA is making some serious headway with the backlog. However, things still aren’t perfect. And even if your application processed, you may still have complications.

What this looks like in real life:

• The main applicant might get a biometrics slot months before their spouse or children.
• You can end up making multiple trips just to deal with staggered appointments.
• Lawyers spend a lot of time chasing AIMA for updates (and you may spend a lot of time chasing your lawyer for updates).

There can be a Currency risk involved

Everything about this programme happens in euros:

• Your €500,000 investment
• Your fees
• Your eventual returns
• Most likely your legal fees

Essentially, you’re adding FX exposure to an already complex decision. It might benefit you or it might not.

You Don’t Get The Lifestyle Benefits…Unless You Move

Most golden visa brochures discuss things like the great weather, beautiful beaches, food and wine, safety, and welcoming people.

But those things don’t really make a difference unless you actually spend significant time in Portugal. And, most golden visa permit holders, want to continue living the majority of their life elsewhere.

• You need to spend an average of 7 days per year in Portugal to meet the physical stay requirements.
• You can spend the full 365 days per year in Portugal if you wish.
• You typically need to spend less than 183 days per year, and not make Portugal your main place of residence, to avoid being considered a tax resident in Portugal.
• Most people find the sweet spot is somewhere between 3 and 6 months.

Of course, if you are willing to spend more time in Portugal, another visa (like the D7 or Digital Nomad Visa) might make more sense.

Here’s a simplified side-by-side comparison for 2026.

Core requirements

You’ll Need to Show “Ties” for Citizenship

The golden visa isn’t a citizenship by investment program, as mentioned. It’s a residency by investment program – and your are eligible to apply for citizenship through naturalization once you’ve “resided” in Portugal for the required period of time.

You’ll need to show an A2 level of Portuguese. Typically, this means passing the CIPLE (A2 exam), which is upper-beginner. Alternatively, you can take a 150-hour approved course, some of which are available online.

It’s a minor inconvenience, but knowledge of the local language is a common requirement for citizenship applications.

The bigger issue is the vaguer (but increasingly more important) requirement of showing “ties” to Portugal or the Portuguese community worldwide.

For those living in Portugal, it’s easier to put your kids into Portuguese school, join local clubs and organizations, and show strong ties to Portugal. If, on the other hand, you’re living in somewhere like the US or Canada and only visiting for 7 days per year, it’s hard to make those ties – unless you live in a part of the world where there’s a large Portuguese community.

According to Portuguese immigration lawyer, Sandra Gomes Pinto:

“I think one of the requirements is that you have to prove an effective connection with the Portuguese community, and I believe that will be more complicated in the future.

Since there are so many people applying, once they have Portuguese citizenship, they will have the civil and political rights of a European citizen, with the possibility to travel without a visa within 198 countries plus the right to work, live, or study in any European country. This is a big thing. I always mention that sooner or later, from a practical point of view, the Portuguese entities will be more demanding in terms of this requirement.”

Final Thoughts

If you can comfortably afford the investment, value long-term optionality, and are realistic about 10-year timelines and political risk, Portugal’s Golden Visa is still one of the strongest remaining tools in Europe.

If what you actually want is to move to Portugal, drink vinho verde at lunch, and explore the 365+ different ways to cook bacalhau, then the D7 or Digital Nomad visa is probably going to make more sense, at least financially.

And finally: this article is information, not advice. Before you transfer large sums of money or rearrange your life, speak to:

• A Portuguese immigration lawyer, and
• A tax advisor who understands both Portugal and your home country.

Portugal will still be here when you’re ready. The important thing is going in with your eyes open.