The Portuguese residency by investment, also known as the ARI Program, or Portuguese Golden Visa Program, has been the one of the most successful residency programs by investment in all Europe.

Since it started back in 2012, the program has evolved signification not only increasing the number of investing options available for investors interested in investing in Portugal, but also regarding the process itself. Nowadays, the program is still strong and with no deadline to expire.

So far, and what started in the recession period as a program to attract foreign investment to the country, has now evolved into a full operation recognized by the Portuguese government as a fundamental program to attract foreigner investment, more active population, and also acting as an engine for the development and rehabilitation of the existing urban real estate, as well as  continuing to support the booming  touristic sector.

Currently, we can say that the strongest points of the program are the options of investment, the low number of documents requirement, the minimum stay required, the fact there are no requirements regarding management experience, medical insurance, and a large number of family members that can be reunified. Those characteristics, among others, have made Portugal and the ARI Program a top option for expiates and foreigner investors to pick on the Portuguese program.

It is also true that the Portuguese residency program by investment has been experiencing some disruption, and we been having some delays, more noticeably in the last months and since the borders appear to be opening all over the world.

A part of the equation comes from the fact the program is, most likely, suffering from his own success. In terms of numbers, the GV Program has had an unexpected number of applications to be filled, to which the public services struggle to answer within the timeframe predicted. To this problem the Portuguese Ministry of Internal Affairs (MAI), which is the ministry responsible for the immigration services (SEF) has responded by improving the services provided.

However, when back in March 2020 Portugal was forced by the pandemic to lock down all services, the Program took a significant hit. On the one hand, the availability of the services for biometrics appointments available –  a mandatory step in the process decreased significatively, and on the other hand, even when the services were able to schedule biometric collection, the applicants had no availability or possibility to travel to Portugal due to their own restrictions.  This created a major backlog, that the Government is working on by means of sending notices for the scheduling of biometrics appointments, in a chronological order, to try and allow all participants to resume the process.

Following COVID-19, the public decision to reorganize the immigration services did not contribute to the needed stability, required to recover the backlog brought by the pandemic.  Thankfully, we recently received an update from the government that the planned transition to a new entity will not take place at once, it will occur in a more organic manner and we believe this decision will bring some consistency and will allow SEF to resume its normal activity.

More recently, Portugal faced an unexpected election last January when the previous colligation government was dissolved by the president, after failing to approve of the state budget.

And finally, as we all know, the existing war in Europe caused millions of refugees. Given that Portugal was one of the countries that welcomed these persons, there was a major need, during the last months,  to allocate SEF’s resources to provide assistance to the refugees fleeing to Portugal to escape the conflict.

We have been monitoring closely the situation since the beginning and putting all our efforts into contributing to create solutions that will allow our investors to continue a smooth path with their residencies in Portugal. In that sense, we have attended different meetings with the Government representatives and shared our views both regarding the impact of this disruption on our investors processes and to the country’s economy as well as presenting possible solutions to mitigate and help to resolve existing challenges. Our message has been focused on two major points: i) the reopening of the ARI platform, where the process is submitted and ii) the need to resume appointments for the collection of biometrics both regarding the initial submission of new processes and the renewal of existing ones.

According to the feedback received, our requests were registered, and we received indications that actions will take place shortly, given the importance of the Program to the country.

Concluding, the ARI program is still up and running following its last redrafting, as approved in February 2021. Furthermore, we expect to have good news to provide to our investors very shortly, since we already started seeing a positive change on the actions coming from SEF, namely the increasing number of pre-approvals and approvals received. 

Feel free to contact your case responsible should you require any further clarification or have and follow-up questions. We will continue to inform our investors of all new developments in this matter.