Overseas investment in Portugal’s Authorisation for Residency through Investment (ARI), also dubbed Golden Visa, fell 43% in July to €56 million, representing a fall of 42.9% like-for-like on the same month in 2019. The investment was down 37% in June.
Last month, 108 Golden Visas were issued, of which 98 were via property purchases (37 for urban rehabilitation) and 10 by capital transfer.
Golden Visas attributed from the purchase of real estate in July totalled €50.3 million (urban rehabilitation projects represented €13.1 million) and capital transfers €5.7 million.
The nationalities of the applicants for July were Chinese (21), United States (12), Brazil (9), Vietnam (eight) and Lebanon (seven).
The amount of investment attracted for the year so far has reached €439 million, a 37% fall on the first seven months of 2019. Between January and June, 808 Golden Visas were issued by the Portuguese authorities.
In just over seven years the ARI, which was launched in October 2012, as attracted almost €5.5 billion, of which nearly €5 billion was from property purchases.
The drop is thought to be due to travel restrictions meaning that buyers from many key markets have been unable to visit Portugal during the pandemic. Real estate professionals also note that the drop in Golden Visa sales has had little to no impact on the Algarve property market, considering that the regime has mostly attracted buyers to the Greater Lisbon area.
 and 10 by capital transfer.){kind=link}