On Monday, Spain Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said, ‘Spain is to axe its so-called golden visa scheme under which foreign investors get residency for a 500,000-euro-investment in property, to rein the speculation blighting many Spanish cities’.
‘The government is going to do away with the so-called golden visa scheme that allows access to residency in exchange for investing 500,000 euros in property’, said Sanchez while visiting an area near the southern city of Seville.
‘At Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, the change will be approved and will allow the government to fight against speculative property investment, which is preventing many young people and families from accessing housing’, he adde..
The scheme was introduced in 2013 when the economy was struggling and Spain wanted to grab foreign capital by offering non-EU investors a three-year work and residency permit in exchange for investing at least 500,000 euros ($542,000) in property or a Spanish company.
‘Today, 94 out of every hundred visas of this nature are linked to property investment that is concentrated in large cities’, said Sanchez, pointing to Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, and Alicante in the south, Valencia in the east, and Spain’s Mediterranean Balearic Islands.
‘In the housing market such areas were experiencing a lot of tension, making it almost impossible for those living, working and paying taxes there to find decent housing’, said Sanchez.
Many countries in southern Europe in the recent months that set up similar schemes during the financial crisis have tightened the rules.
Portugal ended its golden visa programme in February 2023 which had pushed up house prices, and late last month, Greece tightened the rules on its own scheme, raising the required investment to as much as 800,000 euros.
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