Portugal’s Golden Visa in 2026: What Still Works, and What’s a Sales Pitch
If someone quotes you €280,000 for a Portuguese Golden Visa through property, they are selling you 2022. The real estate route — the old €280k, €350k and €500k thresholds — stopped granting residency in October 2023, when the Mais Habitação law removed it entirely. The figures still circulate in brochures and webinars because they sound attractive. They just no longer correspond to anything you can apply for.
The programme itself is very much alive. What changed is where the money goes.
The main route in 2026 is investment funds: from €500,000 into qualifying venture or private equity funds. The fund cannot hold real estate, must keep at least 60% of its capital in Portuguese companies, and you hold the position for five years. For most applicants this has become the default — it is passive, regulated, and doesn’t require running anything on the ground.
The other routes are narrower but real:
- Support for cultural or heritage projects from €250,000, dropping to €200,000 in low-density areas.
- Scientific research from €500,000.
- Creating at least ten jobs in Portugal.
Why choose Portugal over other EU investment programmes? Presence requirements. Most residency schemes quietly assume you will actually move. Portugal asks for 7 days in the first year, then 14 days in each subsequent two-year period. You can keep your life, your business and your tax base elsewhere while the residency clock runs.
One correction on that clock. The “passport in five years” line you may have heard is out of date. Since 19 May 2026, under Lei Orgânica 1/2026, citizenship requires 7 years of legal residence for nationals of EU and Portuguese-speaking countries, and 10 years for everyone else. Permanent residence, however, is still available after 5 years — and for many families that status delivers most of what they actually wanted from the passport.
Applications go through AIMA (aima.gov.pt), the agency that replaced SEF in 2023. Timelines are the programme’s weakest point, which makes a clean, complete first submission worth more than any amount of chasing afterwards.
If you are weighing the fund route against the alternatives — or checking whether an offer you’ve received is built on current law — book a free consultation and we will walk through the numbers with you.