Spain’s ‘golden visa’ has become extremely popular after neighboring country Portugal scrapped a similar scheme. It is not clear how many wealthy foreigners received their money.

It is not known exactly how many non-EU citizens have entered Spain since 2013 thanks to the Golden Visa. The last number published by the government in Madrid is from the end of 2022. Until that year, the counter stood at 11,464. These are people who obtained the visa directly because they brought half a million euros or more to Spain. Once they settled in Spain, they were allowed to bring their family members. The statistics do not mention the number of people in the same category.

It was always controversial

The Golden Visa has always been controversial because it did not ask for anything other than a person’s assets. However, Spain introduced the scheme in 2013, as did Greece, Italy and Portugal. The four countries did so because they were in dire financial need. They have relied on support packages from the European Union to avoid bankruptcy. The idea was that after investing half a million, rich foreigners would also bring the rest of their money to southern European countries.

Prime Minister Sanchez says he will cancel the Golden Visa because the scheme causes house prices to rise. But according to housing market experts, this is not true at all. “The measures announced will have no impact on the real estate market,” says Francisco Iñarreta of the housing website Idealista, similar to Funda. Iñarita: “The number of people who received this golden visa represents 0.1 percent of all homes sold in recent years.”

Pressure from the European Union

Like Portugal, Italy and Greece, Spain has felt increasing pressure from Brussels to abolish the death penalty. The European Union wants to get rid of all golden visas. “This scheme is being used by oligarchs, criminals and corrupt politicians, who buy their way into Europe while laundering their money, image and identity,” said Saskia Bricmont, a member of the European Parliament (Greens), who has campaigned to abolish the death penalty.

It is impossible to say to what extent Bricmont was right, because the background of those who used the Golden Visa is unknown. What was recorded was their nationalities. The Chinese are by far the largest group who came to Spain: 43.5 percent. They are followed by the Russians with more than 18%. In recent years, many Britons who wanted to remain residents of the European Union after Brexit have also come.

Different ways to obtain a visa

The Golden Visa can be obtained in different ways in Spain. The easiest and most common way was to buy a house for at least 500,000 euros. This was done by 95 percent of foreigners who wanted to obtain a permanent residence permit.

The Golden Visa was also waiting for entrepreneurs who moved their company, or part of it, to Spain, thus creating job opportunities. Once you have a residence permit in your pocket, you can travel freely within the Schengen Area.

There is only one country left in the EU where there is a scheme that goes a step further than the Golden Visa scheme. In Malta, non-EU residents can obtain a Maltese passport if they invest at least €600,000 in the island’s economy. There are some additional conditions.

What Malta is doing is a thorn in the side of other EU countries.

The impact cannot be measured

It has not been proven whether golden visa programs have actually generated economic benefits for the countries that created them. According to Transparency International, a European anti-corruption agency, this is because countries did not keep clear statistics. According to the agency, this was intentionally done to prevent corruption from coming to light.

In this way, the book on golden visas in southern Europe is closed without it being clear exactly who used them, how many people were there, and whether the users were mainly beneficiaries or countries that were in financial need.