No End Date Yet for Spain's Golden Visa Program
From waiting for a builder to turn up or sorting out paperwork, things can take a long time to happen in Spain. That slow pace is also part of the appeal, but this also applies to the legal process around the ending of the golden visa scheme, which is to many buyers’ advantage.
The Spanish government announced that the golden visa scheme – the route to residency via investment in real estate worth at least €500,000 – will be ending. Around 10,000 of this visas have been issued to non-EU investors since 2013. But there’s been mounting opposition to these schemes across Europe for pushing up house prices in cities, and other countries like Portugal have ended their versions.
Spain’s left-wing Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun called the schemes a ‘European disgrace’, saying that ‘it cannot be that someone is given a residence permit for the fact of being rich; this is creating first and second-class citizens’. But Spain’s announcement was in February 2024 and at the moment it is only a draft of a law that the Government wants to pass. It needs the approval for the Parliament (requiring more than 50% of the votes) and then an end date will be announced.
“It can still be modified and it is not yet certain what will happen to the golden visa,” says Vicente García, Lawyer and Fiscal Advisor at Legal Luris. “If this happens it will be within some months. I do not think this will be before the end of the year – but with this Government we can never know.”. He says it is possible to apply right now and that his company are making new applications. Sometimes this can be processed within three to four weeks.
So, what are the rules?
You need to spend at least €500,000 (unmortgaged) on a property (or properties) but that sum needs to be in one person’s name – if a couple buy the property they are deemed to own only €250,000 each.
You then get a residency permit, and the key advantage is that this can be extended to family members, you are allowed to work in Spain on this visa, you do not have to become tax resident (which you do become by spending 183 days there per year) and you can travel within the Schengen area without a visa. The high entry point means that the golden visa has not been as popular as the Non-Lucrative-Visa (NLV), the route to Spanish residency for many British families and retirees right now.
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Read more:
- Buying a Spanish Property - How Much Does It Actually Cost?
- Number of foreign buyers in Spain higher than before the pandemic
- The Pros and Cons of the Spanish Non-Lucrative Visa
