Spanish Government Takes Concrete Steps To Scrap The Entire ‘Golden Visa’ Scheme
The Spanish government is taking concrete steps to close down the entire Spanish Golden Visa scheme, not just the real estate investment avenue.
Back in April of this year the Spanish government, a coalition of Socialists and the hard Left, announced plans to remove real estate investments from the Spanish so-called ‘Golden Visa’ residency-by-investment scheme (a fancy name for selling visas) without saying when it would happen. Since then the government has been silent on the issue, and it’s been business as usual for the Spanish Golden Visa, though everybody knew its days were numbered.
This week the government has taken concrete steps in parliament to close down not just the property investment avenue of the Spanish Golden Visa, but the entire scheme itself. On Wednesday the Socialist party proposed amendments in parliament that get the legislative ball rolling on closing down the Spanish Golden Visa.
Real estate was always the most popular investment by a wide margin, so the government must have come to the conclusion that there was no point in maintaining the scheme without real estate. According to government figures, just 5.7pc of the 15,450 Golden Visas granted between 2013 and 2023 were for investments other than property, such as putting €2m in Spanish government bonds, or €1m in a Spanish bank. The Spanish Golden Visa scheme was nothing without real estate.
How long will it take before the Spanish Golden visa scheme is closed down now that parliament is working on it? The government hasn’t given a specific date but it is reasonable to expect the process to wrap up sometime after the summer, and almost certainly before the end of the year.
