Portugal's Golden Visa is Dead And So Are Three Others

three popular residents and citizenship programs have been eliminated for good in just the last couple of weeks and one more is rumored to be on the chopping block today I'm going to tell you what's happening and why and what alternatives exist so that you can create your plan B [Music] hi I'm Andrew Henderson and Nomad capitalists were always monitoring residence programs and citizenship programs all around the world because we offer pretty much every program that exists out there and so we've seen three programs get permanently eliminated just in the last few weeks starting on January 1st Montenegro citizenship by investment program gets citizenship in a matter of months by buying real estate making a donation along with it that had been extended for a year there was talk at the last minute it might be extended further as it had been the first time ostensibly under pressure from the European Union it is now gone that citizenship program off the table that was a unique one uh in the last week or so Ireland came out it has a lesser-known golden Visa it was largely offered to Chinese investors those were the biggest uh investors called the iip program it was not a path to citizenship unless you lived there there were potentially tax benefits if you did live there but it was the ability need to live in an English-speaking country with either a donation or an investment into Irish REITs or Irish business that has now been gone ostensibly for geopolitical reasons the big one we had hoped there would be some salvaging this at least in some way but the worst possible outcome happened in recent days in Portugal the country's golden Visa program gone for good the government coming out with the backing of a lot of people in the public who are frustrated seeing property prices go up and they're using that as the scapegoat to cancel Portugal's golden Visa program now neighboring Spain saying that if they don't cancel their program they're going to push to have the real estate option removed property prices in Portugal have appreciated much more since the Advent of its golden bees than the property prices in other countries including Spain and so those are four programs that either have been canceled or maybe on the chopping block and I want to talk about what this means for you well we've been saying for a long time Europe at least politically has an issue with rich people I think Ireland and I think Switzerland are somewhat removed from that what we did see last year the UK closed down its investor visa program uh I'm the Advent of the Russia Ukraine war their position was we don't want Russians coming in Russians were 18 so there's geopolitical reasons those are often used as a foil as well but the idea in Continental Europe is politicians want to position people who come in and invest and get residents as a problem now you can still if you want to move to Portugal you can still say hey here's my income I'm going to come to Portugal I'm going to spend a majority of the time here I'm going to have to pay tax okay and they have a tax incentive program but it's not perfect especially for for very high earners that still exists those programs still exist if you want to go and buy property in Europe you could still do that whether you want to get one of these residence permits that are a little bit you know based on living there right so in Portugal self-sufficient Visa many other countries have those France has one a lot and Dora has won a lot of countries in that part of Europe have one Austria has one if you want to move to these countries and live there and pay tax you can eventually even qualify for citizenship but there's not going to be any special conditions what Portugal offered was you get the best of both worlds you have access to live in Europe if you want you can spend time in Portugal or not minimum time required to keep the golden Visa active was seven days it's basically a summer vacation but yet you and your entire family could work towards Portuguese citizenship there was a rather basic language requirement and yes we were revising our clients to set up some other connections with the country you know do establish some ties maybe give to some Charities maybe you join a gym maybe you do some things to actually have a connection to the country you know just treat it as a citizenship but if you uh renewed your golden Visa you could get citizenship without having to move that option really will no longer exist in Europe because there are other golden visas such as Spain next door if they don't cancel it Greece has one Malta has a permanent residence program Cyprus has one Italy has one and they've actually become more competitive they're talking about even adding a real estate option those countries are all going to require you to live there to get citizenship the timeline to get citizenship even if you live there is often longer such as 10 years in Spain and Italy I believe that countries like Greece and I've thought this for a long time don't want to naturalize people who are not ethnically Greek so even if you spend every day there for a number of years I'm not convinced they will give it to you by the way last year we saw the cancellation of Bulgaria's Fast Track program which wasn't exactly a golden visa and it wasn't exactly a citizenship by investment it was kind of in between but the goal the idea here is that Europe does not want people to invest money and get anything special uh they are basically following the program that the United States has and that's eb5 investor program where sure you can invest but then you better come and live here you better come and pay tax don't leave very often and then we'll consider if we're going to give you citizenship so if you want to move to Europe this isn't the worst news because there's still plenty of countries in Europe uh many of them tax friendly that will give you a self-sufficient Visa that if you're retired will give you a retirement Visa they have various different programs whether it's Ireland Portugal Spain France and Dora Greece uh Austria all over Europe Cyprus Malta you can move to these countries you're just going to pay tax and you have to change your lifestyle for folks who wanted that great Portugal passport a t or a passport that lets you visit the United States Canada Australia New Zealand that gives you freedom of movement to live anywhere you want in Europe if you're Portuguese you can live in Ireland you just go you can live in Austria you can live in Germany you can live anywhere you want so what we've gone from now is a situation where essentially if you've got a proper investment and you weren't buying from some slick developer the way we were telling you when we were telling our clients uh you know I generally avoided the Slick investors um if you made a decent investment your opportunity cost us densely could be zero because you had some legal fees you had some time costs to get your golden Visa set up you had to travel there but if you made a decent investment it's at least feasible that you could earn all those costs back by the time the investment was returned to you in six seven ten twelve years whatever it may be your next best option now if you can afford it is malta's exceptional investor naturalization program which it's again kind of a hybrid of a citizenship by investment but it's more due diligence it's a longer timeline it takes about 18 months and you'll get citizenship in Malta so there's no language requirement in the language is English um it's gonna take only 18 months but it's going to cost you close to a million dollars a little bit less not that the euro is is lower against the dollar but that's your alternative from almost zero investment costs but just tying up you know money in Portugal for a while to now sure give us a million bucks and you don't have to wait and you don't have to learn the language and you only have to come once because when you're applying you just come for several weeks uh that's that's the alternative now and so if you have an eight-figure net worth or greater and you want to have the one of the best passports in the world because you just want a solid backup plan to your current passport maybe you're an American who thinks you may not always be an American and you don't want to lower the quality of your travel privileges your citizenship if you ever expatriated from the United States all right you can get Caribbean citizenship for a fraction of the price of what you can get multi-citizenship for and faster but you're not going to be able to go to the U.S or Canada or Australia without a Visa so if you want that top-tier citizenship Portugal offered it to you it had been rather slow recently but eventually you would have gotten there and so for folks who didn't want to wait Malta was always an option now it's your only option so you need to decide if I'm looking at Europe do I want residents or do I want citizenship now you might say hey Europe they don't want rich people why do I want to bother well the answer is you might not this might be pushing you in the direction to say why do I even want Europe and my portfolio at all but again it comes down to our audience is Western okay and so I understand the Western mentality I'm also a lifelong entrepreneur I understand the entrepreneur mentality and so people don't want to reduce the quality of what they have there's this idea that I'm American and even though I may complain about the United States you know we have the best passport and I think some people would have an ego problem it would be a blow to their ego to have to travel around the world being Dominican I've done it I've built a portfolio of passports there's not a lot of places in the world that I can't go and quite frankly I say who cares you have the occasional person that you meet who kind of Snickers at you great who cares if you can afford these programs who cares but if you like the ability to have a top tier passport and if you like the fact that being a citizen of a European Union member State means you can move around that's certainly a certain amount of Plan B in and of itself if I'm a Maltese citizen I can live in Malta but I can also go to tax friendly Cyprus or any of the other tax-friendly countries in the European Union and so if something happens um whether it's a tax event whether it's a cultural event or a social event whether it's the next pandemic whatever it may be kind of close you know give or take 30 countries you're going to have a bunch of different options and so you may need fewer residence permits in your portfolio if you can say hey well I'm Maltese and the coolest place to go now is is Estonia I can just go to Estonia right and I can take advantage of whatever it is they have to offer and if three years from now Estonia no longer serves me you know I can go to Ireland or I can go to Switzerland or I can go to Portugal and so you have this kind of built-in optionality where you have a block of countries that you can live between but you don't have to necessarily you get to kind of pick and choose and Shop between them uh the same way that you might pick and choose as an American to move from California to Arizona or maybe you'd prefer Texas or Florida if you don't like Florida you can move back somewhere else that's kind of what it gets so you've got to make a decision two decisions to make number one how does citizenship and how does residents plan into my plan B A lot of folks just like the idea of living in Europe because it gives them something uh I personally believe that Ireland and Switzerland of the best options if you want to live somewhere because of the organization because I don't know the English language because of the quality of the people and and because you can do so if you're a foreigner uh on a tax-friendly basis I think those are two countries worth considering they don't get enough play both will allow you to move there um if you start a business or if you just go through their lump sum tax program in Switzerland okay so some people just like the idea of living in in Europe and so you may not even need a golden Visa still golden visas exist um you know you shouldn't use technically a Greek golden visa to say hey I'm going to go and spend all my time in Austria but you at least have access to the Schengen area and to Europe where you can go and you know visit Austria without having to go as a tourist uh and so that could work you could also look at self-sufficient visas which Portugal will still have many other countries still have so the goal is to live there right golden Visa does not require you to live there now but it gives the optionality whenever you want to turn it on so hey let me get my golden Visa set up in Europe three years from now I plan to leave Canada and I want it waiting for me and I don't want to risk any more program closures or any more changes that's a golden Visa hey I'm ready to move now let me set up myself sufficient residence permit that's going to be an even easier option and those generally don't require much if any investment if the goal is just living in Europe then that may be fine live in Europe as a citizen of some other country um nothing wrong with that right I think Europe to a large extent does not discriminate against people from other countries we have seen you know Turks for example they have a citizenship by investment program they've had a harder time getting European Visa appointments but I think if you're a Caribbean citizen I push back against some of what the industry says that if you try and get a residence permit as a sink kid's a Nevis citizen the European countries are going to turn up their nose and and kick you out all right so if you want a citizenship you may go to a Caribbean country and then get residents where you want but if your goal is to renounce U.S citizenship in the future if if you're saying hey I'm Indian and I just need a really good quality passport because I'm tired of getting visas malt is your best option otherwise look at the remaining golden visas or look at self-sufficient visas depending on when you're looking to move obviously if you have ancestry citizenship by descent can still apply and listen it may take you years it's going to take you longer than Malton in all likelihood but it's probably not going to take you longer unless something happens along the way where you find out you don't qualify it's probably not going to take you longer than it would have taken you under Portugal so if you have an Irish grandparent if you've got an Italian great grandparent if you've got a Slovakian great grandparent now or Bulgarian or in a number of countries Nomad capitalist is now offering a citizenship by descent service we've improved it and we've brought it back to where we will just handle that for you it is more involved than you think there are documents to be dug up in many cases but we are now handling that and you can just email us at help at nomadcapital.com but here's what I want you to take away from this okay citizenship understand if you can get it golden Visa if you want optionality self-sufficient visas and residence permits and similar if you are ready to move now and then citizenship for citizenship's sake here's what I'll tell you 10 years ago when we started Nomad capitalist and we just celebrated in Istanbul with much of our team from around the world uh our 10-year anniversary the Hong Kong Capital uh investment entrance scheme was on its way out you basically had to put your money in the bank or into stocks you may have well if you were a high net worth individual done that anyway it really was very straightforward there were a lot of benefits Hong Kong was the number one economy in the world back then and then they canceled it and we've seen numerous programs I've been telling you all throughout the years these programs come and go and people want to act again I know Western I know entrepreneurs I know that we you know at times have an ego I think we can solve any problem Portugal doesn't care that you're American they don't differentiate Americans versus pakistanis they don't care they're closing the program to everybody because they're tired of people coming in through the golden Visa if you got your golden Visa or if you're already in the queue and you're being processed then you'll be fine but if you missed another opportunity you could sit here and say as Western entrepreneurs in some cases are one to do that oh you know I'm sure there'll always be something for me or you can realize that a lot of countries somewhere in the world are starting to look more inward they no longer cares much about the money there's political reasons for that and you can say well then I don't want them okay there's an argument for that but guess what they wanted you for many many years you chose not to take advantage of it right and so I think it's time to take some inventory of do you want to plan b or not no medical this helps people build residents and citizenship portfolios and we'll walk you through by the way maybe you don't need citizenship in Malta if the citizenship in the top tier countries what you need then that's probably your best option right now it's going to cost you a lot it cost you a heck a lot more than what it's going to cost a week ago and so maybe that's the price of waiting uh but maybe you don't need citizenship there maybe you need two other citizenships and you just need a residence permit in Europe and again that dictates how long you're willing to spend there there's so many different programs Nomad capitalist uh works with all of them we've developed procedures and protocols and Sops and and knowledge based on pretty much every program on Earth not only in Europe but in Latin America in Asia everywhere except for moving to the U.S so Australia and New Zealand we can help you do that we have help folks and so you're looking for someone now who can help you navigate how many citizenships how many residences you need and how your life is going to change because some people want to move now I think that's generally a Savvy idea because you never know when the next Black Swan event is going to happen you want to be in a place that you feel comfortable and that you trust but if you're not willing to move now then that needs to be factored into your plan what I want you to take away from this is sitting around and doing nothing and thinking these options will always be available as for the last decade proven to be a very incorrect strategy I have citizenships and I have residences that no longer exist the citizenships as long as they were obtained correctly and you were honest will be yours for life the residences generally speaking will be renewed under the conditions in which you've got them you can eventually get citizenship if that's something that country offers um but you know being grandfathered into its benefits and so you need to figure out what it is that you want no my accomplice is happy to help you uh we were not one of these companies that went all in the golden visa and treated it as the ailment for every ill it had a place in some people's portfolios and it didn't have a place in other people's portfolios and so you've got a lot of folks now who are going to be struggling to figure out what they're going to pitch next when we've been working with well over 100 residents and citizenship programs all over the world from the beginning and so we'll be happy to help you do that but what I want you to learn from this is again you went if you want European citizenship for whatever reason and you're not willing to move and you're not willing to pay tax you just went from a zero opportunity cost to a million dollar opportunity cost practically overnight let's make sure we don't make things even more difficult contact uh us at Nomad Campbell's today and figure out how we can make a plan for you that stops you missing out on the remaining good options and maybe helps you take advantage of some options that aren't as well publicized that could be good for you too

Channel: Nomad Capitalist

Views: 113,804

Keywords: nomad capitalist, go where you're treated best, second passport, dual citizenship, second citizenship, andrew henderson, life abroad, best places to live, moving to another country, travel around the world, where to live, leaving america, how to invest, Portugal's Golden Visa is Dead And So Are Three Others, investing for beginners, personal finance, real estate investing, taxes, leaving usa, moving to europe, best countries to move to, where to move, europe vs usa

Id: YLvRbDSd0GU

Length: 17min 55sec (1075 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 20 2023