Most gold visas are granted in Madrid and Barcelona, where the housing market is “tense”, Pedro Sánchez explained.
Spain will put an end to ‘golden visas’ obtained by buying a house, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Monday, April 8, without giving a date for the measure to be implemented.
These ‘gold visas’ mean that residence permits are granted to people who make a minimum investment of half a million euros in real estate and, in the case of Spain, they are in force under a law passed in 2013.
At its meeting this week, on Tuesday, Spain’s Council of Ministers will begin “the procedure to eliminate” ‘golden visas’ , Pedro Sánchez said this Monday in the municipality of Dos Hermanas, in Seville, during a visit to a public housing project.
In Spain, 94 out of every 100 of these types of visas (which result from investments by foreigners in the country) are granted with the purchase of housing, said the government leader.
Sánchez justified the end of the measure – as other European countries have already done, including Portugal – with the difficulties in accessing”decent housing” in Spain, “the main problem” faced by families and young people.
Most of the ‘gold visas’ are granted in cities and regions such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, Malaga or the Balearic Islands, precisely where “the housing market is most tense”, stressed Sánchez, who made this announcement in the middle of the electoral period in Spain, where there will be three elections in less than two months (regional in the Basque Country and Catalonia and European).
In Portugal, the proposal to end the granting of new ‘gold visas’ for investment in housing was approved in July last year.
The rule repealing ‘golden visas’ was one of the proposals of the Mais Habitação (More Housing ) program and, with the entry into force of the new law, new applications will no longer be accepted, which does not affect the possibility of renewing permits that have already been granted.
The granting or renewal of residence permits for family reunification was also excluded from the limitation on ‘gold visas’ .
