In spite of the fact that Portugal’s Residency-by-Investment scheme was launched in 2013, the Cultural Heritage option was officially introduced in 2020.
Portugal’s Golden Visa Program offers residency to wealthy foreigners who choose one of its options to make a financial investment. Through the Cultural Heritage option, internationals can make investments that help preserve Portugal’s cultural heritage.
Since 2020, about €22.15 million in investments have been registered through Portugal’s Cultural Heritage Option, according to a report from Imi Daily.
Madalena Monteiro of Liberty Legal, who secured the statistics from Centro Português de Fundações (CPF), told Imi Daily that the cultural investment pathway has shown exceptional increase throughout 2024-2025 “accelerated by the abolishment of the real estate investment option”.
The report reveals that in the first quarter of 2025 alone, this pathway has brought a total of €850,100 in Portugal, funding a total of 38 cultural projects across Portugal.
Acceleration of Golden Visa Applications Processing
In February this year, authorities in Portugal announced that they are planning to accelerate the processing of Golden Visa applications.
Portugal’s Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) unfolded plans to digitalise its paper-based application system, therefore reducing the waiting times.
It means that AIMA will schedule biometric appointments within a period of 30 to 90 days after foreign investors complete their online applications. In addition, an immigration lawyer, Lisbon-based FiO Legal, Bettino Zanini, told Bloomberg News that the agency would also accept untranslated documents in other languages such as Spanish, French and English.
The lawyer also told Bloomberg News that nearly half of his 50 golden visa clients have sued Portugal due to long processing delays.
Portugal’s Golden Visa Program is among Europe’s most famous ones of this kind. In spite of the fact that the country’s government removed the real estate investment option from this scheme to deal with the housing crisis, it continues to attract a large number of internationals.
Since 2012, when the program was officially launched, it brought to Portugal more than €7 billion ($7.2 billion).
