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Local Spain
06-05-2025
- Business
- Local Spain
INTERVIEW: 'Spain's golden visa will return with a change of govt'
As of April 3rd 2025, the golden visa ceased to be an option for those wanting to gain residency in Spain by either buying property worth €500,000, investing €1 million in shares in Spanish companies, €2 million in government bonds, or transferring €1 million to a Spanish bank account. Now that this visa option is no more, what are the consequences? Have affluent non-EU nationals been left disappointed because they missed the deadline? And how are those who missed out now looking to pursue Spanish residency? The Local Spain spoke to three lawyers who specialised in the Spanish golden visa to see what's happened since. Mark McMillan from Sun Lawyers said: 'We rushed the last-minute visas through and quite a few with €1,000,000 deposited in Spanish bank accounts due to the time taken to process property purchases'. 'The disappointment with regards to the golden visa came from people who bought together with their spouses but could not apply due to their type of marital regime (separation of assets, which is the norm in the UK) and not having bought real estate for the mandatory €500,000€ each or at least in one sole name,' McMillan revealed. Immigration lawyer Mayrem Essadik, head of Marfour Law, was relieved that she managed to submit golden visa applications for all her clients before the deadline, but 'many have been forced to make the one-million-euro investment because their chosen properties are not yet ready to complete the process of purchase,' she told The Local Spain. 'We are very disappointed, as we believed that alternative investment options would remain available. In the end, many clients were left with no choice but to go with the €1 million bank investment – something that was not part of the original draft of the law,' she added. The primary reason given by the Spanish government for scrapping the golden visa scheme was the alleged impact wealthy foreigners have been having on Spain's housing market by buying up expensive homes locals couldn't afford and thus driving up prices, hence why the Barcelona-based lawyer can't understand why the golden visa's financial investment options have been cancelled as well. Essadik also highlighted another group of people who just missed out on Spain's golden visa – those who had bought off plan and whose properties were not yet complete. 'We have cases of clients who purchased properties in 2023, for example, but since the property won't be ready until June 2025, they have been affected. Although the purchase was already underway, they will not be able to qualify in time for the golden visa. This is the sad situation.' Maria Luisa de Castro from CostaLuz Lawyers told The Local she has several clients who missed out on the golden visa because they applied too late. 'Many clients contacted us too late, and given the uncertainty and tight deadlines, we chose not to take risks with timing. Unfortunately, some clients were hoping to benefit from the golden visa's advantage of not becoming tax residents in Spain, but they didn't manage to complete their property purchases in time'. Spain's visado de oro was one of the best residency options as it allowed holders to spend less than 183 days in Spain while still holding onto residency, and it didn't require them to become tax residents either. So now that the deadline has passed, what type of visa options are foreigners looking at to move to Spain? 'The non-lucrative visa (NLV) has clearly become the preferred option for many clients now,' explained de Castro. 'Many clients would have much preferred the golden visa, mainly for tax reasons. It offered them the flexibility to live in Spain without becoming tax residents — something the NLV does not allow,' she added. She also expressed that there's a growing interest in the digital nomad visa (DNV), 'although it requires meeting more specific conditions that not everyone can satisfy'. McMillan also believes that a lot of foreigners with that kind of capital needed for the golden visa have businesses or are working professionals, meaning that the DNV option open to them. 'The DNV route for people working remotely for foreign companies opens the way for access to the "Beckham's Law" (regimen especial aplicable a los trabajadores desplazados a territorio español) at a flat 24 percent tax on their salaried/invoiced incomes as a displaced worker which finally could be an extremely lucrative and tax-efficient way to live in Spain". McMillan is referring to the fact that if you work for a company abroad and get the DNV (not those who are self-employed) you may be able to benefit from the Beckham law, which means you can pay a flat tax rate of 24 percent instead of on a sliding scale. 'I am converting many golden visas to DNVs and advising a lot of people on coordinating the right setup to meet the criteria,' he explained. 'This is opening up an excellent alternative'. Nevertheless, Essadik believes that there fewer legal solutions to offer people who wish to move to Spain, and that 'the process is becoming less accessible overall'. The general consensus so far among property experts say that the abolishment of the golden visa won't have any impact on the general property market, nor on the luxury real estate sector. De Castro of CostaLuz Lawyers agrees with this view, believing that cancelling the golden visa will help Spain's housing crisis at all and believes it was a political decision. "The golden visa was not responsible for Spain's housing problems, and its cancellation has done nothing to solve them," she explained. "I'm convinced that once there is a change of government, the golden visa – or a similar programme – will return." Spain's golden visa was initially introduced by the right-wing Popular Party government of Mariano Rajoy in 2013 as a means of drawing international investments when the country was in the midst of an economic crisis. The PP's current leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has referred to Pedro Sánchez's decision to cancel the golden visa as a "smokescreen" to help "cover up" his "incompetence" vis-à-vis housing policy.
Local Spain
28-01-2025
- Business
- Local Spain
Spain's luxury property market to be 'unaffected' by end of golden visa
For over a decade, Spain's golden visa has granted residency to non-EU citizens who purchased a property worth over €500,000 or invested large sums of money in Spanish banks or companies. However, the residency scheme for wealthy foreigners is due to come to an end on April 3rd 2025. According to Spain's left-wing government, one of the main reasons for scrapping el visado de oro is that it will allegedly help to bring down property prices for ordinary Spaniards. Affluent non-EU property buyers have also been targeted by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez when recently announcing plans to either tax non-residents at a rate of 100 percent when purchasing homes, or completely ban from buying Spanish properties. "This doesn't make much sense because foreign investors are competing for housing that's out of the reach of middle-class or low-income locals," immigration and property lawyer Maryem Essadik, CEO of Barcelona-based Marfour Law, told The Local Spain. And it seems that even with regard to Spain's luxury property sector, the confirmed end of the golden visa scheme is doing little to dissuade rich foreign buyers. Citing examples in both the Balearic Islands and Madrid, real estate experts believe that that cancelling this visa option won't improve either the availability of high-class properties or their prices. These two regions are where most of Spain's luxury properties are bought, along with Valencia and the Costa del Sol. "There is excess demand in the Balearic archipelago for the purchase of luxury and super-luxury housing," the president of the Official College of Real Estate Agents (APIS) of the Balearic Islands, José Miguel Artieda told Spanish newspaper El Confidencial. According to the expert, the majority of buyers who want to purchase luxury properties in the Mediterranean islands are from the EU anyway, although they are starting to become more popular with Americans too. However, Artieda stresses that most of the US buyers are not looking to get their hands on the last of the golden visas as they simply purchase these villas and mansions for vacations or as an investment. Hans Lenz, president of the Balearic National and International Real Estate Association, ABINI, and director of Engel & Völkers Mallorca, agrees with the aforementioned point. In 2013, luxury home buyers in the Balearics who were granted golden visas mainly came from Russia, China and the Middle East, he explained to El Confidencial. 'The houses they bought were not for their own use, but to put them directly for rent, as an investment'. In this sense, it could be that Pedro Sánchez's claim that non-EU non-resident property buyers mainly purchase "to speculate" does have some truth to it - this being his reasoning for either taxing them or banning them from buying - but perhaps this applies more so vis-à-vis Spain's luxury property market than for conventional flats and homes. Data from Spain's Ministry of Inclusion and Social Security shows that in 2024 a total of 353 golden visas were granted for properties in the Balearics, which is a relatively small number when compared to the 4,000 property transactions in the islands' luxury real estate market last year. Lenz doesn't think that eliminating this small number of golden visa buyers will have any effect in a place where house prices have increased by 20 percent year on year, according to Rafael Santana, director of K&N Elite Madrid, believes this is also the case in Madrid. 'We haven't seen an acceleration in home purchases due to the end of the golden visa and we do not believe in a slowdown starting in April either,' he told property portal Idealista. Santana also pointed out that many buyers 'operate under companies and residence is not at the top of their priorities'. He added that Spain 'is an attractive country to invest in", suggesting that scrapping the golden visa will not change this fact. In this sense, it could mean that restricting foreign companies from investing could likely have a greater impact on the market than limiting individuals, as the end of the golden visa and potential supertax or ban on non-EU non-residents fixates on.
