“CITIZENSHIP must not be up for sale,” said Viviane Reding, then a vice-president of the European Commission, last year. Residency, it seems, is another matter. Though not as brazen as the small Caribbean states that sell foreigners passports for a few hundred thousand dollars, roughly half of the members of the European Union now offer long-term visas to big foreign investors. America has done so since 1990; Britain since 1994. In 2012 and 2013 Greece, Portugal, and Spain piled in, hoping to succour their sickly economies.
Such visas do not come cheap. Britain just raised its price: would-be residents must now invest £2m ($3.1m). The Portuguese government offers one of the least expensive schemes, but its cut-price offering still involves putting €500,000 ($560,000) into property (see chart).
Despite the steep price tag, demand has been surging, thanks in part to Chinese millionaires. So far, 80% of visas granted under Portugal’s scheme have gone to applicants from China. In 2014 90% of American investor visas were awarded to Chinese, up from 19% a decade earlier. There have been more Chinese applicants to the...Continue reading
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