This is a website for buyers, owners, and sellers of property in Spain, offering reliable information and resources to help you get things done with confidence. It is run by Mark Stücklin, author of the Spanish Property Doctor Column in The Sunday Times (2005-2008), and the book ‘Need to Know: Buying Property in Spain’ published by Collins.
Mark StücklinInterest in the Spanish ‘Golden Visa’ scheme plummeted last year according to new figures reported in the Spanish press. This undermines the case made by politicians calling for the scheme to be closed down on the grounds that ‘Golden Visa’ investors drive up house prices for locals.
There were just 136 so-called ‘Golden Visas’ issued to real-estate investors from outside the EU in the course of 2022, a decline of 72% compared to last year, 66% compared even to the pandemic lockdown year of 2020, and 80% compared to 2019, when interest in the scheme was at its peak.
These figures were recently reported at the Spanish online news site elEconomista.es and other online news outlets, but have not been officially verified by the Spanish government. elEconomista says it was provided the figures by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Why the big decline in the Spanish Residency by investment scheme that offers conditional residency and a path to citizenship in return for certain kinds of investment, including €500,000 invested in real estate, known popularly as a ‘Golden Visa’? “This fall can be explained by the distrust of investors in the current Spanish government,” Gonzalo Bernardos, an economics professor at Barcelona University, and property market expert, told elEconomista. “Also because tax rates are higher in Spain than competitor countries, and it’s more difficult to do real estate deals. It all adds up.”
Other factors contributing to the decline last year were the ban on Russian investors as a consequence of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and zero-covid travel restrictions on Chinese investors. Russians and Chinese have been the biggest investors in Spanish Golden Visas since the start of the scheme in 2013.
There is also a map of demand for Golden Visas in 2022 broken down by country published by elEconomista.es, a copy of which is below. China was once again the biggest market, followed by the Philippines and the UK. All the visas granted to Russian investors were processed before Putin’s invasion at the end of February 2021.
Spanish politicians have been calling for Spain’s Golden Visa scheme to be wound up because they claim it causes “housing speculation” and drives up the price of housing for locals. These figures confirm that Golden Visa demand is too small to have any impact on the Spanish housing market. A better argument in favour of scrapping the scheme is it’s too insignificant to justify wasting public resources on keeping it going.
