EU: Over 132,000 obtain citizenship via European Residency & Citizenship Investment Programs

Brussels: More than 132,000 people have obtained citizenship through Residency and Citizenship Investment programs offered in European countries, such as Portugal, Greece, Italy, and Spain, for a period from 2011 and 2019.

Such conclusions have been reached in the recent report of Biz News, which notes that the difficulty of obtaining a visa via these schemes has not significantly increased, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

Besides, in 2022, 1,218 golden visas were issued by authorities in Portugal. At the same time, in the first six months of this year, the country saw 861 applications, compared to 624 submitted last year’s same period.

Greece received a total of 4,365 golden visa applications last year, of them 2,432 in the last quarter of 2022 alone.

In Italy, there were granted 79 golden visas last year, the majority of them to Russians, Americans, and Britons. This is about double the amount of the previous year.

Authorities in Spain granted a total of 2,462 golden visas last year, thus accounting for an increase of 60 per cent from 2021 statistics.

As for Ireland, the country received 1,16 applications for the golden visa program in 2022, while from January to May 25, 2023, there were recorded a total of 1,350 golden visa applications.

However, the report of Biz News says that the uncertain future of this kind of visa leads to a surge in demand and interest in alternative options such as the digital nomad visa.