Americans Top Portugal's Golden Visa List Again as Grants Climb 29 Percent to 2,685, but AIMA No Longer Reports the Money Invested

Portugal granted 2,685 residence permits for investment in 2025, the scheme better known as the golden visa, according to the annual Relatório de Migrações e Asilo (Migration and Asylum Report) of AIMA, the Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo (Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum). That is 29 percent more than the 2,081 recorded for 2024, and it is the highest main-applicant figure in any of the three annual reports AIMA has published since it replaced the old borders service in October 2023.

The figures drew attention on Friday after Público and ECO reported that 2025 was the busiest year since the programme opened in October 2012. They also noted something missing: the report no longer says how much money the permits brought in.

Who is applying

Americans lead for another year. The report's chart of the most represented nationalities gives:

• United States: 535 (406 in 2024)
• China: 392 (296)
• United Kingdom: 252 (147)
• Turkey: 188 (128)
• India: 170 (140)
• Russia: 160 (248)
• Brazil: 154 (98)
• South Africa: 97 (100)

British applicants rose by more than two thirds and moved from fourth place to third. Russia is the only large nationality to fall, dropping from third to sixth. Some reports on Friday described Russian investors as returning to the programme in 2025; AIMA's own 2024 report shows they were already third that year.

The main permits are only part of the picture. AIMA also issued 3,967 family reunification permits linked to investors in 2025, under Article 98 of the foreigners law, up from 2,909 in 2024. Counting families, the scheme produced about 6,650 new residence permits last year.

What the report leaves out

Until 2023 the Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (Immigration and Borders Service, SEF) published monthly golden visa statistics, split by type of investment and with the capital invested. ECO calculates that from October 2012 to September 2023, SEF recorded 12,718 permits and 6,451 million euros of investment. AIMA's reports give a single annual total and a nationality chart. There is no investment figure, no split by route and no monthly series. ECO puts the number granted since SEF closed at 5,536, which would bring the total to 18,254, with nothing public on what those later permits invested.

That makes it impossible to tell from official data which of the remaining routes is driving the growth. Buying property has not qualified since the 2023 Mais Habitação (More Housing) reforms. The routes that remain, as defined in the glossary of AIMA's own report, are: creating 10 jobs; transferring at least 500,000 euros to scientific research, to non-real-estate collective investment funds, or to create or strengthen a Portuguese company with five to ten permanent jobs; or transferring at least 250,000 euros to artistic production or cultural heritage. Each must be maintained for at least five years.

A word of caution on the comparisons

AIMA's reports do not count the same way every year. The 2023 report gave 2,901 investment permits for that year, but said 1,554 of them were family reunification, which leaves about 1,350 for main applicants. The 2024 and 2025 reports count main applicants and family members separately. On either reading, 2025 is the busiest year AIMA has reported. The claim that it beats every year since 2012 depends on SEF's older series, which AIMA does not republish.

The growth comes as the programme's value for many investors is under challenge. This year's nationality law reform lengthened the residence period required for citizenship, and golden visa holders have been organising a collective challenge to it since May. For the wider migration picture from the same report, including the 1.59 million foreign residents it counts, see our report of 22 September. The rules for applicants are in our golden visa guide.