Golden visa and citizenship programs accept active and passive investments, sometimes both. What are they? Let us try to have a quick insight into these investments, how it benefits governments and from a investors point of view.

Active Investment

An active investment is usually where you put your capital at risk. For example investing in a business and creating jobs in exchange for golden visa or a citizenship. Active investments bring economic benefit to countries.

Example, UK tier1 investor visa, US EB-5 are active investment models.

Passive Investment

Passive investments are long term ‘sleeping’ investments. For example you invest in a real estate or government bonds, you dont put the capital at risk (safe asset). For example Golden visa investments in Portugal, Greece, Spain allow foreigners to invest in real estate.

Real Estate

There is an important distinction between residential and commercial real estate. Investing in residential properties are ‘passive’ investments because they dont create real jobs, bringing no benefit to the economy. However commercial real estate investments (eg. hotels) create a number of jobs and helps governments with added tax collection, so are ‘active’ investments.

There are number of citizenship by investment and golden visa programs accept real estate investments (residential or commercial)