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Investor migrants injected 496.7 million euros in Portugal during the first eight months of 2020, a figure that, if extrapolated to the end of the year, would bring total 2020 investment to about EUR 745m, slightly ahead of last year’s figures.

In August, show figures released today by Portugal’s Borders and Immigration Service (SEF), golden visa investment to EUR 57.7m, a marginal improvement on July, which saw investments worth EUR 56m.

All told, the SEF has issued residence permits to 915 investors and 1,640 of their family members so far in 2020. Of these, 24% have been Chinese and 11.5% Brazilian, while Turks, Russians, and South Africans have each made up about 6% each.

The proportion of visas issued to “other” nationalities (the SEF only discloses the top five nationalities per month and per year) continues to grow and accounts – so far in 2020 – for nearly half of the total, the highest such share recorded in any year for the Portuguese golden visa.

Also new of this year is the high proportion of applicants that choose non-conventional investment options. As recently as three years ago, nine out of ten investors chose the EUR 500,000 real estate investment option, a share that now fallen to just 65%, largely because of the increasing availability of properties that conform to the EUR 350,000 “fixer-upper” option.

Even faster-growing, on a relative basis, is the investment fund option; four times as many investors have opted for such investments in 2020 compared to last year, though some industry observers have pointed out that the asset classes favored by those funds’ managers tend, in any case, overwhelmingly toward real estate (rather than, say, the next unicorn).

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