Transcript

Intro

Stephan Shipe: Welcome back to the Scholar Wealth Podcast. One of the questions we get regularly from clients is around international residency and citizenship, specifically how the Portugal Golden Visa works and what other programs are out there. So this week we’re taking the full episode to answer those with Daniel Twomey, COO of La Vida Golden Visas, one of the leading investment migration consultancies in the space. We cover the Portugal Golden Visa, how the programs compare across Europe and the Caribbean, and Malta’s new citizenship by merit framework. Daniel brings more than a decade of experience in the sector, and was recognized by Spear’s in 2026 as one of the top 15 recommended advisors. So let’s go ahead and get into it.

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Stephan Shipe: Daniel, welcome to the Scholar Wealth Podcast. To start off today, can you tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into the investment migration industry?

Daniel Twomey: Hi Stephan, nice to see you, thanks for having me. Well, absolutely. I was living and working in China. I moved there in 2011 from the UK, which is where I was born, and I lived there until 2016 working for an investment company. And a lot of the clients whom I was dealing with were talking about golden visas and investment migration. And as a Brit, it was something that I’d never even considered before, the idea of acquiring a second residency or a citizenship. It just didn’t seem necessary to me. The British passport was extremely powerful. We had the right to live anywhere within the European Union. It was just such an interesting concept that I wanted to find out more. The whole area fascinated me, and the more I learned, the more interested I was. So I decided it was an area that I just absolutely had to dedicate my career to. And that’s how it started, back in 2016.

What the Portugal Golden Visa Is Actually For

Stephan Shipe: Give me some background on it, because this is a request we get fairly often, of somebody trying to plan for the financial means to be able to buy into one of these visa programs. And the one that I hear about regularly is the Portugal Golden Visa. Can you talk a little bit about what, I guess, is the purpose? So somebody comes to you and says, I want a Portugal Golden Visa. What are they trying to accomplish? And how does that work?

Daniel Twomey: Great question. Well, I’ll give a little bit of a backstory first, which might help to explain that a little better. In 2016, Portugal was actually the most popular investment migration program. And it’s almost where our company, La Vida, started. The company started in 2002 selling Spanish property to British people, in fact. After that, other buyers, non-British buyers, started asking about Spanish property for the purposes of qualifying for the Golden Visa. And shortly after that, investors from around the world started asking La Vida about Portuguese property for the purposes of qualifying for the Golden Visa. So the company originated around Spanish property, and then moved to Portuguese property for the purposes of applying for the Golden Visa.

So when I came into this world in 2016, Portugal was the most popular program, because you bought one property in order to qualify. Now, the biggest motivation, I would say at that point, particularly amongst the Chinese market, which probably dominated the program — about 80% of the applicants who were applying for the Portuguese Golden Visa were Chinese — they were doing this purely for mobility consideration, I would say, and considering other programs for a similar reason as well. So that’s having a second passport in order to be able to travel more easily around the world. And this is what I struggled to get my head around back in the day as a British passport holder. If you’re born into a country where the passport isn’t particularly powerful, then you start from a position of having significantly fewer opportunities, whether it be travel for business purposes, travel for tourism, attending a friend’s wedding, these sorts of things. So having a passport of a country that has a more powerful passport is obviously extremely attractive.

That’s actually changed since then. Whilst it was predominantly Chinese clients in 2016, it’s now majority US clients and British clients who are applying for these programs. So something’s shifted over the past decade. And it’s moved from being a mobility consideration more to a plan B consideration. And how do I envisage my life moving forward, and what are the opportunities this citizenship is going to give me? Not necessarily from the point of, I have a passport that isn’t particularly powerful and I want a better one. It might be, I have a citizenship which is already extremely valuable, extremely good, and gives me a lot of opportunities internationally, but I want to diversify and consider having an alternative citizenship as well. So that’s been the shift over the decade. So hopefully that goes some way to answering your question, why people are doing this. I think particularly amongst the American clientele, which I understand is the majority of your audience, it’s more a citizenship diversification strategy. On top of the existing citizenship which I already have, what other citizenship could I have, and what benefits would that give me, whether it be education, lifestyle, healthcare, etcetera.

Stephan Shipe: And what’s the timeline for citizenship there from the visa program? What does that actually look like?

Daniel Twomey: Well, if we’re talking about Portugal specifically, it’s actually undergone a change recently. So the time to citizenship was historically five years, and it’s now changed to 10 years, just earlier this year. What Portugal’s done is just brought the country in line with other European countries. If you look at Italy, Spain, etcetera, they’re all 10 years to citizenship. Portugal was the outlier at five. So that timeline has now been adjusted upwards to 10 years. I think for those considering the Portuguese program, it still makes sense. The requirement to hold the investment only lasts for the same five years. Permanent residency still comes after five years. It’s just that there would be an additional five years following the acquisition of permanent residency before one would be eligible for citizenship.

Investment Requirements Across Programs

Stephan Shipe: So if I was looking for diversification and I’m worried about whatever there is, and I say I’m looking kind of 10 years down the road at that possible citizenship, but I want to start having some flexibility with the visa now — what is the asset requirement? What am I having to spend? What do I have to spend it on? Because I know different countries have different requirements. A lot of countries have like cultural investments or job creation options that exist. But this is different, right? This is more of a pure, almost like a pay-to-play type scenario. You write a check, invest, and then that — is that a fair way to look at the difference there of where Portugal compares to something like Ireland, for instance?

Daniel Twomey: Yes, it is. I think the attractiveness of the Portuguese program has been in the investment vehicle. Now, you could largely consider immigration itself to be an investment. You’re investing in your family’s future. So you have different vehicles in different countries by which you can achieve that objective. In some countries it might be a government donation. In some countries it might be an investment in government bonds. In some countries it might be an investment into a specific type of business. In Portugal, it’s an investment into private equity funds, and these funds are investing in the biggest sectors in Portugal: renewable energy, agriculture, fintech, financial technology, hospitality.

Stephan Shipe: Give me another example of another country that doesn’t have as easy access, and then put some numbers on it. How much does that investment need to be in Portugal compared to something like Italy?

Daniel Twomey: Well, in Portugal the investment has to be 500,000 euros. As I say, that’s an investment into private equity funds. You can split that investment across multiple funds if one wanted to, so it isn’t necessary to invest into one fund or even with one fund manager. 500,000 euros sits somewhere in the middle of the minimum investment requirements across different programs. In Italy, the minimum investment requirement is lower. It’s 250,000 euros that one would have to invest into a particular type of Italian business. At the higher end you have Malta, where one can acquire citizenship directly. The citizenship program, if one can call it that, in Malta has recently undergone a change as well, and it’s now a citizenship by merit framework, which is significantly more convoluted. And then in Europe, in other countries, you have Greece at 250,000 euros, for example, Cyprus at 300,000 euros. So that’s the sort of range of minimum investment requirements when it comes to the different programs.

Stephan Shipe: And all of those require — I guess, are the governments looking at certain industries that they want, or certain types of businesses, and saying, we want to incentivize fintech, so if you come to my country and invest 300,000 euros into a fintech company, then that would be enough? Do you see that kind of shifting around? Is that how it’s being used by the country?

Daniel Twomey: No, I think that would be a very sensible approach on the part of the government, but it isn’t quite how it plays out in reality. So you have certain sectors where one can invest in order to qualify for the golden visa, but they’re generally much broader than what you’ve suggested. In the case of Greece, for example, one has to invest in real estate. That’s relatively targeted, in that you have different investment thresholds according to the type of real estate. So the lowest investment threshold, 250,000 euros, should be a commercial-to-residential renovation, taking commercial property and renovating it, turning it into a residential real estate project. In the case of Portugal, the investment has to be into private equity funds, but the government doesn’t specify precisely the sectors that those investments have to be into. The simple requirement is that 60% of the funds have to be allocated to Portugal, and the other 40% can be allocated to alternative European markets. So there is some strategic allocation, but it doesn’t quite go to the granular level that you’ve suggested.

Stephan Shipe: Yeah, because what’s interesting is, many times when I’ve had these conversations, it’s seen as truly almost like an initiation fee. And it’s like, I’m just going to go pay my 500,000 euros, and if I have a return, I have a return, but that’s not the goal here, right? They’re buying that hedge for it, which makes investment selection pretty interesting when you get into that market.

Daniel Twomey: Yeah. I’m sure we’ll speak about a range of different programs, but with particular reference to Portugal, I think the reason it’s been so attractive, especially over recent years, whilst investment in private equity has been permissible, is because the investments, when they’re analyzed from the perspective of analyzing the investment alone, irrespective of the golden visa or the residency, they tend to make sense just as a standalone investment. These are private equity funds investing in the biggest sectors in Portugal. Major fund managers who have track records that you can analyze. You have full disclosure regarding how the funds performed in the past, their expectation for the fund performance moving forwards. Of course, you can break down the investment across multiple funds if you want to. So you have plenty of individuals from all over the world investing in these funds all of the time simply for the purposes of the investment. The fact that you can make an investment into such a fund and qualify for the residency and potentially the future citizenship at the same time just makes it an extremely attractive proposition.

Malta’s Citizenship by Merit Framework

Stephan Shipe: Yeah, it seems like it’s a lot easier. I’d really like to hear your experience with other countries as well, because as you mentioned, Portugal has kind of set this gold standard of making it relatively easy, in the sense that you’re investing into private equity and keeping it open. What are ones that are extremely difficult? Like if you were to give me two or three that you’re like, yeah, that’s a really tough one to get into, but it’s really awesome — give me those.

Daniel Twomey: Yeah, okay. Well, Malta I’ve touched upon, and that would definitely sit within that category. For some programs you have a predefined set of conditions that you have to meet, and then you become eligible. So Portugal — absence of a criminal record, for example, and making the qualifying investment into private equity funds. If you complete those steps, and you have a nationality which isn’t restricted, then you will be eligible for the golden visa. Malta is a totally different proposition. Each application is assessed on a case-by-case basis. It’s what I referred to earlier as the citizenship by merit framework, where simply making a financial contribution or an investment will not be sufficient. Malta is designing their immigration policy around targeting individuals who they believe will be exceptional, will bring tangible benefit to the country. And so there are numerous components. There’s a philanthropic contribution component. There’s investment or contribution to a project which is perceived to have a value to the country of Malta. And then one’s own professional, personal experience being deemed exceptional, in so much as it’s an individual that the country would like to welcome as a citizen. So that’s a totally different proposition to these pay-in-order-to-participate programs.

Stephan Shipe: How do you advise on that? Because that almost sounds like a college admissions process, of trying to determine, are you going to be a good citizen of the university? But in this case, are you going to be a good citizen? They’re kind of banking on you being productive going forward to help the economy. What do you advise on?

Daniel Twomey: Well, the first thing we do is we want to understand the applicant’s profile. So we do a comprehensive background check. We ask them to submit their resume or their professional profile, detail companies that they own, companies that they’ve owned and sold, any companies that they work for, or the business interests that they have. And based on that information, we’re able to make a preliminary assessment around whether or not this is an applicant who may be eligible for the program. If we deem them to be preliminarily eligible, then the conversation would move to, what is it that you would like to do, or think you might be able to do, that could be of value to Malta? And obviously that will be a communicative process where we talk about our experience with other clients, applications that we’ve submitted and that have been approved, and what those look like. Together we work with the clients, put together a proposal, which is then submitted to the government.

I think it’s quite an exciting process. And most of our clients, I must say, until now have been involved in tech, several very prominent within AI, and they’ve actually thoroughly enjoyed the process, because they understand Malta’s vision, they understand what Malta is trying to achieve, they see their values align with the country, and they’re quite comfortable sitting down, going back and forth with us and the team, and thinking about how they might effectively contribute to the country and its future moving forwards. So yeah, it’s a process that our clients tend to enjoy, and we enjoy as well.

Why Portugal Still Works as a Plan B

Stephan Shipe: Yeah, that’s really interesting. It makes perfect sense, kind of what we were saying with the types of investments. It’s really the type of human capital you’re bringing to a country, and using that as the entrance fee, so to speak. When you look at some of these other countries that are coming — because you had Portugal kind of start this trend, and maybe they get the first mover advantage of a lot of countries starting to follow that model — what country would you say is the one that you would look at now, if somebody’s looking at diversifying citizenship? Is Portugal still the gold standard there? Or are there other ones where it’s like, another country has taken what Portugal has done, built on it, and they have a better model now, or just better anything from your perspective? What are you advising clients on?

Daniel Twomey: I think the first thing to say, it’s a bit of a cliche, but there’s no program that fits the needs of every client. So each client is unique, their circumstances are unique, their objectives, their requirements, their budget will each be unique. So an advantage of working with La Vida is that we deal with all of the different residency and citizenship programs that are available across the world. That’s from New Zealand to programs in Asia and the Middle East, to all of the European golden visa programs, to the US program, the Canadian program. So we can really offer a comprehensive overview of all of the different options, and tailor solutions to fit the needs of individual clients.

I would say that amongst our client base, Portugal remains extremely popular, despite the changes in the time to citizenship, just because, according to the law as it currently stands, one can still be eligible for citizenship without residing in the country. And that’s extremely attractive for a significant number of people. If you imagine, let’s say you’re a business owner in the US. You’re operating your business there, you’re concerned about the direction of the country, you’re concerned about political volatility, you’re concerned about your children’s safety as they grow older in that country, you’re concerned about potential for conflict, potential for some kind of natural or possibly even nuclear disaster, you’re concerned about pandemics — we saw what happened during COVID — and you just have a sense of general unease, and think, well, I wouldn’t put all of my eggs in one basket when it comes to my investments, so why am I doing the same when it comes to my citizenship? Why am I tying myself and my family exclusively to this one jurisdiction? Surely it makes sense to diversify our residency and citizenship base, and have what we’d call a plan B elsewhere. A backup plan. Maybe you don’t want to relocate to that place, but most likely you don’t, you just want to have it there, so that if something happens that pushes you over the edge, you know that you’ve got somewhere that you can go to where you and your family will be safe, and where you can build a new life.

So that’s why a country like Portugal makes a lot of sense, because it doesn’t require you to change your life in any meaningful way. You make an investment, that’s just a diversification of investments into a different geography and a different currency, which is probably never a bad idea anyway. You have that going on — these are private equity funds, you have quarterly reporting, you can see how the funds are performing. It’s just another investment in financial instruments. And then in the meantime, you meet the requirements of the program, which is two weeks every two years spent in the country. Portugal is a very attractive place to spend time, and in the future you can qualify for permanent residency provided you’ve met the requirements, and even further down the line qualify for citizenship provided you’ve met those requirements. And of course the investment can be exited, and you could reinvest those funds elsewhere when the time came.

So that’s why it’s popular, I think, because of that route to permanent residence and citizenship without having to actually up sticks and relocate. Other programs wouldn’t quite have that same route to citizenship without living there. Most of the golden visa programs in Europe, one would have to actually be residing in the country in order to become eligible for citizenship. But Italy, Hungary, Latvia, Cyprus, Greece, France, all of these countries have residency programs that would serve almost as well as a backup plan, in that you have a residence permit in that country which you could use whenever you wanted to. And then Caribbean citizenship — the Caribbean would be an alternative jurisdiction that’s popular amongst our clients, because it’s a direct route to citizenship. Within six months, in most cases, you can actually be a full legal citizen of another country outside of the US, if that’s your existing nationality.

Stephan Shipe: How much do those cost, if we’re talking about some Caribbean citizenships?

Daniel Twomey: Caribbean citizenship, around $300,000 would be the amount that one would expect to pay. $400,000 for a family. These are ballpark figures, and of course it will depend on whether one’s doing a government donation, i.e. you’re just contributing the money in order to receive the citizenship, or whether one’s doing an investment, and that would be a real estate investment ordinarily.

Stephan Shipe: That brings up a question about a married couple. So a married couple wanting to go to Portugal, is that one million euros now that we’re spending for this?

Daniel Twomey: For almost all programs it would be one investment that would allow couples, and in most cases children, and even parents in some cases, to qualify under the program as well.

Stephan Shipe: And then when I’m talking to clients in the US, it’s always looking at international visas from a US perspective. If someone’s looking to do this in the US, what is the comparable US program?

Daniel Twomey: Well, that would be the EB-5 program, which is 800,000 US dollars investment, and possibly soon to change. And that’s a very interesting point that you’ve raised. You have a lot of jurisdictions that operate residency programs. People invest in order to become a resident or even a citizen. Fewer jurisdictions have inbound and outbound traffic, and that’s the US. You have those who are investing to have the option to get out, and those who are investing to get in, which is just an interesting phenomenon.

Stephan Shipe: And is that restricted, that 800,000 dollars, in what it needs to be invested in?

Daniel Twomey: It is, yeah. It has to be invested into a regional center. So these would be projects where the capital is at risk, and they’re infrastructure, tourism-related projects that have government support.

The Biggest Misconceptions

Stephan Shipe: And as we’re wrapping up here today, walk me through, what are the biggest misconceptions? Because I can imagine somebody listening to this and they’re like, this sounds great, sounds like I’m just going to write a check and we’re all set, ten years, I’m living the life in Portugal, I’m a citizen, I have nothing to worry about. What are the biggest misconceptions that you tend to see when you’re having these conversations?

Daniel Twomey: I think exactly what you’ve described might be the biggest misconception, believing that the process will be particularly straightforward, because that’s not always the case. Now, you have to remember that this is a process whereby one can eventually become a full citizen of the country and share the same rights as other citizens. It’s not a tourist visa application. So, clean criminal record certificates, birth certificates, marriage certificates, utility bills, bank statements, having documents notarized, apostilled — that would be the sort of documentary requirements. And then there’s ordinary time that must be spent in the country, whether that be in the initial instance just to record one’s biometric information, or on an ongoing basis. You then have, in the case of Portugal for example, you have a language test. One would be required to pass a Portuguese language test in order to qualify for permanent residency or citizenship. It’s fairly basic, it’s level A2, which is a get-around-town level of Portuguese. One could argue that that’s a fairly reasonable requirement if you’re becoming a permanent resident or a citizen of the country, but nonetheless, it’s a consideration when deciding whether or not to apply.

It’s not a straightforward process. However, whichever program one were to do, it would be a well-trodden path. I mean, we have clients from all over the world, more than 160 countries, and we’ve submitted thousands of applications across the various programs. So the requirements exist, but ordinarily our clients wouldn’t have any problem meeting them, simply because they’re disclosed fully in advance, and full advice is given on every aspect of the procedure.

Stephan Shipe: Yeah, I can’t imagine going through that process alone. And I think what you all are doing is very interesting, of trying to guide that, because it is a process that exists, it’s not a mystery, but if you’re only doing it once, which in many cases no one’s going out and applying for many of these at the same time, it’s a lot easier to have somebody who can provide you that advice.

Daniel Twomey: Well, exactly.

Stephan Shipe: Well, Daniel, thank you so much for coming on today, answering these questions. I got a couple of my questions I’ve had for a while answered, so that’s good to know. Thank you very much.

Daniel Twomey: No problem at all. Okay, thanks Stephan. Take care.

Stephan Shipe: That’s our show. Next week, our advisors Noah and Evan are going to face off on some of the more argued questions in personal finance, from high yield savings accounts versus brokerage for emergency funds, to value versus growth equities in a Roth IRA. It should be a good one, so be sure to tune in. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.

Outro

Stephan Shipe: That’s our show. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for general informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to constitute financial, investment, or other professional advice. The opinions expressed are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of any affiliated organizations. Investing in financial markets involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Before making any investment decisions, you should consult with a qualified financial advisor who can assess your individual financial situation, objectives, and risk tolerance.