Spain is about to make it much harder for wealthy foreigners to buy their way into residency

• Spain plans to end “golden visas” for non-EU citizens investing €500,000 in real estate.
• The reform addresses unaffordable housing for young Spaniards confronting high home prices.
• Other EU countries including Portugal, Greece, and Ireland have changed or shut down similar programs.

Spain will no longer hand out “golden visas” to foreigners willing to pay big bucks for them.

The Spanish government said on Monday that it plans to scrap a type of visa that allows non-European Union citizens to obtain residency permits after investing at least 500,000 euros, or $542,805, in real estate. About 10,000 such visas were issued since the program’s 2013 start, the Associated Press reported.

The exact details of the end of the golden visa program have not been ironed out, so it’s not yet clear what happens to those who already invested in or moved to Spain.

Visas for foreign investors, launched by European countries to fill budget holes after the global financial crisis, have been popular with people who want to move to countries with better political, cultural, or business climates. But governments like Spain that offered the visas now see them as a political risk, as affordable housing, especially for young people, becomes a top concern.

In the last year, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Greece have all shut down or tightened their golden visa programs for similar reasons.

Spain’s reform comes as home prices become ever-more unaffordable, especially for young people struggling with high unemployment. The age at which young people leave their parents’ home in Spain rose to 30 years old last year, compared with the EU average of 26, according to the OECD.

Source: I N S I D E R