Keeping your investment residence
Golden Visa, also called investment residence permit. The usual way to invest is to buy a real estate of at least 500,000 euros.
Related article: Types of investments for Golden Visa
To extend your residence, you must keep your investment
The initial investment residence is valid for 3 years (it used to be 2 years), after which you can apply for a 5-year investment residence. The law states that in order to apply for a 5-year investment residence, you must keep your existing investments or change them to another investment project.
If you disinvest, you will not be entitled to renew you residence permit.
Situation (1): Keep your existing property
If the investor maintains the existing property, the application for the 5-year residence is very simple. It only requires only a recent property certificate proving that you are still the owner.
Situation (2): Change to another property
The investor can sell the existing house and invest in another properties of at least 500,000 euros. When applying for renewal of the investment residence, a notarized contract of sale of the new investment property (proving the amount invested) and a certificate of the property are required.
Case (3): Change to another investment project
The investor can sell the existing house and invest in other non-real estate investments. Apart from real estate investments, the following investments are also eligible for golden visa:
-Investment in Spanish companies or financial products up to 1 million euros. Westfalcon.
– Deposit of up to 1 million euros in a Spanish bank. This method is relatively the easiest, as it does not require complicated formalities. All that is required is to open an account in any bank licensed to operate in Spain. It can be a bank in Spain or a branch of another country in Spain, only the place of deposit must be Spain.
-Investment in Spanish government bonds up to 2 million euros.
Can I sell my house if I already have a 5-year residence permit?
Situation (1): You meet the requirements to apply for permanent residence
In this case, it is possible to sell the property and there is no need to invest in other projects.
According to Article 32 of the Spanish Aliens Act, the application for permanent residence requires 5 years of legal and continuous residence in Spain. Continuity is defined as a single absence of no more than 6 months in the last 5 years and a cumulative absence of no more than 10 months over the 5 years.
The 3 years of the first investment residence, plus the first 2 years of the 5-year investment residence, add up to 5 years to apply for permanent residence.
Related article: Requirements to apply for permanent residence with Golden Visa
Situation (2): You do not meet the requirements for permanent residence
If you do not meet the requirements for permanent residence because you have exceeded the time of absence, you can extend your investment residence. The new residence will still be valid for 5 years. If you extend your residence, you will need to keep your existing investments or invest in other projects.
What if I sell my properties but don’t want to invest in another project?
It is possible to apply for a change of investment residence to another type of residence permit, such as work residence, non-profit residence, self-employed residence, etc. The law states that the investment residence can be changed at will as long as the conditions for applying for another residence are met.
