Latvia’s Ministry of Interior has provided the updated statistics for the golden visa program covering 2021, 2022, and 2023 after more than two years of silence.
The recent figures from the Ministry of the Interior revealed that the program’s application volume, which saw a significant decline after dropping 98 per cent between 2014 and 2020, has now been stabilised.
The program offers third-country nationals the opportunity to acquire residency in exchange for financial investment.
Latvia’s Residency by Investment scheme was first opened in 2010, and back then, it was among the most favourite programs in the EU.
The program had the lowest point in 2020, with just 53 approved applications. The number of approved applications for this scheme increased to 91 in 2021, marking a slight decrease in 2022, during which year 79 applications were approved, according to IMI daily.
In the first half of last year, the latest period for which data are available, the scheme registered only 17 approvals.
The statistics from the Interior Ministry indicate that the declines registered in 2022 and 2023 are attributed to the government’s decision to ban nationals from Russia and Belarus from this program.
Besides, the figures reveal that the number of approved applications for the Golden Visa program for non-Russian applicants remained stable, with 31, 27 and 41 approvals in 2020, 2021 and 2022 more specifically.
The 17 non-Russian approvals in the first half of last year indicate that the full-year application volume for that year will be in line with the norm for the last three years.
The figures from the Ministry also revealed that in the first half of last year, for the first time in nearly a decade, the €250,000 real estate investment option was not the applicant’s top choice, being replaced by the €50,000 business investment option instead.
According to the figures provided by the Ministry, since 2020, Vietnamese applicants have been the program’s second most significant applicant group, thus accounting for about one in three non-Russian approvals.
In addition, the Ministry notes that since the exclusion of Russians in 2022, investors from Vietnam have been the program’s single-biggest applicant group, stressing that in the last three years, 29 of the 30 Vietnamese applicants have qualified under the business investment option.
In March 2022, Latvia’s government imposed a ban on the issuance of first residence permits to nationals from Russia and Belarus.
It has been established that the issuance or registration of a residence permit may also be refused in cases where the competent state authorities have established that a foreigner has publicly glorified, denied or justified genocide, a crime against humanity, a crime against peace, a war crime.
On March 29, the former Latvian Prime Minister, Krisjanis Karins, announced his government’s decision to abolish the RBI scheme. He stressed that the legislative draft bill regarding the issue would be prepared in the following days.
