Latvia Steadies Golden Visa Ship, On Track for Slight Uptick

Latvia’s Golden Visa program recorded 30 investor visa and 53 dependent visa approvals in the first half of 2024. These numbers put the program on track to exceed the 2023 total of 47 investor visas.

Approved applicants maintain modest family sizes. The H1 2024 data reveal an average of 1.8 dependents per main applicant, indicating most investors relocate with small families.

The €50,000 business investment option was the top investor preference, claiming 74% of all applications.

Twenty-two investors selected this route, while eight chose real estate investments, and the €280,000 bank deposit option attracted zero applications.

Business investments continue to outpace historical trends. The €250,000 real estate option held the lead from 2015 until business investments overtook it in 2023 and H1 in 2024.

This shift echoes the previous Vietnamese investors' approach, as 29 out of 30 Vietnamese applicants chose the business investment route between 2020 and 2023.

Chinese investors lead application volumes at 37% in the first half of 2024 - their highest share in the program's history and their first time as the outright dominant nationality since 2014.

This marks a shift from recent years when Vietnamese investors led the non-Russian market, accounting for one-third of approvals between 2020 and 2023.

Turkish investors rank second at 23%, followed by Indian applicants at 10% of all applications in H1 2024, reflecting a broader diversification since Latvia's 2022 ban on Russian applicants, who had dominated the program between 2015 and 2022.