Portugal’s Constitutional Court Upholds Preferential Treatment for Golden Visa Investors

President Rebelo de Sousa vetoed Portugal’s immigration law after the court ruled it violated family reunification rights.

Portugal’s Constitutional Court validated special privileges for wealthy investors on Friday while striking down broader immigration restrictions in the government’s Foreigners’ Law, ruling that the state can offer enhanced family reunification rights to Golden Visa holders even as it must protect basic constitutional guarantees for ordinary legal residents.

The court blocked provisions that would have imposed a two-year waiting period for most immigrants seeking to bring family members to Portugal and limited reunification to spouses and minor children. Investment visa holders and highly qualified workers would have received exemptions from these restrictions, maintaining immediate reunification rights for extended family members.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa immediately vetoed the legislation following the decision, returning it to parliament. The president had requested the constitutional review last month, expressing concerns about the rushed legislative process and potential violations of equality, proportionality, and legal security principles.

Immediate Practical Effects

The government cannot apply the struck-down provisions, meaning the law reverts to the pre-amendment framework. Portugal’s immigration agency AIMA must continue processing Golden Visa family reunification applications under the existing favorable rules. Authorities could potentially reopen any pending or recently rejected applications based on the struck-down amendments.

Golden Visa holders retain their current advantages, including the ability to immediately reunite with extended family members listed in Articles 99 and 100 of the immigration law, without proving prior cohabitation in their country of origin. These privileges extend beyond the nuclear family to include adult children, parents, and other relatives.

Sara Sousa Rebolo, partner and co-founder of Prime Legal, called it “a happy day, especially for the Investment Migration Industry in Portugal,” noting that the court “applied the law with rigor and looked beyond the often sensational, defamatory, and inaccurate media headlines which, with rare and honorable exceptions, fail to properly convey the benefits and potential of this program.”

Constitutional Reasoning

In its ruling, translated from Portuguese, the court found “legitimate, objective, sufficient, and reasonable reasons to establish legal differentiation regarding immigrant investors, without thereby diminishing the dignity of other immigrants.” The decision reinforces Portugal’s ability to use its Golden Visa program as a competitive tool for attracting foreign capital while establishing constitutional limits on restricting family unity for ordinary residents.

Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s center-right coalition of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and CDS-People’s Party pushed the Foreigners’ Law through parliament in July with support from the far-right CHEGA party, now the country’s second-largest parliamentary force after the May elections. Left-wing opposition parties condemned the legislation as inhumane, while immigrant associations complained that authorities excluded them from the drafting process.

The Constitutional Court ruled that the general restrictions would violate constitutional protections for families and “lead to the separation of family members.” The court found these measures incompatible with Article 36 of the Portuguese Constitution, which guarantees parents’ rights to live with their children and children’s rights to live with their parents.

The court determined that differential treatment “is not even a matter of stratifying dignities based on immigrants’ possessions” but rather reflects the state’s legitimate interest in economic development. The ruling cited “a relevant public interest in facilitating the entry and stay in Portugal of citizens from third countries who intend to invest in the country,” noting benefits from “the creation of new jobs to the increase in tax revenue.”

Rebolo emphasized that the court “recognized that economic migration is linked to the public interest, and that attracting investment is challenging but can effectively be achieved through the Golden Visa program.” She noted the court’s acknowledgment that “Golden Visa investors and their families contribute more to the economy than the resources they consume” and that such programs “can help a country facing difficulties, particularly when several vital sectors are at imminent risk of systemic collapse.”

Legislative Framework

The decision draws a careful distinction between constitutional minimums and legislative discretion. While the government cannot reduce family reunification rights below a constitutional threshold for any legal residents, it maintains broad authority to offer enhanced benefits to preferred immigrant categories. The court emphasized that parliament’s “discretion” in designing incentives to make “the country attractive” must operate within constitutional boundaries.

Importantly, the Foreigners’ Law targeted general immigration rules rather than the Golden Visa program itself. The court’s ruling preserves the existing tiered system where investment visa holders enjoy advantages, while preventing the government from lowering baseline protections for other legal residents below constitutional requirements.

The vetoed law would have further restricted access for citizens from the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), including Brazil and several African nations, including São Tomé and Príncipe, which recently launched its citizenship by investment program. The proposed law would have required that nationals of these countries obtain long-term visas from their home countries rather than converting tourist status. These provisions also fell under the court’s scrutiny.

Next Steps for Parliament

Montenegro’s administration has signaled it will seek a “juridical solution” that respects the court’s ruling while maintaining the government’s commitment to “controlled immigration.” Parliament will need to amend the law when it reconvenes in September to address the constitutional concerns.

Rebolo views the ruling as providing “the Government and Parliament the necessary confidence to reform the Golden Visa program, paving the way for its institutional recognition and for targeted improvements to optimize and strengthen its attractiveness.” She cautioned, however, that “this must be viewed within the proper context” of residence requirements “and not automatically equated with the possibility of positive discrimination through a shorter path to citizenship, given the sensitive nature of the topic and its intrinsic connection to culture, values, physical presence, and the sense of belonging to the country.”

The government has several options: accept the ruling and leave current Golden Visa rules intact, or attempt to rewrite the law in a way that addresses constitutional concerns while still achieving immigration control objectives. Given the court’s reasoning, crafting constitution-proof restrictions that create different tiers would prove challenging.

As Rebolo observed, “legislative craftsmanship is of the utmost importance, and the legal wording used is carefully considered within the constitutional framework for the protection of fundamental rights.” She suggested the government “should view this ruling as a guiding light for ongoing legislative processes, not to change the purpose of reform, but to refine the way in which it is implemented.”

Regarding the proposed citizenship law changes that would extend residency requirements from five to ten years, Rebolo notes that the Constitutional Court’s ruling “might lead to some moderation and concessions to have PS on board for the reinforced majority.” The Socialist Party’s involvement could potentially soften the government’s approach to citizenship reform.

For now, current rules remain in place. Golden Visa applicants and holders can proceed with confidence that their enhanced family reunification rights enjoy constitutional protection, removing a major uncertainty that had clouded the program since the legislation’s passage in July.

The court acknowledged that “welcoming immigrants is not compatible with an open borders policy,” while affirming that equal dignity does not require identical treatment. The ruling concluded that the legislature can establish “different weightings based, on the one hand, on the collective interests of the State, and, on the other, on the objective diversity of immigrants in terms of what they have to offer.”

The ruling clarifies that highly skilled workers enjoy similar constitutional protection for their preferential status. The court found that these citizens “can make contributions of great importance and value to the development of national society and economy, providing an improvement in the collective standard of living.”