Podcast: Portugal’s HQA Visa – “Presence-Free” Path to Citizenship in Portugal for €175,000?

Our guest this week on the Mobility Standard podcast is Chris Lennon of Empowered Startups, a company that helps people qualify for residency through entrepreneurship programs.

We devoted most of the conversation to talking about the Portugal HQA visa, hailed by many as a cheaper, faster alternative to the golden visa, and one that, at least according to Lennon, offers almost as flexible physical presence requirements.

We spoke about:

• How the big entrepreneurship-based programs (Canada SUV, The US EB-2 NIW, and Portugal’s HQA) compare to each other in terms of how much hands-on involvement is required from the applicant;
• Why entrepreneurship-based programs are more politically palatable than their more transactional golden visa and CBI peers;
• What kind of research investors are actually funding with the HQA program;
• Why processing for HQA visas is so much quicker than for golden visas; and
• How the physical presence requirements of the program actually work, and whether they really are as flexible as people say.

Listen to the full episode in the player below or search for “IMI Podcasts” on Spotify and most other podcast platforms.