Latvia issues residence permits
Latvia issues residence permits, According to the Ministry of Interior’s information report, LETA reported May 30, the Citizenship and Migration Affairs Office (PLMP) provided roughly 19,300 temporary residence permits for investors under the investment program implemented between July 1, 2010, and December 31, 2021.
According to Section 23 of the Immigration Law, foreigners who invest in the Latvian economy receive a temporary residence permit upon request between 2010 and 2021 under the investment program.
As of December 31, 2021, there were 6,788 investors and family members with valid residence permits in Latvia, up 653 people from December 31, 2020.
PLMP declined to give temporary residence permits to investors in 198 cases between July 1, 2010, and December 31, 2021, but cancelled 2,763 temporary residence permits.
Latvia Permanent Residence – Help from Our Latvian Lawyers
The Latvian real estate market accounts for 83 percent of the total funds invested in the investment program, or EUR 1.32 billion. The assigned investments in credit institutions’ underlying liabilities are 10%, or EUR 158.9 million, while the allocated investments in capital businesses’ equity capital are 6%, or EUR 93.4 million.
Meanwhile, €14.7 million was spent in the acquisition of non-interest-bearing government securities, accounting for less than 1% of the entire investment. Latvia issues residence permits
Applicants for temporary residence permits are mostly from areas where the geopolitical situation is uncertain and raising finance is a concern. Investors from the former Soviet Union have requested almost 86 percent of all temporary residency permits, while Asian countries have shown the most interest outside of it.
Latvia residence permit by investment
According to the Interior Ministry, a modification in the parameters of the investment program, which became more stringent in September 2014, has resulted in a considerable reduction in the number of applications received and the amount of money invested under the program.
Meanwhile, the Covid-19 pandemic’s stringent restrictions have had no impact on investment flows related with temporary resident permits.
Last year, a total of 182 investor applications were received, totaling EUR 35.7 million in investments, the majority of which were still real estate investments. On the other hand, while the number of temporary residence permits issued under the investment program accounted for 53% of all temporary residence permits issued to third-country nationals in 2014, it has dropped dramatically in the years since, accounting for only 4.5 percent of all newly issued permits in 2021.
Measures adopted to strengthen the supervision of non-resident deposits in Latvian commercial banks have also had an impact on the volume and size of investments tied to a temporary residence visa.
According to the information report, the number of applications for residence permits related to investments in the underlying liabilities of credit institutions has increased in recent years, but does not currently imply non-residents’ interest in this sort of investment in the Latvian economy.
The Latvian government decided in March 2022 to stop issuing temporary residency permits for real estate and other assets. At the time, the Prime Minister announced that the Interior Ministry was working on required legal modifications.