Limiting the Program of Temporary Residence Permits for Foreigners Based on Real Property Investment in Latvia

Abstract

There exists sharp competition amongst nations regarding the increasing foreign investments; therefore, nations are willing to offer foreign investors and their families some type of political bonus, such as temporary residence permit, permanent residence permit, or even citizenship. The simplest way to entice investors is to offer them and their family members temporary residence permits in exchange for investments - simply by purchasing real property (via the so-called “Golden Visa” program). Such a program was launched in Latvia in 2010; however, significant limitations were placed on it in 2014. This research (1) compares the “Golden Visa” programs in different countries in the world, (2) determines the impact of the program on the real property market of Latvia, and (3) searches for the main reason why limitations were applied to the temporary residence permit program in 2014, which resulted in a significant decrease in the international investments in Latvia (this part of the paper is based on the results of the following research: Viesturs, J., Auziņš, A., & Štaube, T. (2017). Arguments Used for Restricting International Real Property Transactions: Case Study of Latvia).

Keywords

• temporary residence permit
• foreign real property ownership
• international real property transactions
• national security