Spain’s granting of residence permit on economic activity has increased 55% in 2016, according to a report published by Spanish ministry of employment and social affairs.
The Spanish golden visa scheme offers residency in Spain for investors who can invest €500,000 in real estate market in Spain or  €1 million in investments.
Since the enactment of Law 14/2013 on support for entrepreneurs and their internationalization, the flow of authorizations granted for reasons of economic interest has increased significantly, from 2,588 authorizations granted in 2014 to 7,099 two years later.
During 2016, the number of residence authorizations granted by application of Law 14/2013 to support entrepreneurs and their internationalizations stood at 12,252. Of these, 7,099 have been granted for reasons of economic interest (Art. 61 of Law 14/2013) and 5,153 have been granted to family members.
Among the residency authorizations for reasons of economic interest, those granted to highly qualified professionals (3,141, 44.2%) and residency authorizations for intra-company transfer (1,615, 22.7%) stand out, whose relative annual variations are in 74.2% and 32.5% respectively. Likewise, the increase in the number of authorizations granted to investors stands out, which went from 176 in 2014 to 1,204 during 2016.
Almost one of every four residence authorizations in 2016 for reasons of economic interest went to Chinese or Americans combined. As in the previous year, in 2016 the main groups granted a residence permit for reasons of economic interest were the nationals of China (13.8%; 982), the United States (11). , 2%; 798), Russia (7.9%; 561) and Venezuela (7.5%; 530).
In the case of highly qualified professionals, the Venezuelan and Chinese groups stand out, with 426 and 276 concessions respectively. On the other hand, authorizations for intra-corporate transfer have as their main collective the nationals of the United States and China; 456 and 235 concessions in each case.
Finally, the Russian (346) and Chinese (397) collectives stand out in the granting of authorizations to investors, representing 61.7% of the total authorizations granted in this case in 2016.
Source:Â Â
