Portugal is one of the poorest countries in Western Europe. More than 50% of workers earned less than 1,000 euros per month last year while rents and house prices have skyrocketed. In Lisbon alone, rents jumped 37% in 2022.LISBON, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Portugal announced on Thursday a 900-million-euro package of measures to tackle a housing crisis, including the end of its controversial "Golden Visa" scheme and a ban on new licenses for Airbnbs and other short-term holiday rentals.
Portugal's golden visa programme, which offers EU passports to non-EU nationals in return for investments including in real estate and has been criticised for sending house prices and rents up, will end, Costa said.
Low salaries, a red-hot property market, policies encouraging wealthy foreigners to invest and a tourism-dependent economy has for years made it hard for locals to rent or buy, housing groups say. Portugal's 8.3% inflation rate has exacerbated the problem.
Housing groups said the measures would mean little if the government continued to promote other policies to attract wealthy foreigners to Portugal, such as the "Digital Nomads Visa" introduced in October, which gives foreigners with high monthly income from remote work to live and work from Portugal without paying local taxes.
"The goal was that by 2024 all Portuguese would have access to quality housing - it doesn't look like that will happen," she said. "The situation is dramatic." ($1 = 0.9354 euros) (Reporting by Patricia Rua, Catarina Demony and Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Sandra Maler)