Analytics, Good for Business, Investments, Latvia

During said period, the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs received applications from 18,461 persons seeking residence permits. The migration authority granted 17,878 residence permits and refused to issue the permits in 165 cases. As many as 3,278 residence permits were annulled.

The issuance of residence permits dropped by 38% in 2015 after Saeima in May 2014 passed amendments to the Immigration Law, significantly toughening the terms on which the residence permits were granted in exchange for investments. The minimum size of the investments was increased and additional payments to the state budget introduced, which led to a reduction in the number of investors.

According to the report, around 90 percent of all foreign investors obtaining Latvian residence permits in return for investments were citizens of former Soviet republics. Investors outside the former Soviet Union came mainly from China, Vietnam and Israel.

The share of investments made by nonresidents in return for the residence permits in Latvia’s incoming FDI has also been falling since 2014. While in 2014 the share of such investments made up nearly 12%, by 2017 their share in all incoming FDI was down to 0.6%.