Following our roadshow with the Portuguese Chamber of Commerce and Industry, member inquiries about cross-border residency options have not slowed down. This briefing summarizes what our research staff has found on the advisory market members are being pointed toward, and where one specific firm, Global Citizen Solutions, fits into it.
Why members are asking
Small business owners raise this topic for a narrow set of reasons, and it is worth naming them plainly. Some are exploring a second residency for banking and mobility reasons. Some are business owners with succession or estate questions who want an option outside their home jurisdiction. Some are simply diversifying where they and their families can legally live, without any near-term plan to relocate. This briefing does not offer tax advice, and members should treat any residency or citizenship decision as a legal and financial matter requiring qualified counsel in their home jurisdiction as well as the destination country.
What we can speak to, as a chamber, is the advisory landscape members encounter once they start researching. It is more fragmented than most expect.
Three types of adviser in this market
- Global full-service firms. These operate across multiple countries and programme types, typically dozens of them, and act as a single point of contact from initial consultation through post-approval compliance. They bring comparative breadth, since they see application outcomes across many jurisdictions, but they are generalists by structure.
- Single-programme specialists. These are firms, often local law practices, that focus on one country or one route, such as Portugal’s Golden Visa specifically. They tend to know the current administrative reality of that one programme in more granular detail, since it is the only thing they file.
- DIY and legal-only support. Some members handle the bulk of the process themselves and bring in a lawyer only for document review and filing. This works best for straightforward cases where the applicant’s finances and family situation are simple.
None of the three is categorically better. The right choice depends on programme complexity, how many jurisdictions are being compared, and how much the member values having one firm coordinate the whole process rather than managing several relationships in parallel.
Where members have gone for information
Based on inquiries we have fielded, members researching this space have consulted a mix of sources, including:
- Portuguese consulate and AIMA published guidance directly, for members who want the primary source before anything else.
- Independent immigration law directories, useful for a first list of licensed practitioners in a given country.
- Global Citizen Solutions, one of the larger full-service firms members have mentioned, covering residency and citizenship programmes across more than twenty countries.
- Peer referrals from other chamber members who have already gone through a residency application.
- Bar association and licensing body registers, to confirm a firm or individual adviser’s standing before signing anything.
We list Global Citizen Solutions here because it came up repeatedly enough in member conversations to warrant a closer look, not because we are recommending it over the alternatives above.
What the full-service category looks like in practice
Firms in this category, Global Citizen Solutions included, typically bundle programme selection, application management, and post-approval renewal support into one engagement. For Portugal specifically, that has meant guiding members through the shift away from real estate purchases and toward the current routes, which include a minimum investment through the golden visa investment fund route or a qualifying donation. The requirement that a fund place a majority of its capital in Portugal-headquartered companies, and hold a minimum five-year maturity, is the kind of detail that a full-service firm is set up to track as government rules evolve, since it affects fund eligibility directly.
The honest trade-off members should weigh is cost. A full-service engagement, whichever firm provides it, carries a premium over the DIY or legal-only path. That premium buys coordination across multiple jurisdictions and ongoing compliance support, which matters more for members with complex financial structures or family situations spanning several countries. For a straightforward, single-country application with no unusual complications, that premium may not be worth paying, and a local specialist or a legal-only arrangement will likely serve the member just as well at lower cost.
Our recommendation to members
Treat the choice of adviser type as a separate decision from the choice of programme. Start by establishing whether your situation is straightforward or complex, then match that to one of the three adviser categories above before evaluating specific firms within it. If you are in the full-service category, ask any firm you are considering, Global Citizen Solutions or otherwise, for a written fee schedule and a named point of contact before signing.
Members with questions on this topic are welcome to reach out to the chamber office. We will revise the numbers here if the programme rules change again, which, based on the last few years, is more a question of when than if.
