{"id":56930,"date":"2024-03-22T19:14:23","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T23:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/?p=56930"},"modified":"2024-03-22T19:14:23","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T23:14:23","slug":"australias-significant-investor-visa-shut-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/australias-significant-investor-visa-shut-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s Significant Investor Visa Shut Down"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Australia has shut down its entire\u00a0Business Innovation and Investment Program<\/a>, including the Business Innovation Stream, the Significant and Premium Investor Visa streams, and Entrepreneur streams.<\/p>\n

There won\u2019t be any new visa allocations to the program, which effectively means the program will cease to exist once pending applications are processed<\/p>\n

The program has helped more than 100,000 foreigners qualify for permanent residence in Australia over the past 15 years. The controversial Significant Investor Visa (SIV) has brought in foreign investments in excess of AUD 12 billion since it was introduced in 2012.<\/p>\n

Despite these impressive numbers, there were concerns about whether Australia\u2019s investment migration programs were resulting in significant benefits for the country\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

Originally, investors opting for the SIV could qualify for permanent residence by investing in real estate in the country. The SIV was revamped in 2015 and the new rules barred direct investment into real estate.<\/p>\n

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Read More<\/strong><\/p>\n

Portugal Golden Visa Investors Move On From Real Estate<\/strong><\/a>
\nGreece May Raise Golden Visa Cost to \u20ac800,000 to Control Surging Property Prices<\/strong><\/a>
\nThousands Of Rich Indians and Chinese Leaving Countries To Seek Better Options Abroad<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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While there were frequent proposals seeking to shut down investment immigration into Australia, there were no indications that the government would do so.<\/p>\n

Why the Sudden Move?<\/h3>\n

The apparent triggers for this sudden move include media reports that criminals and corrupt officials from China have used BIIP streams to obtain Australian citizenship.<\/p>\n

Also, a recent report by a policy think tank named Grattan Institute indicated that boosting skilled worker immigration may help the country generate an additional AUD 120 billion in tax revenues over the next three decades.<\/p>\n

Investment immigration programs have always been a target of criticism over potential misuse by criminals, money launderers, and even national security threats. Despite very few actual instances, the mere possibility of misuse has prompted countries to modify or even terminate the programs.<\/p>\n

Shift Towards Skilled Migration<\/h3>\n

The government plans to transfer visas allotted to BIIP streams to its skilled worker programs. This means the government is clearly prioritizing skilled immigration over investment migration.<\/p>\n

Evidently, the view is that bringing in more skilled workers into the country will create more long-term economic benefits as compared to increased migration of wealthy investors.<\/p>\n

A Migration Review report calculated that skilled workers\u2019 contributions to the economy exceeded those of Business Innovator residents by around AUD 300,000.<\/p>\n

Of course, it is unclear whether this comparison is restricted merely to fiscal benefits or whether it includes the collateral benefits of increased private sector investment and consumption expenditure resulting from the entry of investment migrants into the country.<\/p>\n

Investment immigration is clearly out of favour as the government has indicated that it may introduce a new Talent and Innovation visa to attract entrepreneurs, investors, and global researchers.<\/p>\n

This means Australia is likely to join the UK in replacing its pure investor visa with an entrepreneur-centric program that may also be used by some wealthy investors seeking to do business in the country.<\/p>\n

The last 12 months have seen significant changes to the global investment migration industry.\u00a0 Ireland terminated its IIP and Portugal shut down the real estate option while Greece is set to introduce its second hike in minimum investment requirements.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Australia has shut down its entire\u00a0Business Innovation and Investment Program, including the Business Innovation Stream, the Significant and Premium Investor Visa streams, and Entrepreneur streams. There won\u2019t be any new visa allocations to the program, which effectively means the program will cease to exist once pending applications are processed The program has helped more than…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":56112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[43,454],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Australia_274932952-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8hnWW-eOe","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56931,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56930\/revisions\/56931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentimmigration.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}