ARI Cultural Monitor Methodology: Sources and How to Cite

What does the ARI Cultural Monitor cover?

The Monitor covers one route: the cultural donation under Portugal’s Golden Visa, known in law as ARI Cultural. It has four parts: a directory of every project on GEPAC’s two lists, a log of every change to them, GEPAC’s figures for the route, and an English translation of its laws.

It does not cover the other Golden Visa routes (investment funds, scientific research, job creation), AIMA’s decisions on residence permits, or the budget of any project or the number of donors it has received. It does not tell you whether a given project will accept your donation; only the project’s beneficiary entity can confirm that. Nothing here is legal or tax advice.

Where does the data come from?

GEPAC’s eligible list (“lista de atividades elegíveis”): the cultural activities currently approved to receive donations, each with its minimum donation.
GEPAC’s list of eligible activities with funding concluded (“atividades elegíveis com financiamento concluído”): approved activities that have received the full funding they asked for.
GEPAC’s figures for the route, presented at GEPAC’s public information session at the Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon, on 28 September 2026, with data to 31 August 2026. These feed The route in numbers.
The Law, from the consolidated texts published in Diário da República (dre.pt), translated on The Law in English.

Both lists are published as PDF files on GEPAC’s ARI page. We always link back to them.

How often is it checked?

We check GEPAC’s page every day. When either list file changes, we read the new version, compare it project by project with the previous one and record every difference in the change log. A full re-read of both lists also runs every seven days, even when nothing seems to have changed.

Every Monitor page shows two dates: the date of the GEPAC list it reflects and the date we last checked. GEPAC does not publish on a fixed schedule, so a list can stay unchanged for weeks.

What does each status mean?

On GEPAC’s eligible list: the project appears on GEPAC’s current eligible list. The page shows since when.
On GEPAC’s list of fully funded activities: the project appears on the list of activities with funding concluded, with the date of that list.
Left the list: the project was on the eligible list and is no longer on it, and has not (yet) appeared on the funded list. This can mean it closed, was withdrawn, is about to appear as funded, or was renamed (see known limits).

These labels describe GEPAC’s lists and nothing else. They are not a recommendation.

How is the minimum donation read?

The law sets a minimum of €250,000 per investor for a cultural donation. It falls to €200,000 for projects in low-density territories. GEPAC’s eligible list states which of the two applies to each activity, and we show that figure as published.

The funded list carries no amounts. For a funded project we saw on the eligible list, the minimum is the one GEPAC published there. For a funded project never seen open, we infer it and show how confident the inference is:

Confirmed: we saw the project on the eligible list with that minimum.
High: never seen open, but its institution has only ever been listed at that minimum.
Medium: never seen open, and its institution has been listed at both minimums.
Unknown: no basis for an inference; no minimum is shown.

How are titles translated?

Project titles are translated into English with machine assistance and reviewed by our team progressively. Until a title has been reviewed, it is flagged as a machine-assisted translation. The Portuguese title is always shown, exactly as GEPAC publishes it, and the Portuguese prevails over any translation.

How are locations and themes assigned?

GEPAC’s lists do not always name the place. We assign each project a municipality from its title and its institution’s public material, then one of the nine NUTS II regions. Each project also gets one theme from eight (heritage and restoration, film and audiovisual, festivals and events, performing arts and music, museums and collections, visual arts, literature and residencies, other), based on its main activity. Locations and themes are our classification, not GEPAC’s, and GEPAC’s own statistics may group regions differently.

How far back does the history go?

The daily check started on 10 September 2026. History before that date was reconstructed from archived versions of GEPAC’s lists back to June 2025. Reconstructed dates are only as precise as the archived versions they come from.

What are the known limits?

GEPAC’s lists have no project identifiers, so we match projects across versions by title and institution. A project that is heavily renamed can appear in the log as “left the list” and as a new project on the same day. We correct these by hand when we spot them. If GEPAC changes the layout of its PDFs, our check stops rather than guessing, and the pages keep showing the last list we could read.

Who publishes the ARI Cultural Monitor?

The ARI Cultural Monitor is published by Cascais Ventures, a cultural agency that structures and co-produces cultural projects approved for the route. Some of the projects listed are ones we co-produce. Each carries a “Co-produced by Cascais Ventures” badge linking to our project page. Every other field is shown the same way for every project, whoever promotes it.

GEPAC’s published documents always prevail. If you spot an error, a missing project or a better translation, write to info@cascaisventures.com. We correct confirmed errors and note the change on the page.

Can I reuse the data?

Yes. The project directory is available as a CSV file under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence (CC BY 4.0). You can copy, adapt and republish it, including commercially, as long as you credit the source.

To cite: ARI Cultural Monitor, Cascais Ventures, based on GEPAC data, cascaisventures.com/monitor/ (accessed [date]).

For GEPAC’s figures on the route, also give the data period: “GEPAC data to 31 August 2026”. Press material, charts and a contact are on the press page.

Sources: GEPAC, ARI lists and statistics, Diário da República.

Updated 11 October 2026 · Cascais Ventures · Primary sources linked on this page (links checked 11 October 2026)

How the ARI Cultural Monitor works