What was the visa you applied for?? and what is your citizenship. I heard this only about refugees. Also, what does it even mean "to leave the country" if you are in the Schengen space and there are no borders? What if you just re-enter through any other Schengen country?
>Curious what your sources are for zero income tax on business income in Spain and Portugal.
It's called Beckham regime in Spain, named after David Beckham for whom it was originally invented. Officially “Régimen fiscal aplicable a los trabajadores desplazados a territorio español”. If you haven't lived in Spain (haven't been a tax resident) for previous 5 years, and you applied within 6 months of taking up residency, you don't pay anything on foreign-derived dividends, rents, passive interest income, or realised capital gains. So if you hold a company abroad and it pays you dividends, you pay nothing on them. It can be an offshore entity (including yes, a Dubai one!) with no company profit tax, in this case you don't pay shit.
There is a similar thing in Portugal but paperwork there is more complicated. Same thing in Cyprus but paperwork there is a lot LESS complicated :) done in a week and EUR 140.