This paper evaluates the link between foreign ownership and firm exit during crises, using a longitudinal micro dataset over an 18-year period. We address two main questions: first, if foreign affiliates have different failure rates than domestic firms during economic downturns, and second if the foreignness effect differs between two different economic downturns. The results partially confirm the liability of foreignness argument, suggesting that when the crisis was more pronounced at home than abroad, the differences in hazard rates between foreign and domestic firms reduce. The footloose argument is also only partially confirmed. For policy makers, our results on survival dynamics during crises are not against policies stimulating inward investment. There is no need to fear that foreign firms destabilize more than usual the host economy during economic slowdowns by immediately closing down operations.ß 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Author's personal copy downturns because foreign firms hold some sort of ownership advantages over domestic ones. Foreign multinationals may have better conditions to face the crises owing to their multinationality advantages or they may resist more due to the sunk costs associated with their investment (Chung, Lu, & Beamish, 2008;Desai, Foley, & Forbes, 2004;Ghosal, 2010). Studies about the importance of foreign ownership during crises are relatively scarce, the notable exceptions being the studies by Á lvarez and Gö rg (2009), Lee and Makhija (2009) and Varum and Rocha (2011). Hence, in this paper we use longitudinal firm-level data for a large time span to assess, first, whether foreign ownership contributes to differentiating the incidence of firm exit during crises, controlling for other determinants that may affect the exit risk of firms. We use discrete time hazard models that account for firm-level unobserved heterogeneity to answer our research questions. In addition, we analyze whether the foreign ownership effect differs between two crises, which occurred in the same economy, in different periods of time and with different characteristics. To our knowledge the paper is unique in these respects. We analyze manufacturing firms created in Portugal in the period 1988-2005 by following their paths during the whole period and the economic slowdowns of early 1990s and 2000s. Portugal in particular is an interesting case as the economy experienced these significant slowdowns which provide us with 'a natural experiment to identify directly the ''footloose nature'' of multinationals' (Á lvarez & Gö rg, 2009).Results from past lessons may be of value in understanding more modern recessions, such as the one from which the world economy is currently recovering. For the Portuguese case we add to the previous important contributions of Portugal (2002, 2004), by enlarging the time span of their study and focusing on the potential effect of foreign ownership during (different) downturn periods. Compared to Varum and Rocha (2011), who examined the link between foreign ownershi...