Sure, thatās also sensible to open the bank accounts with debit cards so that anyone can go about shopping independently and using Multibanco (as some mechants donāt accept VISA/Mastercard).
However, just to clarify, the method of payment is irrelevant when it comes to getting a NIF receipt.
You can pay cash and still get the NIF receipt.
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Ah ok, good to know. I will collect NIF receipts, bank statements showing transaction history, hotel receipts, boarding passes, stamps in passports, and take lots of photos of everyone every day!
Sounds like a plan 
Donāt forget the daily ATM slips 
We would stop in at Pingo Doce or Lidl and buy a .19 euro bottle of water. Easy to enter your NIF at the self checkout. 
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Can minor children get NIFs?
Yes, a minor can get their own NIF.
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Does anyone know if it is a problem if you donāt get entry and exit stamps in Portugal (because you transit via another Schengen country)? I would still provide proof of travel to Portugal (boarding passes) as well as hotel accommodation and daily receipts for purchases with my NIF.
I have a flight via Amsterdam in a couple of weeks and wonder if that is a risk?
It is allowed to transit via other Schengen countries. Keep all boarding passes, hotel reservations, train tickets, etc. My lawyers advised us to use our NIFs regularly while we are here, as well. We are keeping receipts for restaurants and stores that have our numbers on them.
Thank you. That is very helpful to know.
We entered Schengen at Munich yesterday and was informed by different border officers that they wonāt stamp on our passports as we hold PT residency. It was only after some minutes of explanations to respective officer, they finally agreed to put stamps on our passports as a āmemoryā.
Did you tell and show them that you have PT residency or did it flash up on a computer?
What nationality are you and would you otherwise require a Schengen visa or be subject to the 90-day rule?
This is common, I had the same experience at Helsinki. My passport normally requires a Schengen visa but due to showing a PT residence card, was initially not stamped. I insisted that I needed for complying with Portuguese requirements, they were skeptical but shrugged and stamped.
This is very interesting. I had been led to believe that our PT residence card did not give us unlimited access to the other European Schengen countries and that the 90-day rule would still technically apply (however impossible it would be to police once youāre in Portugal). If other border guards are not stamping the passports on the production of the PT residency card then this would imply there is no record of your comings and goings and hence the 90-day rule would not be applicable. Or am I misreading this / have been mislead?
According to the rules of the Schengen Border Code, they are supposed to stamp.
Some do, some donāt. There have been numerous misunderstandings over the years amongst countries on this topic.
There is even a memorandum about this, acknowledging the issues around the whole topic - the 90/180 and how you enforce it on someone who has a residence card and the actual utility of stamps and all that. Itās interesting reading, especially since itās a government entity acknowledging and bowing to reality, which is not as common as you might wish.
In any event, the 90/180 day rule applies, whether or not they stamp. It is just in the fringes that it might get enforced; there is a ābenefit of the doubtā rule that gets applied for residence permit holders (as opposed to those actually on visa).
In my limited experience, they donāt stamp more than they do.
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I think thatās broadly correct at the moment, and certainly the case in practise (in my experience). Individual countries may record your presence (flight manifest etc) but they are not centrally maintained to track 90 days presence in-country against your visa, I guess this type of data maybe used for crime investigation etc. This changes if ETIAS is implemented.
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The stamp on the passport is for YOU to quickly, easily and non-electronically provide evidence to any interested party that you entered and left the Schengen zone on such and such dates. The Schengen Information System has electronic records to track your entry and exit into the Schengen area, whether they stamp your passport or not.
Also, there are people with residence cards from, say, Portugal, who illegally travel and work in another Schengen country for longish durations, and there are systems in place for occasional transit checks and entering of alerts in the SIS. This causes said people trouble when they try to get some process done from AIMA and their name and fingerprints show up in SIS.
TLDR; the 90/180 day rule applies, and may have hidden teeth even if it appears inadequately policed. Not worth the time of anyone on this forum to test the enforcement boundaries.
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Weāve just been passing our boarding passes over to our lawyer. If boarding passes show entry/exit dates that support the number of days required, he says that is sufficient. FWIW, heās handled GV holders all the way to citizenship who have only been in Portugal the absolute minimum days required.
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Honestly, I donāt think it does.
Iāve spent a fair amount of time looking at the Schengen Border Code and the stuff around it.
SIS is very explicitly a system by which member nations can submit ALERTS about people they think other countries should watch for. But someone has to actually enter the alert along with documentation and reason. Thatās not the same as logging everything.
VIS, another EU-wide system, is used for propagating information about visas. This only applies to actual Schengen visas - NOT visa waiver - by definition, there is no visa for a visa-waiver. As far as I can tell, the stamp on your passport for a third country national on visa waiver IS YOUR VISA. Thatās it.
And then actual permits go into yet another database, whose name I forget. That database does not appear to include any sort of tracking of location. I think once you reach that point, EU data privacy rules start applying so they CANāT legally track you.
This is all supposed to be improved through the new EES and ETIAS systems, which of course have been delayed forever and may happen someday, but well.
Now, if you want to believe that the systems do more than it says on the label, then ok, but thatās what the labels actually say.
I do think there are various other checks and things that happen, and obviously stuff does filter up to SIS, but itās got holes in it.
I will offer this anecdote.
I entered schengen through Switzerland. I handed the agent my permit and passport. He looked at the permit, said āPORTUGAL?!ā, then just handed them back to me and waved me on my way. He scanned the passport but just looked at the card.
I left via Germany. I handed the agent my passport, but NOT my card. He did the scanny-thing, flipped through my passport, then againā¦ and asked how I got in. I said āoh, sorryā and handed him my permit. He looked at the card, said āoh, okā and waved me on my way.
Either we have two very inefficient border agents, or the amount of automatic data sharing going on here is NOT that high.
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Thank you; I think I had confused SIS and ETIAS. I always assumed they are recording entry and exit into Schengen, but never checked at the level of detail you have.
The SIS alert system is used, among other things, to flag āirregular migrationā as mentioned in the presentation you linked, people who have residence permits but are in violation of their conditions, e.g. by working in a different country.
Youāre right, EES/ETIAS is not yet in use, though the latest regulations call for AIMA to use it to verify entry/stay where possible.
yeah, Iām sure they all KNOW the huge gaps in their logging etc, but (a) they have to deal with EU GDPR rules (b) getting 27 countries to agree on anything, well.
Itās logical of course but interesting that they are actually writing it down specifically in law.
That said, from the FAQ on EES, it very specifically says that holders of residence permits and long-stay visas are NOT subject to EES. Itās only for short-stay visas.
Hm. I havenāt really paid attention to EES. ETIAS was all the discussion, which I looked at and ignored because it doesnāt apply to permit holders. Never saw much about EES. Wow is THAT going to cause a snarl when it gets implemented! Oct 24, if they manage itā¦