This thread turned hilarious… 
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What about taking a pic of yourself and your dependents holding the newspaper published that day?
Well…um… not only do we poor folks keep SEF/AIMA amused, but we also need to keep our exalted Founder amused … 
On a serious note, i thought if you join a university for portuguese language learning and complete them with a2 or higher level, is that not a better proof ?
University only has A1 A2 B1 B2 as portuguese courses for the foreigner. Taking a course from university or any center does not matter. What matter is that the center is listed by PLA website and the certificated is PLA approved so that it can be used for citizenship purpose. Also, for your information, higher lever of A2 is B1; higher level of B1 is B2. There are C1 and C2, but it is extremely difficult to have the course because there are not enough students that want to study those levels.
The PLA course is a great proof! But it’s around 8 weeks. Not everyone has enough vacation time to do that.
Do you mean to say we don’t need take cplep portuguese certification exam if we attend and complete the A2 or higher course at PLA ?
Does MillenniumBCP bank give account number and NIF on ATM withdrawl receipt?
information has been deeply discussed here. Better doing some research before asking. Be constructive. I do not want to spam this forum.
By the way, I heard that some countries of the EU are not accepting Portuguese Golden Visa Cards in lieu of Schengen Visa. Is that true?
Apologies, if this is not the right thread for this question.
So what we learned as we did this the first time:
- The day you enter and leave the country do NOT necessarily each count as a full day.
- AIMA does not accept credit card statements in any way.
- keep all your boarding passes but because of #1, you also need to keep your matching plane receipt/itinerary so you can show the time of day you entered and left PT.
- Get a NIF for everyone. It makes it SO much simpler. Buy something each day and give them your NIF. This will mean you need tax assistance for everyone so keep that in mind.
- Stay a few extra days just in case.
- Make sure keep all your receipts!! Scan them as soon as you get home. Send them to your lawyer.
- There is no searchable central NIF database that AIMA can check. You need to show your proof.
Hope that helps someone.
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So did AIMA actually refuse to accept proof of stay so you had to provide something else?
The whole giving the NIF as proof you’re in the country just seems such a stretch to me (as it’s sooo easily circumvented - your friend in Portugal simply uses your NIF when shopping), that I wonder if it’s a bit of a wives’ tale. Or if AIMA has actually come back on renewal and said sorry your boarding passes and hotel invoices aren’t enough we need receipts with a NIF.
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You can check your personal record of all NIF transactions here
https://www.acesso.gov.pt/v2/loginForm?partID=PFAP&path=/geral/dashboard
This information is used to recover certain expenses when / if you complete a Portuguese tax return. My accountant accesses it each year and allocates certain items against my PT tax.
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Actually, there is. If you use NIF for your purchases, you could go to Finanças and obtain a print-out of all your expenditures properly time-stamped.
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Technically correct but AIMA will not accept this as proof of residency. You need the actual receipts.
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These are our lawyers experience from multiple past cases with AIMA/SEF.
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Our lawyer has said the same. Save the receipts.
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I assume it’s situations like this that actually drive them to be such sticklers for the paperwork. Otherwise it would be easy to circumvent. Not looking forward to spending my two weeks there wondering if I collected enough paperwork but I guess it is what it is. Will be scanning everything upon receipt and saving to online storage.
keep all the receipts…the Aima official will verify them in April 2034
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and figure out a way for the ink to not disappear from the paperwork you have collected. Given some of mine from the July trip are now almost blank 
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