Did anyone actually confirm with their lawyers that its not actually 7 days in the first year but 14 days within the first 2 year of card issuance?
I understand that the law mentions a requirement of 7 days in the first year, but I’ve been hearing that AIMA’s current practice is 14 days within the first 2 years.
Had this exact question to my lawyers earlier this year and this was their response:
Please note that you should spend at least 14 days throughout the card’s validity, of which 7 must be in the first year of validity. This is only valid for the first card. After you renew the cards, in two years, you may spend only 14 days in two years
I think they are giving me safe advice, but it’s what I ended up doing.
I received the opposite advice. This from a well known, major law firm. 
Yeah - I lost sleep over this earlier this year cos my lawyers also told me it was 7 in the first year and 14 in the first 2. But then I got advice from employment lawyers at 5 other law firms and 3 of them (the three with the busiest practices in this field) very confidently assured me that the rule is simply 14 in the first 2 years (and NOT 7 in the first year).
I would ask yourself this - how much risk are you willing to accept? If a law says there is a requirement of 7 days required within the 1st year, simply because AIMA has chosen not to enforce that requirement doesn’t mean they can, will or will be allowed to continue to do the same. So, if the government continues down its anti-immigration path, scrutinizes visa compliance and decides to use that as a reason to deny your renewal or citizenship application down the road - how will that impact your situation? If you decide not to heed that 7 day/1st year, will you regret your decision if it causes you problems?
For the record - my legal firm stated that the law requires 7 days in the 1st year and 14 days every 2 year period thereafter. They acknowledged there has been leniency due to the validity period of the card and the legal requirements being poorly aligned. (They were also convinced there was no way the government could or would remove the counting from application date for those who had already submitted a visa application) For me, seeing how the government has been willing to effectively retroactively change laws, hearing about how they are working overtime to reject citizenship applications, and watching this landscape change significantly in such a short amount of time - I’m opting for the most solid legal standing I can get. Ultimately, you need to make the best choice for you and your situation.
Totally agree with @kay
In my 4 years of dealing with various Portuguese bureaucratic hells, I’ve seen “rules and regulations” applied differently at the next counter from me. So do you really want to risk being assigned to someone who is a stickler for the rules (or makes up their own rules - I’ve seen that as well) saying you failed to stay 7d in your first year?
It’s not like Portugal is super-expensive or difficult to visit, and if 7d is too much for you to handle, just wait for all the other onerous demands Portugal will make of you (e.g. yet another multi-country apostille rush-job despite having submitted the same 3x already). When you finally get to Year 5, will you regret not taking that 7 day vacay in Portugal your 1st year?
Yeah I am definitely not losing sleep over this. Once I get my card, I see no problem why I can’t visit Porto for a week. It’s nice over there.
I would love to go, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I’m not sure if I can visit Portugal this first year, so that’s why I’m asking.
Our lawyer suggested sticking to the 7 days/year to be safe. To us, that means we can go at the very end of our first year and stay for 2 weeks (plus a day or two to be sure). We would then make sure the dates are 1 week in the first year and 1 week in the 2nd year. Might not be the ideal time to visit, but if we are talking about living there one day, we might as well see what it is like during the off-season as well. And it would save us a nice amount on airfare.
We are spending 8 days year - even though we haven’t even received our cards yet. I figure, I love Portugal and I’m using it to visit different places to pick where in the country I want to retire to
It’s 7 days per individual year, and it’s not the calendar year. The “year” commences from the date the residency begins, which is stated on the card.