If these regulations are taken literally this would mean the stay requirements are completely out of sync with the card validities. E.g. you could show up to renew your 2 year card having stayed only 7 days and say youâll stay 14 days in the 3rd year per the regulations!
Has anyone actually been denied renewal for spending 14 days during their first cardâs 2 year validity but NOT 7 days during the 1st year of that?
Our plan is to just spend 10 days a year in PT.
Our lawyer has indicated we should not have an issue, despite the fact we will not have been in Portugal for 7 days during our first year.
Our Timeline:
October 2020 - Application submitted
March 2021 - Preapproval
March 2022 - Biometrics (Faro)
May 2022 - Final Approval / Titulo de Residencia issued (2 year validity)
We had previously been advised that the stay requirement was 14 days anytime within the first two years. Our lawyer continues to advise that because we were fully approved almost a year ago, we will be OK with a minimum of 14 days anytime within our first two years.
Iâm not sure Iâd trust that, personally. Sure, maybe theyâre right, but are you gonna risk this whole thing over an extra week in portugal?
Our one year is up during the first week of May. On such short notice we canât make it in time. We will rely on our lawyers at Prime Legal and trust that they know what they are talking about.
edit: Believe me, it there was time, weâd be there before the one year elapses. And it is not an âextra weekâ situation. We still plan to be in country 14 days (at a minimum) within the first two years.
Have you run this âfirst yearâ question by your lawyers? Iâd be interested to learn what they are advising their clients.
My lawyers said it is âadvisableâ to spend the 7 days in the first year, but also that they have seen clients getting renewals approved without that, e.g. with 14 days in the 2nd year.
Whatâs possibly going on is that while the regulations (which have not been updated after the initial permit was changed from 1 year to 2 years) are clear that 7 days in the first year is required, SEF is being lenient on the understanding that those regulations are outdated?
Our timeline is similar. I floated the idea of a last minute one-week trip to my spouse but the idea is too stressful for them so we will just be doing 14 days during the 2 years instead.
I think my spouse would be willing to deal with it if we knew it was 100% necessary but I told them what the lawyers said and they said Iâm just paranoid, thinking that even though nobody else has been denied over this, I would be the first 
Hopefully SEF (or their replacement) is lenient but if not while the GV would certainly be a nice-to-have, itâs not worth the cost of excessive marital stress 
The marital stress of a vacation to Portugal!
You ever tried planning a trip last minute with kids? 
our lawyer did previously advise that 14 days anytime in the 1st 2 years are fine. If theyâd said it has to be 7 in the first year, we would have had plenty of time to plan a real family vacation to PT in the first year.
The other difficult part is we never added my spouse to the GV because their home country doesnât allow dual citizenship, so theyâre not interested in a PT passport for themselves. So rushing over now would mean a very short âvacationâ for me (and maybe one kid) to fulfill my residence requirement, while my spouse is stuck at home with the other kid, during a time of year where work pressures at their job are high. Stressful indeed!
Hi Guys,
I read that the requirement to stay in Portugal on GV is 14 days in 2 years. Does it mean that you have to visit Portugal every year for 7 days, or it could be a single visit of 14 days once every 2 years?
Hi - how did this work out? Did your lawyers turn out to be right? Ie were you able to renew the visa even though you didnât spend 7 days in Portugal in the first year?
Have others had experience of this?
Thanks
Over the last few years AIMA offered âautomatic online renewalâ as a solution to the backlog where you requested renewal without supplying any documentation like proof of stay.
I was able to renew this way with only 14 days in the 2nd year. Possibly, I could have renewed without visiting PT at all because I donât know if during âautomatic online renewalâ they checked such things.
However going forward if AIMA manages to clear the backlog, I assume they will discontinue âautomatic online renewalâ. So to be careful, when I got my renewed 3 year card, I already spent 7 (actually 8) full days in the first year.
I was able to renew online, with no proof of stay required. My renewed card is valid for three years. I now have a rental apartment in Lisbon and am spending more than enough time each year to meet future stay requirements.