wow, probably still not enough.
Apparently not for some of us. The wait continues. Hopefully the trend of releasing big batches of ARI slots will continue.
Yeah, my lawyer got nothing for us 
But thanks to this thread I am able to hound her and she canāt tell me they arenāt releasing appointments!
Maybe there will be a bunch of last minute cancellations with this batch of appointments 
@supermoira Youāre probably right, I guess many people will have to cancel. Also I would suggest to put some pressure on your lawyers to pay more attention on Monday, could be there will be some appointments released for December, who knowsā¦
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I yesterday got my appointment for Thursday at Coimbra SEF. There is definitely sporadic last minute pooling of cancelled appointments that get released (daily). Good luck all !
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wow. 2500 slots and 75% didnāt get an appointment?
I wonder how many ARI permits are pending (versus renewals)ā¦
@jb4422 You got me curious. I looked at the stats from SEF site and it is not very encouraging for anyone who hasnāt got an appointment.
Assuming the backlog is from 2019 since they claimed to have cleared the backlog in 2018 (there is an article shared by @anon16151502, link below) Also, assuming that applicants and their families applied in 2015 -2018 also need their renewal in 2020 and 2021. Iām not sure if my assumption is too pessimistic here, but here are the numbers:
| Year | Applicants | Family reunification |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 766 | 1322 |
| 2016 | 1414 | 2344 |
| 2017 | 1351 | 2678 |
| 2018 | 1409 | 2500 |
| 2019 | 1245 | 2192 |
| 2020 | 1182 | 2043 |
| 01/2021-06/2021 | 445 | 648 |
| Total | 7812 | 13727 |
So, the grand total is 21,539 appointment slots. Maybe not all will need an appointment? or maybe more? 
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Aaaaaaah! So jealous!
But hopefully itās a good start
Oh my word! This is not encouragingā¦
I am actually waiting for my last renewal, it looks like we may qualify for citizenship before we get our renewal appointment!! We only have 1.5 years to till we get to the 5 year target !
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yer a fount of good cheerā¦ !
I will add that since the program stared in 2012, the total investment is more than ā¬5.8 billions!
on the other hand.
the appointment takes a good hour, having BTDT, accounting for coffee breaks and the like. Letās assume the doc stack is less for a family member but itās a half hour probably. Iāll let you know Friday. Anyway.
thereās 40 hours in a week. 4 weeks in a month. so one employee dedicated to the task can handle 160-320 people a month. letās say 240. How many employees do you need to have to process the backlog, just dedicated to ARI, ignoring all the other people? So your 2500 appointments is ~10 staff dedicated solely to ARI application appointments.
Rock, meet hard place.
I understood that GV renewal is categorised differently, as I did not see my friend familay have renewal booking difficulty for Nov 2020.
Does the SEF go on vacation in December-January. Are there any holidays for Christmas and New Year. That would slow down the process further.
best regards
Iāve been trying to get an appointment for the renewal since April
I called SEF and they told me that the renewals are still under the ARI category and follow the same scheduling procedure, that is you can only book through the ARI platform and not via phone like all the other types of visas.
From what I understand the big holiday time in Portugal is August/September. There are a 3/4 religious holidays in December but people usually work normally for the majority of the month
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Moira,
Just to give you a bit comfort. I believe you know that renewal gap has no impact on legal residency duration and therefore your next step: either PR or Citizenship application. It only impact your travel within Schengen.
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Roger,
Thatās very useful information, thanks. I had been concerned about the renewal gaps extending the 5 year horizon to 7 or more, as teenage children might not be able to fulfill the dependency requirements for that long a period. Is this mentioned explicitly somewhere in the rules, or is it something observed in practice? Thanks!
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@minimaxr
I confirmed this with my lawyer, she said that the clock starts ticking from the date of issue of the first visa. Not sure where to find the official law describing this in writing but it seems to be the general consensus.
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I can confirm @supermoira words from the side of the law firm I use. That was one of my first questions, and they told me the same - for the purpose of permanent residency and citizenship the term starts from the date the first visa is issued and does not break.
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