Weāre now in Portugal with the family and Iām extremely happy our lawyers got us 3 of 4 appointments from that last bulk distributed in September. My daughter is still not having her appointment booked, meaning that for some reason now even the last time cancellations are not that widely (if one can say so) available as beforeā¦
Upd.: hard to believe, but Iāve just got a great news that my daughter also got her appointment to the end of this week.
Congratulations! Thatās so lucky and great. Thanks for keeping us up to date with your whole timeline.
Our application was accepted in February 2021. US citizens.
Since then, our attorney had been checking for appointments with no success. In September, at our request, she was able to give us the ability to login to check for appointments ourselves.
Yesterday, at ~2pm EST, we found and booked an appointment for today at 11am in Ponta Delgada for my husband. In anticipation of finding an appointment, weād recently gotten updated FBI reports, apostilled and translated, as those need to be updated every 3 months.
My husband, fully vaccinated, got a rapid RT-PCR test shortly after 3pm, came home and packed, and he was at the airport by 4pm for a 5pm flight to Boston to connect to the nonstop Azores air flight that left Boston to Ponta Delgada at 9:21pm. Fortunately that flight was only $450, plus $195 for the flight to Boston. He received his PCR test results (negative) via email on the way to the airport.
Flights went smoothly and he arrived this morning at 6:30am. First glitch of the trip was that the Azores donāt accept pharmacy PCR test results, so he had to submit to another PCR test at the airport, the results of which they emailed him later in the day (negative). He booked a hotel 15 minute walk from the SEF office.
Even though all of the documents had been uploaded to the sef portal successfully by our attorney, the immigration agent at SEF was exasperated and threw up his arms when he discovered my husband only had the updated FBI report, and not all of the hardcopy documents with him. It seems the SEF appointment is mostly a turning-over-of-paper-documents affair.
Our attorney, who normally accompanies clients to sef interviews, was on the phone with the SEF agent trying to work through everything since it was so last-minute, to no avail.
Fortunately, another attorney was in the SEF office and offered his help.
So they went to his office, and that attorney prepared some needed documents (I think just printing out the uploaded documents already in the portal and certifying the copies), and they went back for a 2pm appointment, where they got his fingerprints, and they provided a list of the original documents he needed to send to the office. So success, the hard way.
Meanwhile, back in the states, today around 1pm EST, I found another appointment at the Azores office, also at 11am, on Monday 11/22, so Iām following close behind my husband on the same flights, arriving on Sunday morning, using the attorney who he met, and hoping certified copies of the original documents will suffice to get my biometrics taken.
Fingers crossed that being a little more prepared and showing up with an attorney will make things smoother for me.
Do you and your husband speak Portuguese? Iād be worried to go to a sef alignment without a translator, at a minimum
Other than muito obrigado, vinho verde and porto tonico, and alacrim (rosemary) no portuguese. He had google translate on his phone, and the attorney he ran into I think saved the day.
@jimhock3 Congratulations! May I ask how you obtained access to check appointment yourselves? Did your lawyer share her login credentials, or she needs to do something else?
She did not share her login, there was a separate login for me using my email address.
I think thereās a thread somewhere here that explains how the attorney and client can both have access to the account.
Sorry couldnāt help more! Before getting the 2 appointments in the azores, Iād only seen one other appointment in all the time Iād been trying, and by the time I tried to book that it was already gone.
Wow. This all sounds like a complete nightmare that can only get worse? The 5 year to residency period only starts, I presume, after in person biometric appt. with SEF, and for you that was more than 8 months after your initial application, and that was only because your attorney allowed you access to the portal (my attorney insisted that only they, not I, could access the portal and stated that it was because all their GV clients are on same account, and that was after I told her that I had read on this forum about individuals opening their own portal account and inputting attorneyās email as āregistrarā or some such- I gave up arguing being at such a late date in the process-Iām at their mercy) and you were able to make a last minute appointment opening. Geez Iām not sure this is all worth it?
Plus Iām not clear on why your husband had to be tested for COVID in order to travel on top of being fully vaccinated? And itās clear Iāll be going through the FBI BG check/apostille process q 90 days indefinitely?
All this gives me great pause just before I intend to fund my bank account
Nonetheless Iām happy for you and impressed by your perseverance.
Hi Curtis,
It is indeed frustrating but not exactly new news. This has been the situation for months. I suspect if you stick with it, things will work out fine for you. Just set your expectations correctly and donāt expect to get an appointment before March 2022. Not having a login is frustrating but to be honest, aside from a random appointment in the Azores, there are no appointments available so you arenāt missing out on much.
No, it starts when the card is issued. The appointment is just that, verifying of documents and collecting of biometrics. The application still has to actually be finally reviewed and approved, and THEN your card is cut and sent. My appointment was Sep 8, and I was notified only this week that my application was finally being reviewed, and lawyer says I can expect another month or two before itās all over with. My wife is a month behind me, assuming the wheels grind at the same pace.
@jimhock3 I almost had to rush to Ponto Delgada for an appointment; I went through all of the pre-trip terror of trying to figure out how to get there on short notice before my lawyer found another appointment in Faro so I understand your pain. Pretty amazing you found a second appointment the same day to keep the trip from being a total waste. But yes the doc stack better be perfect. Iām surprised the lawyer let you go alone in the first place. You def were very fortunate.
@crmark the Azores have separate travel policies from the mainland and they insist on a very recent PCR test - antigen is not acceptable and vaccination status IIRC is irrelevant. And yes you are going to spend a lot on fingerprint checks.
The GV is a minefield at this point. I think all of these last minute applicants are going to end up very unpleasantly surprised at the mess theyāve stepped into because Iām sure most of the folks doing the selling/advocating are glossing over all of this. Do I personally regret it? No. I donāt like the idea itās taken so long but I also donāt like black coffee or that Iām over 50. Iāve also accepted that at the end of the day this is Portugal, money does NOT buy you preferential treatment (I think one can argue that itās the inverse), and if this really upsets you then maybe you need to reconsider because Everything Else You Do In Portugal is going to be The Same Way. Go read the right FB groups and follow the journey of those simply trying to get assigned a health ID so they can get their drivers license. You have to decide if that ongoing pain is something you really want in your life. Just like Costa Rica. Truly gorgeous. Wonderful people. And completely, utterly, infuriatingly maddening if youāre a type-A westerner.
(I freely admit I may be more able to be tolerant because my lawyer - to whom I now pledge faithful allegiance - leveled with me on what was going on, plus or minus, and in hindsight truly did the job better than I ever could have myself. If I were getting the inaction and run-around many of you seem to, Iād probably be hopping mad too.)
Thanks Jeff.
āNo, it starts when the card is issuedā. All that makes since as far as final approval of application=getting the ācardā. The deadline I am most interested in presently, though, is getting in before the investment minimum increases, and what needs to have been accomplished/transpired in order for that to have occurred, i.e, by yearās end?
Wow, thatās a nail-biter! Congratulations on success through determination and ingenuity!
That may as be, but assuming you do succeed in getting the passport, you will still be a Portuguese citizen. I donāt really know, but I sincerely doubt you can manage to be a citizen of a first world country and not ever have to interact with it. As a citizen you have rights but also obligations. And you still have to jump through all the hoops between now and then.
My point was that Portugalās systems are apparently all slow, gummed-up, and bureaucratic, you are going to have to keep dealing with them, and as all this has shown, whatās on paper is not necessarily what happens; this isnāt a business transaction.
I did just read a timeline issued by a lawyer a while back. 2-4 weeks between application and pre-approval. 3-4 months from appointment to approval. 15 days to issue cards. Ah, such innocent daysā¦
So my appointment yesterday went somewhat more smoothly than my husbandās. Our new Azores attorney accompanied me to the appointment and I had a smaller list of documents since Iām the spouse, but still only had my updated FBI report for documents as our Porto attorney has all of the originals, and we made it to the Azores before she knew.
I got the same immigration agent my husband did (there are only 3 in the office) and he was friendly but justifiably frustrated at me showing up with next-to-none of the documents he needed to review.
Long story short it was touch and go whether he would let me do my biometrics, but he did, and our Porto attorney is sending the original documents to them.
Well, at least you got processed, and you shouldnāt have to go back to do that again, even if your app ends up bumping around the system for a while due to incomplete docā¦
Yes, weāre excited this step is done. And we have every single one of the documents, they were all just in the wrong place due to the last-minute appointment.
how do you plan for your Porto Attorney and Azores Attorney co-exist after this?
The Azores attorney is just coordinating the submission of our original documents, currently in the office of our Porto attorney, to the SEF office in the Azores. Itās an extra step and an extra expense, but mostly unavoidable given the short notice of the appointment we were able to get and the remote location from the mainland. Once thatās done, weāll be back in the hands of our Porto attorney. Sheās always accompanied her clients to SEF appointments until now so itās not a typical situation.
Guys, SEF are opening the slots of December and January starting today so contact your lawyer to grab you slots.
Good luck all
Unfortunately, the appointments are all gone within minutes after they announced it.