69 days is an amazing number. But it did took him over 450 days from submission to getting card which is disappointed enough. I was never told by my lawyer to do the Biometric in Faro. My lawyer only mentioned about Lisbon Porto and Coimbra.
Considering the 50%-60% applicants are Chinese and all of them cannot flight out from China due to current lockdown policy, the process will be even tremendously slower when China stops the Zero Covid and all of sudden the demand for Biometric gets doubled 
Well, we donāt know with definite proof, but we know from hearing from multiple sources and reports. My lawyer has 100s of clients and they explained dismay that progress for most of their clients was much worse than my progress (and my progress is not good). And the fact that IAS sends an email to its clients that is defensive at best trying to calm things down. And that SEF altered the procedure for biometrics because of complaints. So, we do have a strong sense of the dire nature of the situation. All total, we know the situation is bad, and I feel confident saying the actual numbers are worse than presented.
I should add also the very fact that some find it necessary to create such a survey means that the results are to some extent already foretold. I do think its nice to actually have some data that reporters or others can latch onto if they want to run a story on this. Any law firm with a large number of clients already has this similar data, so they dont need to be told.
Well, because appointments are non-existent at the moment , demand can increase all it wants and it wont have any effect. 
Iām not quite what youāre trying to say. Of course a large law firm that processes many cases already has this data, but we donāt. If youāre able and willing to contact firms to get it, Iād be happy to add it. Thanks.
The non-existent appointment problem started in 2022. But China has been locking down since 2020. It is impossible to fly out of China unless you already have cards in hand. Having a reason of doing the Biometric in Portugal does not help at all to fly out.
This is a huge amount of applicants that has been accumulated.
But as you said, if the Portuguese government wants to solve it, it is bloody easy. They can solve all the Biometric issues within few days by using the Embassy/Consulate in applicantās countries. The key here is they do not even care to solve this problem. Or maybe they want to delay the whole things on purpose. Who knows what exactly they wantā¦
Yes, you are correct. I suspect there is a huge amount of pressure on the government to allow Chinese to conduct biometrics at the China consulates. That may well be what happens in the next few months.
Thatās exactly what I am saying. The law firms already have this data, but are not forthcoming or transparent with it. So, this is good to publicly create this data for use by reporters, etc. I meant that everyone already knows generally what the results will be, but I think it will be even worse than we expected if we had a full dataset (e.g., including Chinese applicants).
Now we have the data. We need to think about the next step, dissemination of the message. It wonāt help us if only we know the data.
Thanks for putting this together. Iāve tried to enter my data a few times but it isnāt registering on the spreadsheet. Is it still open?
Ah apologies for that. There was an issue with the sheet which I fixed. It now shows all 70 responses.
Just wow. This thread has been both extremely enlightening and terribly depressing. We engaged a major immigration firm in Nov 2020. They are awful, but thatās a whole other story. It took until Dec 2021 for us to close on our real estate purchase. Then, of course, all the application uploads are frozen so supposedly our firm emailed in our application in Feb 2022. We have no idea if that even counts! We canāt get a straight answer from the firm. If I understand this message board correctly, the entire process can take closer to 10 years, not 5. Which leads me to askāwhy even bother? Why not just go in on a D7 when you are good and ready to move? We have a 13 year old son, and we were mainly doing this for him (and to have an escape route for 2024 when the US falls apart). We worry that this will take so long that our son wonāt be allowed to do this as he wonāt be a dependent in 10 years. So. Incredibly. Frustrating.
It must be really frustrating to deal with a slow immigration firm in addition to the slow as molasses SEF.
I talked to my lawyers about aging out kids - here is what I understand. It is true that they will not automatically become citizens when you do when they age out. HOWEVER, if they are not aged out by the time they get their first residence card, they can apply for citizenship on their own as long as they satisfy the 7 day per year and A2 language requirements as well.
So this means, get them their own NIF. And when you go to Portugal not only keep records that you were there, but also that they were there - get an NIF for them separately, file taxes as appropriate for them separately, and also use their NIF on receipts to prove their presence when you are.
They recommended that we start to show ātiesā to Portugal for them separately - make donations in their name to local cultural institutions, etc. (not required, but may be helpful).
Again, this is my understanding and but I am not a lawyer and so cannot count on it 100%.
Great idea! Thanks for that.
I just submitted mine and I am in doubt if it is submitted since I can not find my data in the data sheet.
It is also disappointing, actually for my case, it is 806 days (yes! 806 days) up to now that I am waiting for biometric appointment after pre-approval, when in summary data sheet maximum days are 744. Could you please check.
Seems that I can move records individually 
Apologies there was an issue with the sheet not showing all the responses. Iāve fixed it now. And yes, if itās been 806 days since youāve submitted your application and have not received your biometrics appointment, that is one of the slowest timeline. I do see one other submission that submitted mid December 2019 with no biometrics scheduled yet.
You answered your own question.
The problem is that the GV escape-hatch path ended up jammed shut just when people really started reaching for it. Sucks, but you know what they say about plan-B (get it in place well ahead of time because when SHTF you wonāt have the option any more).
If you can move now, use D7.
If you canāt move now and are concerned about the future someday, get a GV.
If you canāt move now but expect you might want to move next yearā¦ wait, apply for the D7 when you want to move, and hope like hell theyāre still letting people in.
Your story really sucks to hear though. Best of intentions, and it all went to shit.
This is a recently published online article about the state of the Portugal Golden Visa.
It is saying that all GVās are āstoppedā. That is to say that there have been ZERO applications (including renewals) processed for the whole of 2022 so far. It is a long read.
I donāt know if it is comforting to know that what I have been going through is very real and not just my bad luck or my lawyers making excuses, or if it is depressing because there really is no end in sight.
Very useful article. Thank you very much
We are on the same boat here.
No hope. A simple problem turns out to be a real mission impossible. Looks like we are heading back to the stone age. 
Maybe Thomas Running has some contacts in the government. Might be our only hopeā¦
I deleted an already listed article.
Does anyone know if GVs are delayed across all types of investments, or only real estate investments? Fund option, art donation, etc ā also delayed?