Incredible to know that only 300 slots were given to ARI and probably take years to complete. But 40k Ukrainians were given slots AND cards within days 
.
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The 300 slots was just one law firm. I guess the Ukranian refugees would take priority since their lives are in danger.
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typically, there are 1000-1200 ARI per year. So including the dependents, it could reach 5000 biometric slots in total per year. And all those 5000 people under ARI were from last year. Months or years before the war started.
It makes me wonder about the productivity of SEF. They did give cards for 40k Ukrainian within days. But before war, they never could give slots and cards for ARI on time as they promised. Maybe SEF only wanted to spend 3-5% of their effort to work on this. But, on the other hand, they still want money from the investors
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It was sent to both me and my lawyer.
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That would explain my invite. I submitted in September 2021, but was not pre approved until Jan 2022.
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Biometrics booked for the first week of Aug. Pre-approval was in Oct '21, so I believe I’m on the same average as most here with regards to timing. Let’s see if everything will go well.
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yes does anyone have clarity on this from lawyers?? ours have been useless. we were pre-approved in March 2021 and canceled biometrics appts in sept 2021 due to covid/flight cancelations and now it seems we’ve been lost in the system. Also seems like even without the canceled appts there would still be a concern for having been skipped over.
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Well my lawyers say they have “addressed this to the SEF”, whatever that means.
We are in the same boat. Approved in March 2020. Skipped the appointment in Aug 2020 due to lockdowns and Covid. Now we are “lost” in the SEF system.
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Thank you, that was really helpful!
Such a disgrace the system is. I am sorry you have had to wait for so long .
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My case confirms this too:
Application Submitted: September 23rd 2021
Notification of missing document: Feb 2022
Pre-approval: end Feb/ beginning March 2022
Biometric Appointment: July 6th 2022
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Congratulations
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Just wanted to add this:
Dear Kari,
Thank you for your e-mail.
Regarding your question about 5-year residency – the countdown starts from the date indicated in the GV card as the date of issuance, but all periods of legal stay are also being considered (for example, 90-days stay with Schengen visa).
As about biometrics: unfortunately, this option for “spontaneous” appointments no longer exists, as SEF is now processing all the files in chronological order, considering the date of submission.
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That is extremely quickly! I applied in May 2021 and didn’t get pre-approval until October- 6 months later
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My husband (main applicant) and our lawyer both received the biometric invite email.
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When did you receive it?
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Hi Ahmed, here’s the timeline.
July 26, 2021 - GV by RE fund (Rock Capital) investment funded
October 26, 2021 - pre-approval from SEF
June 24, 2022 - received biometrics invite email from SEF (10 day window to book appointments)
September 1 & 2, 2022 - biometrics appointments in Lisbon
Not SO terrible I guess, but it seems like we’ve been doing this forever since we started our due diligence in January 2021, so in the end it seems like the entire process will take nearly 3 years.
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Heather - your timeline is very similar to ours (a little later on the application and pre-approval, a little earlier on the bio appt). It DOES seem like this has been going on a long time - but I just keep focused on the long-term goal!
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