Did you file a lawsuit or everything was normal process?
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A small island named Ponta Delgada in Azores, extremely inconvenient unless you want to take a vacation along with the appointment
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No I didnāt. Iām considering a law suit for my dependents but I didnāt file anything for myself.
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Ponta Delgada is the city, the island is SĆ£o Miguel! I also did my biometrics there during covid lockdown. Remote but pleasant. The town is so small I was able to walk to my biometrics appointment and my pre-flight covid test.
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Congratulations!
My lawyers informed me.
We should start seeing approvals this month for those who did their biometrics in January 2023. The trend so far has been 23 months from the month of biometrics (Lisbon in particular) 
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WoW!! Please do not skip the entire 2022 batch.
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We did biometrics in late November 2022 (Thanksgiving week) in Lisbon and nothing yet.
You should be up very shortly. I did biometrics in Lisbon in early November 2022 and was approved approximately 2 months ago. However, your case has likely been transferred to a different office (mine is now being done by Ponta Delgada), so I think they are not being dealt with strictly chronologically.
Cards in hand for my wife and I, finally. Timeline below in as much detail as I can find, if itās useful to anyone
FYI @tkrunning the timeline database asks for the valid from date, but that doesnāt appear on the residency cards I have, I have ādata de emissĆ£oā
Application submitted: December 7 2021
Application paid: December 13 2021
Application accepted:
Pre-Approval: December 19 2022
Biometrics invite: March 28 2023
Biometrics appointment (Faro): April 13 2023
Lawsuit filed: December 13 2023
- December 14 - case was concluded for the Judge to analyze whether the case was suitable to proceed
- December 15 - judge notified the parties of the decision that the urgent proceedings were appropriate
- December 22 - AIMA filed its response
- January 08 2024 - We were notified of the response and since AIMA did not allege any new facts, the case proceeded.
- February 05 2024- the procedures for attaching documents were completed and the case was sent to the judge for analysis and decision
*July 10 2024 - Call from AIMA in Porto, āsaying that they want to deal with your case as quickly as possibleā - DUC issued
DUC issued (primary applicant) - July 10 2024
DUC paid (primary applicant) - July 11 2024 - July 19 - the process is awaiting the completion of the internal steps necessary to send it to the āCasa da Moedaā (Mint) and issue the respective Residence Permit - email from AIMA after asking what was going on since we hadnāt heard anything
DUC issued (wife of primary): October 2nd, 2024
DUC paid (wife of primary): October 3rd, 2024
Card received (primary): October 10th, 2024 - Data de emissĆ£o: 28 09 2024, Validade do cartĆ£o 28 09 2026 (2 years)
Card received (wife): November 26, 2024 - Data de emissĆ£o: 15 11 2024, Validade do cartĆ£o 15 11 2026 (2 years)
Edit: built-in timeline here
https://nomadgate.com/portugal/gv-timeline/main/?publicId=@garrett
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Iām happy to report my residency card arrive to my lawyerās office on Friday.
The only wrinkle is my wife still has not received her biometrics appointment which is crazy since weād like to live on the same continent.
Here is my timeline and no we did not file a lawsuit.
Purchased Investment and Applied in April 2021
Application accepted August 2021
Received Pre Approval on March 2022
Biometrics October 26, 2022 in Lisbon
Final Approval and DUC Payment request on August 13, 2024
Paid DUC on August 20, 2024
Received card on November 30, 2024. (Dated Sept 16, 2024 and valid for 2 years)
Obrigado
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Congratulations!
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Hi Chris and everyone. My Lisbon Aug 2022 biometrics date turned into final approval today Dec 6th 2024. I didnāt have to provide any extra documents.
I had filed a lawsuit that was denied, and the appeal has gone unanswered (which is now moot).
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Congratulations!
Very happy to announce that the first residence cards for my family and me have been received by our attorneys. Here is our timeline:
Primary application: May 2021
Parentsā initial application: June 2021
Primary/Parentsā initial approval June 2021
Spouseās initial application: September 2021
Spouseās initial approval: January 2022
Biometrics: Lisbon: November 7, 2022
Final approval: ~October 4, 2024
Primary DUC Paid: November 19, 2024
Primary Residency Card validity date: November 20, 2024 (valid 2 years)
Parents/Spouse DUC Paid: November 25, 2024
Primary/Spouse Card validity date: November 26, 2024 (valid 2 years)
All Card Received by Attorneys: December 9, 2024.
This was done without filing a lawsuit, which suits me just fine since I can ideally apply for citizenship in approximately 1.5 years (a few months more for my spouse), well within the time period of our initial residency cards. Accordingly, we should only have to renew our residency cards a single time (in order to keep valid residency during the pendency of our citizenship applications). This represents a huge savings on residency renewal fees versus if the system had operated according to the statutory guidelines which would have meant at least 2, and possibly 3 residency permit renewal cycles before citizenship. For my circumstances, not filing a lawsuit and being patient paid off, although I recognize that for many people the calculation is different.
This is just in time for my scheduled trip to Portugal in January to count towards my required time in country for the residency visa renewal requirement. This will be followed by sucking up the 2 months of 4 hours/day 5 day/week Edpro online course to satisfy the language requirement.
Good luck to all those waiting. Things move slowly, but they do move.
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Congratulations! Did your lawyer inform you that the five-year residency requirement begins from the date of your initial application approval on June 2021. This means you can apply for citizenship by June 2026?
If they did theyāre just guessing. Is a whole thread on this topic here, and the few actual results so far are - in true Portuguese bureaucratic style - very random.
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I did not ask my lawyers that question, mainly because I donāt think anyone knows the real answer at this point. I am proceeding on the optimistic view that the 5 years begins from the initial application. We shall see.
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Husband (main applicant) got approved today. Biometrics was done in Coimbra in Oct 2023. I (spouse) was pre-approved in March 2024 but no biometric appt. yet. Iāve updated the database.
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