Update:
Primary applicant and spouse received the cards. No lawsuits.
Parent - final approval still pending.
Full timeline:
Congrats @ele0sf, @cbab, @ashrafismael, @JustTim, and others.
Please make sure to update Crowdsourced Golden Visa Timeline Database – Nomad Gate with your milestones - namely:
Looking at the main view, I think it’s missing some updates 
have posted!
Card received: February 4 2026
Residence cards received 4th Feb for all the family, 1185 days since application 
Finally received my card as well (or at least my lawyer did).
Does anyone have any experience paying DUC late and still getting their residence cards? We are currently debating whether or not to move forward with my partner’s payment in light of the anticipated changes in the law. She’s out if we have to wait 10 years to apply for citizenship, and were hoping to have some clarity before shelling out another 6k.
DUC expires after ~ 10 days. not possible to pay it late.
But you should be able to request a new DUC, and restart the 10 days.
Thanks, I’m wondering if we could let it expire and request another in say 3-6 months?
Your lawyer would be the best source of information on that.
She hasn’t had a client do this as yet.
I’m in the same place. Not interested in proceeding if the clock for applying for nationality doesn’t start with application and we aren’t grandfathered to the 5 years that was in effect when we made our investment.
Another option we’re considering, now that I have my card, is for my partner to let her GV process lapse then apply for citizenship as my spouse after I am naturalized. This would set her back 2-3 yrs behind me, but she’s already ~ 1yr behind me given AIMA’s policy to stagger dependent applications. Doing this would also allow her to bypass the entire GV process with all the fees, paperwork, and endless waiting.
The GV was always a Plan B for us, our goal was to obtain citizenship not necessarily live there in the foreseeable future.
I plan to do the same thing, just keep in mind the processing time for citizenship through residency time is about 2-3yrs and the current processing time through marriage is about 4-5yrs.
Hopefully these times improve
Someone was told 7-8 years in Coimbra recently. Too many applications and they don’t want that many new citizens.
When did you do your biometrics?
Shocking. None of these timelines were given when we made our investments
Cross-posting here, although not sure if those of us waiting for final approval could be affected by this “new in-person document verification” thing.
My lawyer finally received my card! My husband got his card in July of 2025. We applied, with me as the dependent, at the same time:
I do not have the card in hand yet. Our lawyer is mailing it to us. This completes our GV residency journey and now we face decisions about the citizenship application. Our daughter’s application is still open and pending. She missed her biometrics appointment back in 2023. She was 17 at the time. Now she is 20 and pretty much off on her own, so I guess we are going to let it drop.
Note: we never filed a lawsuit.
–Carolyn
So I received final approval for my GV in October 2025. I was required to make a payment to the Government which I did according to lawyers instructions. To date (7 Jan) this payment for final approval - which I believe triggers residency card creation, has not been acknowledged. Thats 3 months waiting for them to ack my payment and given the proposed new rules the clock only starts ticking once I get my residency card. Lawyer sends regular emails to the agency with no response.
My original application was in November 2021, Biometrics in Febraury 2023, Final approval in October 2025. Any ideas how I get this last bit over the line?
