1 year 10 months since application is pretty good going! Where did you do your biometrics?
Bio at Coimbra.
Hi, Your biometrics date in coimbra ?
early January this year.
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Excellent, I was Coimbra too, in February this year. When did you get the final approval, and how long after payment did it take for the card to be issued?
Mine was in march 2023. waiting eagerly.
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Per my lawyer, apostilled marriage certificate (valid for six months from issuance) is required for biometrics.
Cheers.
Someone in this forum (forgot who now) who did their biometrics in mid Feb 2023 in Faro got the approval about two months ago. We did our biometrics about a week after them and are still waiting for approval. Someone is on a two-month holidays in SEF Faro or what? This long wait is getting really annoying.
Oof, I wish I had known that, I was expecting our card shortly based on that timeline haha
My wife and I were April 12, should be approaching final approval but now I’m less confident haha
Hi Selena - where did your friend do her biometrics please ?
Portimao I believe.
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August was certainly slow. That said, the approvals total for 2023 to date is the highest since at least 2018, and if the YTD pace continues, SEF would beat 2014’s record total of 1526 approvals (main applicants).
But obviously this is nothing like the pace required to start clearing the backlog.
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Well that’s good news!
Wendy
As someone who did biometrics in Lisbon in August of 2022 and is still waiting, I wish I could say I feel sorry for you.
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I really wish SEF published application statistics. It would be interesting to see if all the big law firms would contribute aggregate data to a central repository or something…
Well fair enough but my frustration is about the 2-month time gap between two applications that had biometrics done within a week. Not about the total waiting period, which is obviously annoying for all of us.
There was a report earlier in the summer by the ombudsman, giving data on the number of applications being dealt with by SEF, and under which Law the applications were made. Here is Table 1 from that report (https://www.provedor-jus.pt/documentos/Relatório%20SEF072023.pdf).
Data in the table showed for the first time (that I have seen, and were requested by the Ombudsman) data from SEF on applications that SEF were processing.
The Artigo 89 is " Autorização de residência para exercício de atividade profissional independente ou para imigrantes empreendedores" ie independant professionals or investment immigrants.
EDIT: Artigo 90-A (ARI-GV) not listed.
I have speculated whether the 36,250 and 33,676 linked to year 2022 in this Table (MI criadas & MI submetidas) reflect the applications -counted in 2022 - ie reflect the backlog of 2021 which SEF have still not cleared!
MI= Manifestations of Interest for Authorisation of Residence.
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GV or ARI is Artigo 90-A. Those are not included in the statistics above. But yes, it is very very unfair. Those permits costs 10 times less, but approved much faster. However, if submit the application as imigrante empreendora from inside the Portugal via manifestação, waiting time is about 2 years. Backlog is very significant and SEF just was trying to cut it a bit before restructuring. If submitted outside the Portugal via visa D, it will be faster.
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Those numbers did seem a bit high for ARI. Processing til the end of the universe-high, even, considering approving 1-200 apps in a month is a big month.