Hello all, we will be visiting Portugal in June for the first time since receiving our residency cards. We are coming from the US. We will be 4 adults, no children.
Is there any updated/current advice from anyone about best practices? For example, when going through immigration should we use our US passport or our PT residency cards? Is there is a different / faster transit route if using the cards? I just want to avoid the typical uncertainty that happens when you travel somewhere under new circumstances.
I’m not really focused here on proving my time spent in Portugal as there are many threads on that and I think I have it covered.
As far as I know, at the PT border control no one cares about the residency cards if you are on a visa-free passport like US etc.
So if you are coming to Portugal from outside Schengen you need to show your passport.
Make sure they stamp it.
If you are coming from within Schengen you don’t need to show nothing, but in that case you’d need to collect other types of proof of entry/stay in PT.
I’ve handed mine over with passport on arrival, and they’ve just gone through the normal passport check/stamp and handed the card back to me with passport
We just flew into Lisbon from the US a few weeks ago and showed our US Passports and PT GV cards. They looked at them but stamped the passports. Same thing on the way out through Lisbon.
Diplomats / crew and those needing assistance. Children with adults use this queue too
Everyone else
Having a residence card doesn’t effect the lane or priority given.
Or, there are also e-gates for Biometric passports, with separate lanes for EU and specific Biometric countries (includes UK, Canada, US etc) that adults and children over a certain age can use. These may be quicker depending on recent arrivals, but not always (after a US flight)
For some reason my passport works the e-gates on arrival but never departure.
Your passport will be stamped after passing the e-gates - but this is sometimes unmanned, so if you absolutely need a stamp use the other lanes or cause a fuss.
I understand that officially (EU regs) passport stamping in not mandatory when entering using a non-EU passport and long term residence card, so make sure you all get a stamp.
My passport is almost full and I generally ask for it not to be stamped, but it’s 50/50 whether the officer obliges.
The good news, in Lisbon they always seem friendly and happy to chat, which makes a change
People from countries which need entry visa must present passport+residency card on the border. Residency card in that case works instead of visa. Also residency card is not an id without passport. So you will have to show passport on the border. As US citizen do not need visa, you could show yr card or not. Doesn’t matter.
