ARI Holders (Stage 5)

RAD. This is great news! I read somewhere that you can start to apply for citizenship 3 months prior to your five years (not sure how true this is). Do you think you’re going to apply for citizenship?

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Just to close out, my experience and the experience of @minimaxr continue to track pretty closely. I got the investor card on Monday; the family cards all arrived today (Friday). Updated addresses were there and complete, despite some language in the letter saying we might see just a postal code and not a town name.

I was somewhat surprised that the number changed. I had used the previous card as the identity document for a few things (e.g. an upcoming CIPLE exam), with the expectation that the number would be consistent. It isn’t, so I guess I will take the old and the new to any place I did that.

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Hi there,
Do we still have people here who applied on 19 Jan, paid on 21-23 Jan and haven’t received their cards?
Because I didn’t
 And I don’t know what’s the problem as my status has been Completed for two weeks already.
The only guess I have is that when you update you delivery address, you can use two lines, which I did. And SEF updates your personal data too using that address, but for some reason they only use the first line - so my address is incomplete in the personal data section. Has anyone experienced a similar problem?

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Hi Anatoli, I applied on the 20th and paid on the 21st but my address was one line only. My lawyer has just emailed me that my card has arrived today.

I paid for my renewal on 27 December 2022 (this is the last renewal before we can apply for 5 year residency). My lawyer received the receipt for my renewal on 12 January 2023, with the comment from SEF that my card will be posted to my home address, which was correct on the receipt. Well, today is 13 February and still no card in the mail! My husband received his new card 2 weeks after payment and it was reflected on his SEF portal, there is nothing recorded on my SEF portal with regards my payment. We are wanting to book a holiday to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary but are unable to do so as we are concerned that the airline won’t accept my outdated card :worried::worried:

@bharat please see Golden Visa Online Renewal - #8 by sleuth_09dirk by @sleuth_09dirk who got a renewal appointment, gave biometrics, submitted documents later by post (in December 2022 I think), then did the automatic online renewal in Jan 2023 and got his card a couple of weeks later.

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Good morning, I have the same problem- payment done on the 23rd of Jan, concluĂ­do status first appeared on the 3rd of February. And nothing since then. I know some people, who received their cards like 2 weeks ago, but have not heard of any success stories afterwards. I hope it has nothing to do with the recent negative developments with golden visas, as announced by the government.

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To give you some hope, my renewal was paid on 27 December 2022 and I received my card,( at last!) on Wednesday, 15 February, in the post. Hang in there, it should be coming soon.

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Has anyone been charged by their lawyers for receiving their residence cards on their behalf through the online renewal process?

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Hi Minimaxr,
This post is really helpful. Is it possible to update with some clarification around how to pay and timing . Reading through these posts I have inferred that ALL processes including renewal and payment on done on the new sef.pt website and not the old ARI website. It seems that is the case, but its not totally clear.

I wanted to be clear that the ARI site is totally obsolete now for purposes of the new renewals process because several people references the ARI site in this thread.

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I’ll update the post later, but here is the information:

  • Yes, all processes for automatic online renewal (Jan 2023 onwards) are done using the sef.pt website. Completely ignore the ARI website for online renewal. It’s a totally different system.
  • The payment advice (documento unico cobranca, DUC) is generated immediately on the sef.pt site after you apply for online renewal. It is also sent to the registered mail address associated with the sef.pt account. It has a unique reference number which must be quoted while making payment. There is no payment portal as such; you can make the payment using ATMs or internet banking. (It is the same procedure one uses for paying taxes in Portugal after filing the model 3 tax form and getting a payment advice.) Pay 48 hours after receiving the DUC as it may take that long for the reference number to be active in the system.

You can always send the DUC pdf to your lawyer and have them make the payment.

This is what the DUC pdf says, translated:

Payment can be made through the ATM, the Internet and credit institutions, using the indicated reference.
To make the payment by the ATM, you must select the following option: ³PAGES AND OTHER SERVICES ± State and Public Sector ± Payments to the StateŽ
To make the payment through the internet use your bank’s online service and select payments to the state.
This document is only valid when accompanied by proof of payment.
The DUC is available for payment two business days after the date of issue.

Rough timelines I experienced are in this post: ARI Holders (Stage 5) - #292 by minimaxr mileage varies.

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We did our biometric in November and paid on 20th Feb
 Didn’t do automatic renewal
 Now awaiting cards

Automatic Online Renewal Procedure Jan 2023

This post describes the automatic online procedure for ARI renewals (golden visas) starting Jan 2023. It is fast, requires no documentation and is probably available for a limited time. There are a few things to be careful about, and this post attempts to consolidate the experience of the community so far.

  • Eligibility: Despite the official notification about this procedure being open only for people whose cards expired in Q1 2023, people with expiries in 2022 have successfully obtained cards. So the only requirement in practice seems to be that you have an expired residence card.
  • What you need: Expired card number, date of birth. No documents, biometrics, proofs of stay, investment, criminal check, etc. required at any time during this procedure. Your previous data is assumed to be valid and current.
  • ARI portal should not be used: Please note that the ARI portal is completely different and not relevant for the Jan 2023 automatic online renewal process in any way. DO NOT use ari.sef.pt for renewal.
  • Registration: You need to register at the SEF portal, with the expired card number, date of birth and an email address. (I repeat, this is a different system from the ARI portal, you need not use the same email address as used in ARI.)
    • Expired permit number is the 9-letter alphanumeric code at the top right of the residence card, next to the words “TITULO DE RESIDENCIA”
    • Date of birth should always be entered as DD/MM/YYYY, you may be confused if you are using Google translate on Chrome which will render date prompts as mm/dd/yyyy
    • Email address format: Avoid using email addresses with funny characters. Periods in email addresses are fine, e.g. foo.bar@gmail.com is OK, but don’t use a ‘+’, e.g. foobar+son@gmail.com. There are reports of login failures with such emails, and you can’t re-register a different email address with the same details, so you’re effectively stuck pending manual SEF intervention.
    • Family members: Each family member needs to register separately, with their own card number and a unique email address. Don’t attempt to use the same email address for all.
  • After registration, you receive a confirmation email to be clicked to activate the registration.
  • Renewal application: Once activated, login and go to Requests - Automatic Renewal. Enter expired card number, password. You will see a page with existing data SEF has on you from your previous card: name, marital status, NIF, address. You can update the address if needed. Note that this address will be printed on your new card AND it’s also the delivery address to which the new card will be sent. Typically people use their lawyers’ address here. Try to use a one-line address, some reports of trouble with 2-line addresses. People who are moving shortly and want to avail of duty-free shipping of their goods may want to consider their choice more carefully: Changing address on residency card
  • Payment: Once you click confirm, you will immediately get the payment advice PDF (documento unico cobranca, DUC) for download. It is also sent to the registered mail address associated with the sef.pt account. It has a unique reference number which must be quoted while making payment. There is no payment portal as such; you can make the payment using ATMs or internet banking as “payments to the state”. (It is the same procedure one uses for paying taxes in Portugal after filing the model 3 tax form and getting a payment advice.) Pay 48 hours after receiving the DUC as it may take that long for the reference number to become active in the system. Your lawyer can also make these payments on your behalf, given the DUC.
  • Status: You can keep logging in and checking the status of your application. Typically it will shuffle between “Awaiting payment”, “Processing request”, “Accepted - in instruction”, “Completed”. Once it hits “Completed”, it’s probably all done and your cards are printed, although the status may still keep fluctuating back and forth. Status fluctuations after hitting “Completed” once may be safely ignored.
  • Delivery: Cards will be delivered by post. Even cards applied together and paid for together may be delivered a few days apart. All cards applied together will have the same date of renewal and a validity of 2 years, regardless of their previous expiry.
  • Timelines: Applying for renewal takes a few minutes. Payment can be made 2 days after application. Status typically goes to “Completed” in about 2 weeks after payment, and delivery typically takes about 1-2 weeks after the status goes “Completed”, but has been known to be delayed beyond this. Lawyers say it can take up to 6 weeks from payment.
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Apologies if this has been asked before but does anyone know how long before the Residence permit’s expiration date are we able to use the automatic renewal function?
I need to travel to Portugal shortly after the expiration date of my tĂ­tulo (and would therfore like to avoid any issues) hence the reason for this question.

This question cannot be answered - by us, or with certainty. As stated by @minimaxr, under Eligibility the official notification was that persons whose cards were expiring in Q1 2023 could apply, but the system actually allowed those with earlier expiries to renew.
They said at the time they made the online system available for GV (ie Dec 2022) that online renewals would apply in stages for 2023. We will find out later this month whether they open it up for Q2 2023, which may give some hope for Q3 and Q4 renewals.

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Personally, I will take the optimistic path and hope that online renewals are part of the plan to phase out the GV, by allowing existing visa holders to renew without requiring such crazy levels of human effort. Thereby reducing the budgetary requirements for a program that will no longer exist


Online renewals for everyone, forever!

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It wasn’t mine. It was one of my family member’s.

If your renewal comes up shortly, you could either wait to see if the next quarter opens up mid-end March. Or is it difficult to go online and see if it has opened already? It either would allow you to proceed, or not. This is what happened to all who had expired cards before Q1 2023 who went online.
You are the best judge. But the prognosis for 2023 seems positive.

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If the renewal rules change in the manner proposed, there is little chance of automatic online renewal continuing :disappointed:

I still have 4 months left before the título expires so I guess I will have to wait and see. I tried a couple of times but so far it is not letting me proceed with the auto renewal


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