Thanks anyway 
Data point: application online via lawyer done in late Aug 2025, received process number in March 2026.
You get a mail with a number like IRN-12345/2025 within 1-2 weeks of lawyer’s submission, saying your application has been “Submetido”. Then 6-7 months later it cycles quickly through the states “Verificado” and “Finalizado”, communicated by email to you and your lawyer.
This “Finalizado” signifies completion of the online phase and transition to an actual process number in a specific office. Access code is communicated to your lawyer. You can visit the justica link and use the access code to see your application status: process number (new one, not the same IRN-blah as earlier), the office it is assigned to, and the current stage of the application, starting off at “Submetido” (to be followed by “Em análise”, “Aguarda reposta”, “Para decisão”, “Concluído”)
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So on the date of online submission via lawyers you only get the “Em Pagamento” email without any number? And the “Submetido” comes 2 weeks later with the “IRN…” ref. no.?
But the submission date counts as of the “Em Pagamento” email?
This description from the registrar of the Civil Registry of Porto adds some colour to the process you’ve experienced…
New nationality applications must be submitted through an IRN platform, which receives the documents and, after the applicant pays the fee, the application is registered in the system.
After this, the so-called preliminary analysis takes place on the part of the Portuguese Registries which, according to Regulatory Decree No. 237/2006, must be carried out within 30 days. The reality, however, has been very different.
After the initial analysis, the process receives an access code for tracking and an indication of which registry office will analyze the request.
Isabel, however, stated that until the access code is actually sent to the applicant, there is no record of the process in the system .
“There’s no point in sending the original documents to the Registry Office because nobody knows where the file is; it doesn’t have a file number. As long as we don’t submit it on our platform, there’s no administrative process,”
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Forgot the details of the first step, but IIRC: online submission, payment and payment receipt happen on the same day or within a couple of days. The payment receipt (“comprovativo de pagamento”) contains “Pedido de nacionalidade IRN-12345/2025”, and mentions “Pedido submetido a dd/mm/yyyy”, the date of payment.
~2 weeks later, you get the email saying O estado do seu pedido de nacionalidade com o número de submissão IRN-12345/2025 foi alterado para “Submetido”. 6-7 months later, the preliminary analysis as described by @PTbound completes, you get a “Finalizado” mail. Now the actual process number, access code become available, and it enters the queue of a specific IRN branch, where it will wind its way through 5 stages for 2-3 years.
I am assuming that the first submission/payment date is the one which determines the law and criteria to be used to evaluate the application.
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Another data point to concur: According to Sara Sousa from Prime Legal yesterday, just getting the Access Code from IRN is now taking 6 months, when it used to be 2 weeks.
I don’t think anyone’s surprised that another piece of this hell process is disintegrating 
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Hi Anand. Sorry for the long delay - I was travelling and largely offline. We do live in Portugal. Has your 18 year old met the 5 yr requirement (ie will they be applying for citizenship as well?). Not sure exactly what the pickle is. You’re welcome to also message me directly.
That is correct. Our lawyer submitted our applications online in October 2025 and we still don’t have access codes.
It may be better to add to forum cidadania - they already have a large base of mostly non GV users. Same data.
Does anyone know of any active WhatsApp groups with updates on citizenship application timelines? I was in one but it wasn’t that useful for us - mostly ads and random posts in Punjabi, not much info. Our application was submitted last year online, so went to Porto. DM me if preferred. 
Hi, there are dedicated whatsapp groups usually for different IRNs- below is the link for the Porto 2023 applicants group.
By the way, I am an early November 2023 applicant here, my lawyers have contacted the IRN and they were told that I have favorable feedback from AIMA and might expect an approval around May to June. Given that October applications are getting approvals since last December, I don’t know what keeps kicking off November approvals. Moving to November approvals shouldn’t take this long.. I hope they are not waiting for the nationality law to come into full force - which should not have any implications of the existing 2023 applications.
I suspect they were ‘waiting’ because the version of the law rejected by TC did contain retroactive clauses.
Looking at this Citizenship status tracker, does anyone know what qualifies you for Urgency (Urgência), or what Exigência is?
Here’s an extract (translated with Deepl) of the response we received from IRN last year after a request for URGENCY (3.5 years into Art. 2). It sets out the criteria and process:
Applications for citizenship are processed in the order in which they are received by the registry office and the relevant department, in accordance with the principles of legality, equality and impartiality, except in cases of duly substantiated urgency (Articles 3, 6 and 9 of the Code of Administrative Procedure). The volume of new applications for nationality has been very high, meaning that processing times are sometimes longer than desirable and, as a result, there may be no change in the status of the application for some time. However, you can track the progress of your application via the online enquiry platform.
Requests for urgent processing must be made in writing, with proper justification, and are subject to the discretion of the registrar to whom the case has been assigned, who has technical and functional autonomy in assessing and deciding on such requests.
Indeed, and as determined by a resolution of the IRN’s Governing Board of 27 October 2022, an extract of which is reproduced below for greater clarity:
Requests for urgent processing submitted in the context of proceedings for the granting, acquisition and loss of Portuguese nationality, and consequently their approval, must be of an exceptionally rare nature;
Requests for urgency – which must be of an exceptionally urgent nature – may only be granted when the applicant invokes and proves the need for an urgent decision to be issued, failing which there would be an irreversible and irreparable loss. In fact, it must be argued and proven that there is an imminent risk of serious and irreparable harm if the decision is not handed down in good time. If there is no indication whatsoever that a harmful event may occur, there can be no grounds for a situation of urgency.
In this regard, it is accepted that cases such as situations of statelessness or matters of a humanitarian nature may constitute grounds for granting a request for urgency, but without any guarantee, of course, that the final decision will be the granting of Portuguese nationality.
Furthermore, it is granted, for example, in duly substantiated situations where the applicant for nationality is at imminent risk of:
- being deported to their country of origin where they are persecuted or seriously threatened with persecution on political, racial, gender, religious or other unlawful grounds that violate the rights, freedoms and guarantees enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
- losing their job because their visa is about to expire and they need to be absent to apply for its renewal – in such cases, in addition to presenting the employment contract, it is also understood that a statement from the employer must be submitted confirming that the employee’s absence would necessarily result in the loss of their job;
- not to receive life-threatening emergency medical treatment, on the grounds that they are a third-country national, where such treatment is provided in one of the Member States exclusively to citizens of European Union countries, and to submit, for this purpose, documentary evidence issued by the healthcare facility attesting to this fact.
The standing to request urgent consideration within the context of the process of granting, acquiring and losing Portuguese nationality is closely linked to the standing to initiate the aforementioned proceedings. In this regard, only the applicant themselves, their legal representative or an attorney authorised for this purpose, has a direct interest in participating in the proceedings to allege and prove the irreparable harm or damage resulting from a decision not being taken in a timely manner.
We would also like to inform you that the assessment and decision on specific and individual cases fall within the remit of the registrar at the nationality office chosen for the submission of the application, who acts with technical and functional autonomy. Therefore, if a decision has been issued rejecting the request for urgent processing, you may appeal against it directly to the Central Registry Office. The IRN, I.P. only rules on specific cases in the context of a potential hierarchical appeal.
Here comes a question, even in the initial legislation that was taken to TC, the effective date was Jun 2025; that’s the reason I find it hard to understand why 2023 applications’ progressing have been slowed down. By the way, in some smaller IRNs, e.g. Braga, Espinho, applications from 2024 april and even later are getting approved.
I can confirm this new and sad development. Even access codes are not being made available as they were initially. Submitted my children’s citizenship apps almost 6 months ago and still no access codes. My lawyer says not to worry since accepting the docs and payment completion effectively helps you cross the line legally speaking. Hope they are right about this. My wife is now 2 years and 3 months post submission and on step 3 of the new 4 step process. Hope this helps.
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They removed Jun 2025 by the time it got to TC if I remember right.
But they had another retroactive clause, Article 7 paragraphs 3 and 4.
So possibly IRN slowed down a little bit not knowing if they would be required to treat the old applications retroactively or not.
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Tommigun you are right, I wasn’t aware of those two paragraphs, oh my god, there was an attempt to literally force existing applications into to the new scheme.. It is good that it is taken down; chatgpt says that these clauses have been modified and there are no more retroactive clauses, but I believe what has been approved is still not shared fully word by word. Do we have visibility of the text has been voted?
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Many thanks I just have seen it - and it seems that retroactivity is fully removed for the current nationality applicants.