The topic is processing delays. Therefore this where they belong.
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IRN receives over €105 million from citizenship applications, but cases are stalled
Despite all this delay, fuelled by bureaucracy, the IRN’s coffers are full. With 513,334 applications stalled, the agency has received at least €105.6 million in fees ranging from €175 to €250, depending on the type of application.
…“The IRN says that everything must be done online, including answering queries, but they don’t respond to our questions and, when they do, it’s just those automated replies that are of no use whatsoever. I can say that AIMA, which is close to the IRN, is a haven, because at least they answer us,” she contrasts.
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This is incredibly slow. It’s almost the end of 2026, Porto is only now the October 2023. I don’t understand what they’re doing by increasing IRN’s staff. I applied in April 2025. It will be a series of frustrating days, a nightmare that continues. 
It’s been like this since at least February 2026..
and the first October 2023 case was approved back in December 2025..
It took some time for people to accept that this is not normal.. You shouldn’t be waiting for 8 months to start processing the next month…
It seems IRN has finally placed the new registrars that have been in training - 47 of them: Ministério da Justiça reforça serviços de registo com 47 novos conservadores. I read elsewhere that most have gone to Lisboa (CRC) and Porto (ACP). AIMA and IRN have yet to implement a single “fix” that improved things for me and mine (others may have been more fortunate), but I am allowing myself the tiniest little glimmer of hope that things will get moving again. After August, of course.
From IRN Vila Nova de Gaia: Start analysing 6.1 Sept 2025.
I really do recommend people not using lawyer to submit the citizenship application because all online applications so far are distributed to Porto ACP or Lisbon Registro Central. Both of them are overloaded. On top of that, there are many applications that have been transferred to these two. For example: IRN Guimareas → Acp Porto; IRN Evora & Odivelas → Lisbon…the citizenship applications of portuguese babies oversea will surely be transferred from embassies to Porto/Lisbon.
It’s best to apply in person in a medium size IRN where only paper-based applications (in person or via CTT) are submitted. Then it is easier to estimate the timeline. In term of medium size IRN, it can be Aveiro, Faro, Gaia, Braga,…
I am sure that right before the new citizenship law was introduced there was a high surge of online applications. This kind of thing will surely take a significant amount of resources in Porto/Lisbon to handle.
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So this time I will make a prediction, let’s see what time will show; I expect first November 2023 cases to be approved mid next week. Disclaimer; this is purely my own personal thinking based on;
- Activity on citizcheck - during the last week numerous offline Nov 2023 cases have moved on to stage 3; I’ve seen cases which took 2 weeks to get the final approval from stage 3 to 4. For your note, online applications were automatically assigned to 3rd stage, when the digital migration took place on Oct 2024. So what we have been on the tracker have been misleading. We will see the real dates once the final approval date is updated
- The regulations are supposed to be rolled out by next Monday - Aug 17th, one can ask what’s that to do with the pending applications.. in theory there shouldn’t be a link - however I suspect there is an indirect link
Let’s see what time will show; btw I was told that I should expect my case to be finalized by October, (it is an online case with no falta, no pending opinion from any organization) so perhaps I’m being optimistic.
Yet, let’s see..
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100% agree. My only caveat would be to properly check processing times at these smaller IRNs at the time of submission. Guimeraes, Odivelas and, especially, Evora were all flying through applications at one stage. Applicants were flocking to them, they became overwhelmed, and stopped. In the case of Evora they seem to have literally downed tools and people were stuck there for years.
In my opinion the massive disparity in processing times between IRNs should be a constitutional court issue. IRN is one state entity but it acts like it’s a loose franchise operation - “in order of application” should apply to the entity, not each little office.
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With new citizenship law of 7-10 years for non-Cplp/Eu and cplp/eu counting down from 1st card’s date, there will be likely zero new applicant of Art 6.1 from now until 2028.
I heard there are movement of Art 6.1 recently in Porto. People are moving from stage 1 and 2 to stage 3, even stage 4. Some that applied in Nov 2023 and Dec 2023 are moving to stage 3 and 4. Is this correct?
Stage 3 yes. 4 not yet.
Another caveat to that is IRN can redistribute files to less busy offices. They’ve done this in the past, as has AIMA. In fact, I think Porto IRN got slammed when work was redistributed from Lisbon. So no guarantee you will end up ahead whichever way you do it. Sadly we have very little control.
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Except the redistribution between IRN Lisboa and IRN Porto, I’ve never ever seen any sort of redistribution from IRN Lisbon&Porto to smaller IRNs. Of course, no guarantee that it won’t happen. However chance is pretty slim because the new 45 employees are going to be embedded into IRN Lisbon and Porto in coming weeks. I can confidently predict that at least in the next 2 years the medium size IRNs will still process citizenship application with much faster pace than Lisbon&Porto. Specially, there will be zero new applicant of Art 6.1 until at least 2028. The medium size IRNs can now calmly process the pending applications during next 2 years without having any additional new one.
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Fully agree - the islands (Madeira) were deemed to be much faster for a while, I recall people applying from there and then waiting for years. Still over the past few years we have seen few offices to be consistently faster, I have the impression that Braga, Espinho, Faro and Gaia de Vila Nove are those offices which process files much faster.
I think the catch is, you should be aiming for mid-sized offices, not the super small ones - as it seems as if the smaller ones can easily become nonfunctional because of a retirement of a single person or the files can be transferred to bigger ones. Whereas the middle ones seems to be always progressing at their own pace.
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For now, mid-size IRNs seem to process files with a most stable and predicted pace. However, third world applicants are not able to apply for citizenship at least until 2031. After 2031, who knows what’s gonna be. PT Government has a habit to change the rule in the middle of the game. Maybe in 2030 (just one year before a massive number of third world applicants is eligible to apply), a new (and stricter) citizenship law will be introduced. For example: one must have PR 10 years before applying citizenship; a real interview will be carried out at the local police station (that’s what France is doing right now); a portuguese language b2 can be raised to C1,…
I think those who are not able to apply by the old law must seriously think about the exit strategy. Portugal will never reserve things to favor the third world citizens.
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I believe you mean Third Country Nationals.
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Here is the tracking tool for the Nationality applications for both CRC and Porto, might be useful for some
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This paints an optimistic picture: “How long has the wait been so far?” I would have defined it as, how many are in the queue divided by how many were processed in a month. If in the last six months nothing has happened, then the waiting time is actually undefined. Or approaching an infinite number of months.
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