Ah, ok. So they introduced an “integrated” computer system but didn’t put in place the protocols to make it work. That sounds about right. It still seems that the Ordem dos Advogados was sold a lemon and passed it on to us, but I suppose expecting lawyers to actually advocate for their clients is asking too much.
I find this thread both insightful and terrifying. To think that if you get through the 5-year/10-year AIMA residency fiasco, you are then faced with the prospect of this IRN citizenship boondoggle.
Many thanks to those further ahead for helping to shine a light on what seems to be another insurmountable obstacle. Dios mio. 
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That’s why I was saying that if a new law is passed to sweep all the citizenship based on file-lock already submitted, it does need to apply retrospectively to all file-lock based applications applied in 2024 2025 and early 2026. It is indeed really unconstitutional.
In the most recent version of the citizenship’s proposal, Chega did include the retrospective date in July/2025. It turned out, as we all see, that the constitutional court did not approve it. It’s pretty clear that law cannot go back to the past.
If a new law can destroy applications already applied in the past, with the same logic people applied under 5 year residency will also be at risk of having negative outcome of citizenship’s application because a new law requires 7-10 years residency.
This particular lawyer has had a very wild dream!
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That earlier ‘retrospective’ proposal did not even make it to the TC.
It was removed in the Assembly, long before the voted-on draft law was referred to the the TC by PS.
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Why would they?
Chega: I want to retroactively add five years to the citizenship time.
Constitutional court: no
Chega: okay let’s just drag out the citizenship processing by an extra five years for the same effect.
Constitutional court: sure, can’t stop you doing that!
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fwiw, insane processing times are not just a Portugal thing…
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said “Canada is regaining control of its immigration system in order to restore balance and sustainability, while continuing to meet its humanitarian commitments.”
…The department said the 55-year estimate for [permanent residency] processing times represents how long someone applying today might have to wait, and it hopes to process 80 per cent of the applications within service standards.
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Yeah but that situation isn’t comparable legally or politically. Ukrainians were processed under EU temporary protection as a wartime emergency. If you said “I’m Ukrainian fleeing Ukraine” anywhere in the EU you were registered even with minimal or expired ID. Most of the normal checks were waived. And their status is temporary and easily revoked.
And those AIMA buses weren’t extra capacity. They were redeployed from existing work like processing people like us, which is why Ukrainians moved fast and everyone else moved backwards. Speed was the goal so taking on the risk of some errors was politically acceptable (and I should add morally justified).
That’s nothing like Golden Visas. Those are individual, permanent decisions with full checks and zero political tolerance for screwing up. Those checks can’t just be waived by order. I’d love to turn up in Lisbon and say “I’d like a Golden Visa today please” but that was never an option.
So it did prove the point that the AIMA has overall capacity and ability to solve backlogs within days/weeks if they are willing to do it.
that’s why I said earlier that if they honestly had willingness to solve backlogs, they could have issued cards of 5 years validity and let GV people do biometric in the embassies. By doing so, the resources could have been much better utilised. However, in reality, zero honest willingness is the key of the backlogs so far.
That’s comparing apples with oranges. No one disputes that AIMA could treat us like refugees - drop everything else and just sit for a few weeks with a pile of outstanding ARI applications, do minimal checks and just rubber stamp them quickly. The point is we are not refugees processed under limited EU emergency measures, we are processed under a different (and not very popular) domestic legal regime set up over a decade ago, so that’s never going to happen. Voters feel sorry for Ukrainians. They don’t feel sorry for us.
I’m not sure that we really disagree that much. Sure, we can list all of these ways that Portugal “could” act, and list all the “super easy” things what they need to, but that would require a level of competence, organization, and long term planning that their politicians and bureaucrats have very rarely displayed on any issue, if ever. I don’t think its some lack of “willingness”. It’s a lack of political incentives.
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Me and my wife apply on Dec 30 205 online with help of our lawyer . they inform us waiting time is 2 to 3 year .but we thing about 4 years
ACP are currently processing Sept 2023 with caveats saying anything before that is someone elses fault. They are clearly trying to stay within the 29 mos advertised.
Interesting article on the inner workings of IRN and what really happens once you submit your citizenship application. It also mentions that the IRN staff review only one case a day in the black hole void of AC Porto!
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For your note, for the last few months, there hasn’t been much change - for 6.1 for the last 4 months, it’s stated as September. The real actual data point is the approvals.. there is no need to sugar-coat anything.
For your note, I’ve been tracking the approvals since Dec 2024 and till end of last August, approvals were around usually coming in within 24 months of the submission date, sometimes it would be 23 sometimes it would be 25. e.g. March 2023 submissions were getting approved around March 2025, August 23 getting approved around August 25..
However since end of last of August, this trend has been broken down. As mentioned by many there has been what I call silent weeks; or even a month in which we haven’t seen almost any approval…
This is the very reason this thread actually has been created..
Not sure if you keep an eye on Vila Nova de Gaia. Many applications of late Nov 2023 has been concluded by IRN Gaia 1-2 weeks ago. One person got concluded even his resident card was already expired.
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And where do you keep an eye on various CRCs?
Your observation is correct regarding the movement of the date but not so about there being no action.
- Citizcheck is expanding its client base as a result of which there is now quite a bit of data on their app. ACP is showing a lot of action in the 105 to 110K 2023 serial numbers.
- Numbers for all types of processes are commingled and those for 6.1 seem bunched probably corresponding to eligibility dates for clients of varios law firms. Therefore there may be a jump in serial numbers in the near future and a corresponding rise in the processing dates. It is also because Porto was made the nodal agency for 6.1 but the serial numbers are for all IRN. So if the clerks in Porto entered things into the system in batches (and they did) then a huge series of papers would have similar numbers and then would go quiet again till the next upload - but by then the other IRN would have used thousands of numbers.
- When I applied i was told 24-29 mos which was later changed to 2-3 years. Nevertheless, for many years approvals did appear to take 24 is months. That has lengthened to closer to the 29 that they had written on the IRN site.
- Recently there seems to be a lot of action to clear late 2022 and early 2023 applictions (hence the 3 year window).
- Applications made by those on Forum Cidadania were mostly manual and without a lawyer so had defects. You can follow their travails in exquisite detail but it roughly corresponds with Citizcheck but with more colour.
Hope that helps.
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Well there is first the facebook groups dedicated to nationality application - in which people post about their updates + for some IRNS, there are dedicated whatsapp groups. For Porto there are at least two whatsapp groups. One doesn’t have to be checking all of these, what I observe is, whenever there is an update, people who are on multiple platforms post the update onto the others. Within few hours, an update on facebook or whatsapp is circulated in all.
For me the actual final approvals are the real data points and show the trend.
@live2learn, I’ve also seen the updates coming out of Villa Nova de Gaia, and you are right, it stands as an exception - I don’t know what’s happening out there, and I am keen to see if the progress will continue.
It is a positive sign that at least there is some progress in one IRN - which indicates that other should be able to progress… Yet Porto has stalled so much that it is difficult to understand what’s happening.
@kewalramanibharat, I am keen to see if things will speed up; but here is the undeniable data point. When things were business as usual, no discussion around nationality law, no presidential election, no public holidays - or strikes, Porto would usual approve a month worth application, they have done it pretty much this way prior to the nationality law discussions. Since then things have stalled; the final approval dates give a clear indication of what I’ve written.
e.g. the table you have shared from Porto IRN, indicating they are finalizing Sep 2023 applications is like that since September. Furthermore there are pending cases from before, this doesn’t mean all prior cases are finalized. - I have few friends who have pending cases, from June-July 2023 with no falta, they actually checked that with IRN.. So in short it would be great to have at least the same pace as before - not asking anything fancy here..
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This is one of main reasons why I applied in person because you can actually choose your preferred IRN. Me and my dependents applied in different IRNs to split up the risk of being stalled. At least we don’t feel like all eggs in the same basket.
@tommigun I replied yours but somehow it is required approval from admin to show my post.
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