Expect that CdT will probably be issued and reached you at 16th weeks from the appointment of request at Aima. So most likely you will receive it in mid March 2026…..
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Thanks —
I am in no hurry. Even in the most optimistic scenario (CdT indicates the start time as the time when I submitted the application AND the 5 year requirement is in place), I am still 1 year away.
I am in this for the long haul. I can outlast this administration and the next. 
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Yes! It is great to do this CdT early. As you can see clearly, it takes a huge amount of time to get this CdT in hand. But once you have it, you are all set. Just pray God that old citizenship’s law remains the same until your application of citizenship is submitted…
Do I understand correctly that to obtain a CdT, one needs a residency card? And there’s no way to obtain CdT when no card has been issued yet?
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Some insightful data about citizenship
https://www.instagram.com/p/DL7xy5Tpi9P/?igsh=MWhvbHo3b2Ixc3B4NA==
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Thanks for sharing. Big surprise to see that the Israelians (16k) dominate the Braziliens (9k) in term of citizenship. 
So it’s crystal clear which direction shall take the executives and how to fine tune their narratives..
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I also sent an email requesting Contagem de Tempo in May 2025.
I recently (Aug 2025) received an email from AIMA telling me to attend an appointment at AIMA in Porto to request the CdT in person in Sep 2025.
This is very short notice so I obviously can’t attend myself, but I contacted my lawyer and they said they can attend on my behalf using our existing power of attorney (for a fee of 200 EUR).
AIMA requires: the request form “modelo 7”, a copy of my passport, the power of attorney, and a copy of the invitation email. The invitation email doesn’t mention whether they will mail the CdT or will have to pick it up.
I saw on facebook that someone else was able to do the CtD process entirely by email (including paying the fee) and it was mailed to them after that. So the process is definitely inconsistent across AIMA offices.
cc @loheiman
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Sephardic Jews Route - that actually has clogged the system
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I don’t think this is true. I know at least one person who applied for and received their passport via the route you mention in less time than it took me to find a biometric appointment.
Sephardic Jews Route - that actually has clogged the system
I don’t think this is true. I know at least one person who applied for and received their passport via the route you mention in less time than it took me to find a biometric appointment.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of Sephardic naturalization requests in the queue, comprising a solid majority of all pending requests, and that isn’t clogging the system? Do these cases consume no staff effort or agency resources whatsoever?
If you look on the Portuguese Nationality facebook group they often post a backlog summary and you can see it’s different for each Artigo (Article) of the nationality law. So each Artigo has it’s own queue.
Currently Artigo 6.7 (Sephardic) is backlogged from April 2021 applicants (4 years 4 months)
Meanwhile Artigo 6.1 (5 years naturalization) has much shorter backlog from Dec 2022 (2 years 8 months)
Anyway discussion of 6.7 is off topic for this thread about Contagem de Tempo. CdT is for Artigo 6.1 only.
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Has anyone requested Contagem de tempo lately and can elaborate on the current process? How long does it take to get the results after an appointment? And is AIMA following the current law of 5 years from date of application?
I don’t have results but I can tell you my lawyer submitted a request for one by email in July. She received a response saying that it needed to be requested in person and was given an appointment to do that in December …
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I could take up to 6-7 months (or forever) to get an appointment at Aima to request the contagem do tempo.
After submitting a request form and paying 22 euros, it takes 16 weeks to receive it. So basically, it could easily take up to 1 year (or forever) just to obtain a simple document.
If new changees of nationality law are passed this year and counting starts from date written on card, then there is no point to have this CdT.
Are you requesting it basically out of curiosity to see what it says? I was under the impression that you didn’t actually need a CDT in hand to apply for citizenship.
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It is not required but if you don’t supply it then IRN needs to request it from AIMA. It slows down the process of naturalization.
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Regardless of whether you submit a Certidão de CDT , the IRN will still verify your legal residence timeline with AIMA . While providing a CDT is not mandatory for the nationality application, it offers clarity and peace of mind. This is especially important because there is no standardized date that AIMA officers consistently use to mark the beginning of legal residence.
In practice, lawyers have observed a wide range of dates being considered as the start of legal residency—such as the date of payment for DUC analysis, the pre-approval date, or even the biometric appointment. These inconsistencies can create uncertainty for applicants who are close to meeting the minimum residency requirement. Obtaining a CDT helps eliminate this ambiguity by officially confirming the start date of your legal residence. While it doesn’t confer any procedural advantage, it reduces the risk of rejection due to borderline eligibility.
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If people obtain a CdT before applying for naturalisation, do we actually know that AIMA accepts that? Or does AIMA just ask IRN for a certificate anyway?
Your comment itself is contradictory. You are saying that getting CDT offers peace of mind, but that even if you provide it IRN will request it anyway but that AIMA is inconsistent. So, it wouldn’t provide any peace of mind at all if it is possible that AIMA will give a different date.
Looking at this from a procedural standpoint, IRN cannot even begin to process the application until they confirm that you are eligible to apply, so I think that would be the first step. If you provide the CDT upfront, perhaps they will still verify it is authentic, but they can at least start the process because they know that you are eligible.
I haven’t seen any official guidance from IRN or AIMA on this, so I can only rely on what is logical and makes sense, not that such thinking has serve well during this process.