I’m not engaging in any debates and discussions. Good luck with your logic, articulation and Nationality application.
Same to you.
is it still possible requesting/getting CdT in person queuing from early morning in some remote aima office?
This whole situation is totally unfair - how can one person get a CdT from an AIMA office that marks the date of legal residence as date of application, and another person gets a CdT from a different office that marks the date as the date of the first residency card? The absurdity is that it could differ for members of the same family who applied on exactly the same date.
We really have been through the mill with this. The fundamental is surely that the same rules should apply to everyone?
It seems to be par for the course in Portugal in most things. It’s the same deal with IMT, or Finanças. Depending who you talk to and which office, you’ll get a different answer. The uncertainty can certainly be frustrating.
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It seems requesting CdT can have multiple stages:
- Email AIMA requesting CdT
- AIMA emails back with appointment to request CdT
- Attend appointment to request CdT
- AIMA eventually issues CdT by mail or tells you to come pick it up?
Took 4 months between steps 1 and 2. Step 3 was less than one month after 2.
Anyone know how long between steps 3 and 4?
Someone posted 3-4 months.
So, 9 months end to end, just to look up your start date in a database and print it out on a letter.
The usual AIMA speediness.
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9 months if you are lucky!
100 years if you are unlucky!
Facts don’t lie
I keep trying to email them with my form etc, but their mailbox is full. Does anyone have another email besides the geral@ one?
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Does anyone know, is it possible to request CdT after you have been approved but before you’ve received your residence cards? Or do you have to wait until the cards have been issued? Thanks!
It is offtop, but Portuguese nationality track system is bizarre. They separate attribuição and aquisição and it is very difficult to get the full data. They always report only part of the story, in order not to show the whole numbers to the public who becomes more and more antiimmigrant. It is not 40 k new received passports in 2023! Total number is 114 k for 2023, and attribuições are 73+ k. Brazilian descendants of portugueses fall into this category.
As for sefardits, it is not them who clogged the system, but Portugal itself, which simultaneously introduced residency requirement, but gave them time to apply. They accounted for 50% application in that year, and apparently they are roughly at the end of their processes. After that, we will almost stop seeing that category in the statistics.
I received my CdT (just 4 months after requesting it in May, faster than I expected!)
It’s really a simple letter. States:
- name, date and country of birth, country of nationality
- when residency started (which is actually a few days earlier than lawyer informed me they applied, possibly analysis fee payment date?)
- current residency card ID number and start/end date.
The stated card end date goes beyond 5 years after residency start date, but the CdT does state it is accurate as of issue date (Sep 2025). So I don’t know if that means IRN will have to request another once since it doesn’t cover the 5 years? But still good for informing when to apply (unless the law changes…)
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Can you give instructions of exactly what you did to request it? Did your lawyer request it for you, did you go into an office yourself, or do an email?
…That’s why you have to live in hope …that things go in your favor 
Having poured through the 96 posts in here from the start. Here are my takeaways (thanks to all that posted) which still left me with some grey areas/questions.
What I understand
- The 5 year clock seems to start somewhere around when the first payment for analysis was made or sooner (in some cases). This based on CdT letters received
- You can start the process applying for CdT BEFORE your 5 years are up
- You can go the show up at 5 am the office route or make any appointment then show up on appointment date route.
- Not all offices have the show up at office at 5 am route
- There doesn’t appear to be entirely via email route
- The duration varies from as few as ~3-4 months to 12+ months from start of process (which I am defining as email request for appointment or show up at 5 am unannounced)
Which leaves me with these questions (Looking for confirmation)
- Since you have to submit copy of your current residence card. Its validity must extend past the 5 year mark. E.g. if your 5 year mark is May 2026, the card that you submit should show an expiration past May 2026
- Assuming that is the case. if you start the process in Jan 2026. Even though you haven’t actually spent 5 years they still issue the CdT because of the validity?
- Since the letters are mailed, for those of us who aren’t resident, I presume the Atty office address is the std operating procedure
I ask these because my card expires in April and the 5 yr mark is reached in May. So trying to figure out timing of renewal and CdT application.
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As an ARI Familiar, my Certidão de Contagem de Tempo states that my residency started a week before the issuance of my first residence card. My husband’s Certidão de Contagem de Tempo states that his residency started six months earlier (around the time we paid for the Golden Visa). Our residency cards line up more or less in terms of dates and were issued at the same time. Needless to say, we were surprised when our time counting was not calculated in the same manner.
Interesting. So your example indicates that the start date could be closer to the actual date of issuance of the card for spouses/dependents.
Yes, I have been LivinginHope since my March2020 appointment was cancelled and only rescheduled in March 2022. Now I’m LivinginHope that I will get an appointment for the renewal and that my CdT will show the application date and not the first card date (which was only done in Jan 2023). This whole process has been so so stressful. I constantly only get by by living in hope!
The first step is to fill out https://aima.gov.pt/media/pages/documents/d1967cd110-1714485830/modelo-7.pdf and email it to geral@aima.gov.pt with subject “PEDIDO DE CERTIDÃO DE CONTAGEM DE TEMPO - Tempo de Residencia Legal em Portugal”
Then it gets routed to different AIMA offices.
Some have reported the AIMA office just emails them a apayment method, they pay, and the CdT is mailed to them.
In my case the AIMA office responded with an appointment to apply for CdT in person, which my lawyers attended. They had to resubmit the same form I originally emailed to AIMA. Then AIMA emailed me to say the CdT was ready for pickup and my lawyers picked it up about a week later presumably when they were visiting AIMA for something else.
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