And yes, under the old law you don’t meet the requirement when filing. But depending on how far from 5 years you are, you could meet the requirements according to the old law when they process your application. At least that’s the theory.
The weakness in the theory is that even though the TC said that it’s OK to meet certain requirements only by the time of decision, that doesn’t necessarily mean that includes the residency requirement.
But if the legal theory is correct, it’s not really up to the government whether it should be accepted or not. Of course, in practice they may still try to block it.
But if we’re talking about a couple of thousand ARI holders and some D-visa holders doing this, that won’t really register compared to the hundreds of thousands of people that will probably give up on pursuing PT citizenship due to the change of the law. So I’m not sure it’s worth it to the government to actively work against this. After all, once the law takes effect this “loophole” will be closed for future applicants anyway.
Still, I’d say the chance of success is much closer to 10% than 100%. But it’s also not 0%.
You are explaining the situation when someone’s residence is not up to 5 years. What if the persons has full 5 years residence and all documents are legalised and completed except unlegalised PCC? The unlegalised PCC is also submitted but in wait for legalised PCC which will be submitted later to the registry when ready
We’re submitting our applications this week. We still have 18 months to go before we’re at five years, but my guess is that no one will look at our paperwork in the next 18 months anyways. And given how much we’ve spent (sunk cost or not), it’s worth the price for a 10% chance at success.
I’ve come to the conclusion that this is basically a Polymarket/Kalshi-type bet that the IRN will continue to be f’d up (or even more f’d up than it is now!) for years to come. That’s probably a safe bet
However the bet also requires that the IRN will accept the logic that Thomas noted above - and will abide by the TC’s (obtuse!) intimation that they should only start counting back 5 years when they eventually get to your Nationality application, years from now. Who knows?
Maybe people will also be hedging their PT early application gamble on the actual prediction markets
It’s madness, but I’m tempted. Why does Portugal make everything about the GV so agonising? I don’t remember seeing this in the brochures.
Unfortunately I have a pessimistic view of applying early.
If I’m IRN and I have tens or hundreds of thousands of applications in the backlog to get through, the fastest way to clear them is to first check their submission date and if it’s before 5 years of residency, deny it. It’s much faster than reviewing any other documents.
I don’t think they’re going to hunt through the pile to look for them but instead check that first thing when reviewing each application.
However I also think there’s a good chance that an incompetent/lazy reviewer will also neglect to review the submission date and a few will squeak through approved. Like many things in Portugal, the same scenario often results in wildly different results!
No, but it has its own agenda. Consider how all the GV applications got shuffled to the end of the pile and refugees to the front. So someone deciding to hack at the backlog in that fashion could well happen.
Sure, but it is not as easy to ‘hack’ as one might think, on account of Article 15.
By the way, an interesting observation..
If someone wants to look up Article 15 of the current LdN, the Diario de Republica shows an incorrect text of the law, falsely suggesting that Article 15 no longer exists (“revogado” in its entirety).
Regardless of whether you have your 5 years + A2 or not, criminal/birth records and apostilles take their own sweet time. Are you certain that outstanding docs can be added to your application after payment has been made, without resetting the application date to after the new Law goes into effect?
For example, does the following only apply if you need to make a correction to your application, but not if you’re tacking on late documents post-submission?
Btw… I don’t see any mention in the IRN Manual of the ability to append more docs post-submit (other than “Correção” on slides 30-32 if IRN’s eventual validation finds errors), although I’ve seen claims that it’s possible.
Based on my naïve read of the IRN User Manual…
…slide 33 suggests a “refund and pay again” notion that almost certainly would reset your submission date (in a bad way):
the “Request Refund” [“Pedir Devolução”] option will revert the order to the “Preparation” stage.
This option may be useful for correcting data that has been entered incorrectly, or for cancelling orders that, in the meantime, need to be cancelled.
Hi there, I hope you’ll be okay with your early application. But if you receive your referral number—which means you should wait 1–2 years to get citizenship—and the new law is not in force by 2026 due to various factors, including the famous red tape, then your position may not be as strong as it could be if you apply in November after meeting the five‑year requirement.
What’s more, if they reject you before November 2026, can you reapply in this year? Afa I know there are some restrictions.
there’s no way for them to check with without checking with AIMA (1+ year), They get about 1k a day in apps / 200k year, 500k backlog. So no, I don’t see this as much of a risk. Earlies are a drop in the bucket
That’s why I would recommend not touching your application at all after the initial submission. Of course in the background you can correct/upgrade/update your document pack, but best not to mess with the application, given the procedural risks herewith mentioned.
I believe the strategy is that, if you submit before your 5 years is up, but no nationality law changes are promulgated by your actual 5 year date, you should have the lawyer who submitted early for you pull the application and resubmit immediately, as you’d now be safely in with all criteria met as of the day of submission.
A highly regarded lawyer in the WhatsApp group says you always have the right to withdraw a petition.
You might have to wait for IRN to assign a process number before you can request to withdraw, but they said they would not wait for IRN response before filing the 2nd application.
Rather, file the 2nd application at the appropriate time (e.g. you reached 5 years and the new law isn’t in effect yet), then withdraw the 1st application as soon as possible (once IRN sends you the process number).
Not all lawyers may support this strategy but at least some do.
This does not make a lot of sense to me. Rather than to-ing and fro-ing, only instruct your lawyer to submit the package (with whatever documentation is readily available at the time) if the law is about to get promulgated (think there is a 2-3 day lag between the day it is signed by the president and when it “goes “live”). That’s the point when you instruct your lawyer to submit (early) should you wish to do so. There is no point in submitting early if the law is still ping-ponging through various entities (to then have to withdraw and re-submit properly once the 5-yr mark is hit). This is really relevant to those (like me) who are within 6 months (or so) of hitting their 5-yr mark.
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