Laminate them? I potted them individually in clear epoxy and wrapped the cured bricks in double-thickness aluminum foil, to minimize photoreactive fading. I’m storing them stacked in a locker at the Soudan Mine cosmic ray laboratory, shielded from ionizing radiation by 800 meters of solid rock.
8 Likes
Not usually much to laugh at amidst all the bureaucratic headaches here but that was genius!
1 Like
One for the record.
I am still waiting for my first card after paying the DUC a couple of weeks ago.
I arrived at Lisbon airport last night from the UK. The EU arrivals had an E-gate option. Non EU were being guided to the new machines. I managed to ignore that and walked to the big queue at the all passports. It took me nearly 2 hours to get to a desk. The guy at the desk asked me how many days I was staying, I said I lived here, he said do I have my residency card, I said no, I am waiting for it, I have documents to prove it, does it want to see them? He said no to seeing the documents, stamped my passport and sent me on my way.
Happy to see how popular our chosen country has become around the globe.
3 Likes
And here you are again, with no issues, despite your trepidations! Isn’t Portugal an easy country to leave/enter? 
1 Like
So if you have a card, you go to the Non-EU Machine? I don’t think any of us have 2 hours of patience after all this.
Ok, so what happened to me a couple of times, I was sent to the ‘EU machine’ which of course did not let me through, so I went around this to the booth behind the machines and got a stamp. That was real quick.
But other times I had to wait in some ‘non-EU’ queue despite flashing my residence card.
It’s all very random to be honest, depending on the country, airport, terminal, staff shifts, etc.
Here’s my story as a tale of warning.
My RP expired on April 10 and I employed a well-known law firm in January to handle the renewal. To cut it short, they didn’t do anything to renew my RP on the basis that they wouldn’t get an appointment until around September anyway but of course the new online renewal system came online in the meantime. We went on holiday over Easter to Columbia and returned to Lisbon via Madrid after my RP had expired. I had a stamped letter from the law firm attesting that the RP was still valid and it was all AIMA’s fault. Madrid let me in.
A week or so later I flew to the UK and returned to Lisbon with my parents. At this point, everything went wrong.
I was held up at immigration in Lisbon for about 25 minutes and given an extremely hard time by no less than three immigration officers who accused me of being an overstay and refused point blank to recognise the stamped letter from my lawyers. It was a worthless piece of paper. They were aggressive, intimidating, and very clear. If I didn’t get the QR code from AIMA then I wouldn’t be allowed back into Portugal.
Of course, I reported this immediately to the well-known GV immigration law firm who started the online process and got me the AIMA QR code letter. I took my parents back to the UK this week and re-entered Lisbon yesterday with the AIMA letter and there was no problem.
I am now under time pressure to complete the upload of all the renewal documents which I believe we should have done in March but I wasn’t told that this was needed at the time. Quite the opposite.
The lesson for everyone is that Portugal immigration is taking a hard line on the renewal process and absolutely needs the AIMA QR code along with your expired RP. Other European immigration officers, who knows what systems the have access to.
On a brighter point, I have used the EU line at Lisbon airport to enter with no problems now and they are not stamping passports in or out which is a good thing.
4 Likes
I renewed in November and got a proof of renewal but no barcode. The renewal still isn’t approved and no card. This is ridiculous that you have do to a second renewal to get a barcode in order to travel and function in society, when the first renewal is already valid and tacitly approved by law due to no action within 60 day deadline. No thanks, I am not playing this game. And by the way, I just read that someone on the D2 forum said they got their new card already 2 weeks after their renewal.
I’m in the same situation. I renewed in December and received proof of payment, but no QR code. My law firm told me that Golden Visa holders don’t receive a QR code, only the payment receipt.
Do Golden Visa renewals ever get an AIMA barcode after payment, or is the QR code only issued once the renewal is approved? I’m trying to understand the process, as I need to travel but want to avoid issues at immigration like the one @richn4 experienced on returning to Lisbon.
If you have a chance, could you ask your lawyers what they did online to make the QR code available? My lawyers said that GV renewals don’t get a QR code.
As far as I know, it’s the new GV online portal (I don’t know when it went live but there’s a thread in this board about it) that issues renewal receipts with the QR code and they 100% are produced for GV holders like us. The lawyers created the two accounts (one for the principal and one for the dependent), we paid the government fee right upfront, and received emails saying we had ten days to upload all the required documents. We don’t have them all yet but the lawyers submitted the application anyway and shortly afterwards we received renewal receipts with the QR code. This is exactly what immigration at Lisbon demanded to see.
I have no idea about the old process or what documentation was produced but I guarantee that whatever documentation you have it must be AIMA documentation and not something attesting to your renewal application by the lawyers.
1 Like
My renewal appointment was in September 2025 and attended by my lawyer. AIMA provided Comprovativo de Pedido and payment receipt. No QR code.
I read here that AIMA provides QR code after lauch on renewal portal - online renewal starting Feb 2026?
That’s sufficient, apparently, for at least some. My wife just crossed the border in Geneva with an onward ticket to Lisbon, an expired card and those two items with a nice bright blue AIMA stamp and a little hand scrawled signature. No QR code, no issue, no questions and have a nice day. Of course a Swiss border guard probably has no idea about any QR code anyway, but something that pretty clearly says “renewal” + “paid” even if you don’t speak portuguese with an AIMA stamp plus a knowledge that “Portugal is all fscked up anyway” - which I gotta imagine every border guard in the EU must know by now - probably covers the bases sufficiently.
Had more issue with the Swiss agents in JFK who had no idea about any of it. We’d flown swiss JFK-ZRH-LHR in Decemeber one-way and they started asking questions and she’s not good at navigating these kinds of things. (I prepped her for the border guard. I didn’t expect the quiz from the Swiss desk, though maybe I should have.)
The issue would no doubt be that it needs to be an AIMA document, not a lawyer attestation. The QR code might actually be less helpful for crossing other borders than a stamped document.
This is almost-certainly the correct answer so I wouldn’t be too hung up on the QR code itself as it’s evidently a new addition to the AIMA document produced by the new online process.
I also suspect that immigration officers (in Lisbon at any rate where my experience has been) have full visibility of your application to renew the resident permit because they didn’t so much as glance at the AIMA QR letter when my partner returned to Lisbon two days ago and didn’t engage in any discussion about the expired card.
Whereas when I was roughed up a few weeks ago a few weeks after my card had expired and I was accused of being an overstay, we hadn’t gotten through any AIMA process sufficiently to generate an acknowledgement. I suspect these computer systems have more information on us than we know about.
Indecently, I don’t know if this is widely known or if it is generally accurate but the EU has a web site to check how many days you have left according to the EES system. I’ve just checked our passports and they show the full 90 days is still available.
The EU’s EES Calculator - check your status now!
I’m going to play around with it and try out a few other people just to see what numbers it comes up with.
Edit: I’ve just checked it with my parent’s passport number and it correctly reported that she has 83 days remaining after spending 7 days with me in Lisbon. This is doubly interesting because my parents had special assistance through the airport and did not register their biometrics either in or out of Lisbon Airport so the EES system and its accuracy is not dependent upon biometrics.
Anyway, I am happy that my EES report comes up with 90 days so it somehow acknowledges that I can come and go as I please without debiting this number.
If this is the case, and a search of your passport number comes up with a lower number then it may indicate that something is incorrect with your residency record on the immigration system that needs correcting.
4 Likes
This caveat on the European Union - EES / ETIAS calculator is super-important:
Please note that the remaining authorised stay does NOT reflect any time spent in the Schengen area that began before 10 April 2026, regardless of whether the visit ended before or continued after that date.
I tried it for my upcoming flight on 14-May: it said “Remaining days at the moment of entry: 72” when the correct answer is actually 8 
…so it counted my 18 days in the EU in April, but not my 17 days in March or anything before then.
PS. Just checked my spouse’s passport: calculator has their 2 days in Spain since 10-April, but is missing another 19 EU days after that!
Very interesting
I just tried the calculator with my two passports:
- UK passport : 90 days left
- Non-Uk/ non-visa country: 0 days
Same person/ different passport gives totally different result, both passports are used to enter & ex schengen ( I live in Portugal, so I’m clearly over the 90 limit)
As some doctors like to say, it may be something or it may be nothing 
COOL!! I have 90 days remaining too. And I live in Portugal full time and travel maybe 30% of the time in the EU and outside (generally the USA)