Finally Got the Residency Card for main application, Now have couple of questions

Residencies & citizenships Portugal Golden Visa 🇵🇹
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Starting with Timelines to help others

  • investement - End of Dec 2021
  • Biometrics - Nov 2023 in Faro
  • Approval - Sep 2024 for main applicants
  • Card Printed - Oct mid 2024, Valid for 2 years
  • Approval for spouse and child - End of Oct 2024

So here are the questions:

  1. Our attorney has charged is around 6200 per applicant for Cards, is this normal? i mean almost 20,000 Euros for 3 applicants

  2. How is the 5 year from citizenship calculated? Is it from the date of card printing? Date of investement? Date of initial application? If it is Date of initial application, i am guessing that must have been in Dec 2021 since on 1st Jan 2022, amount went up to invest?

  3. Is it possible to borrow against the investment? we invested 350,000 euros in IMGA Acoes Portugal A Mutual Fund and that investment is worth around 480,000 euros and i was thinking of borrowing around 100,000 against it? Obviously the concern is that we don’t want it to impact our golden visa application.

  4. I read somewhere that renewal fees has been reduced to 100 euros, does that mean in oct 2026, our cards will be renewed for almost nothing?

Thanks a lot in advance.

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  1. Normal
  2. Nobody knows yet. Some lawyers suggest that it is possible to submit a citizenship application upon 5 years from the initial application for GV, but there is no feedback yet on the success of such approach. Meanwhile, AIMA continues to issue ‘contagem do tempo’ counting from the date of 1st GV card, basically disregarding the law.
  3. You must keep your original investment in the shape that is demonstrable to AIMA at each renewal. So I doubt you can ‘borrow’ as it would reduce the amount of fund units you originally purchased. (In the same way as I believe you cannot mortgage your GV property as it will be no way to prove how much equity is left in the property after such action).
  4. That applies to GV->D2 conversions for RE or RE funds applicants. It may happen that your fund would fall into this bracket and you would get a D2 at some EUR100+ fee for 3 years.
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There are still some open questions what happens to D2 converts though. Can you still get GV PR after your 2 + 3 years?

If not, can you continue renewing the D2 just by satisfying the GV requirements (not the more stringent D2 requirements)?

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Indeed, none of this is known.
But we will find out for sure in less than 3 years from now.

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Did you file a case? My husband and daughter did biometrics in August 2023 in Faro and have not been approved yet.

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  1. How many days are to be spent in Portugal for the annual/bi-annual Mandatory Visits?
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We have similar timeline. The fee is 6 045,20€ to government per person. I think timeline is “work in process” yet to become published law. We hope for early priority to investment or biometrics. Same is probably true about renewal fees, but likely to become a full load. Governments need money. Borrowing against investment is an interesting question. I’m not a lawyer but on surface the issues are unrelated for as long as “you stay invested” for the GV period, which I interpret as “not take distribution early”. Others brought up question of funds going below invested value or much above. Would be great to hear experience of others with Venture Fund value / timeline. Anybody experienced partial distribution of gains, for example?