Valerie,
you and I are doing exactly the same thing for exactly the same reason (the only reason i’m doing this is because I want my EU passport and I don’t physically have to be in Portugal except for one week/year). And we’re in exactly the same point of the process for this GV.
If I move forward, I too, will only do open-ended because it’s liquid and we can pull out.
But, i’m going to wait until September when the government deliberates and offers more clarity. If they extend the timeline to 10 years until I can get my EU citizenship, i’m not going to invest and i’ll pull the plug. If they protect the 5-6 year timeline, then i’ll move forward with my investment.
Now, all of that being said, since you’re transparent about your financial situation, $500K is a lot and of course the management fees are ridiculous for these funds they’re pushing, but that’s the cost of the citizenship. I WAS going to go into PE but open-ended fund allows me to be flexible because of how liquid it is.
I’m here to chat as a fellow-applicant if you’d like! I say let’s wait until september before making any moves and go from there.
I agree. It’s best to wait until the Portuguese government clarifies its position on citizenship. Right now, the situation is too uncertain, with many unanswered questions. When you add in the high cost of both the process and the investment, the risk seems too great for the goal you have in mind.
Thank you for your thoughts!
Keep me posted on your progress.
As for the investment, I’m mostly using my 401k so I can’t access it anyway for 20 years. I know I’m losing money I could make in the stock market but we’re lucky enough to get a pension so hopefully we can pass that down to our kids.
That is true to some extent. The banks are not efficient by the U.S. standards (that’s all I have for reference), but they do work. Once you are able to open an account, their digital platforms (Novobanco and Millenium BCP) are well suited for daily operations. They do charge for account maintenance and special services (like checks, large wire transfers, certification letters, etc.), but for me it is just a cost of doing business.
However, I would not recommend keeping large balances in Portugal on continuous basis - there are better options in Europe. To put your mind at ease, your deposits are protected up to 100.000,00 € (per account) by the European version of FDIC.
I would be happy to pay 3x of what they are charging now provided that their services are on par with asian banks. Fee & cost are not my main concern. The biggest unstable thing with the portuguese bank is that we are never know when they block our account or they start threatening us that our account will be blocked by this date xx/xxxx if we do not ABC…..
I guess we have been fortunate with our banking experience here. TBH, it is about the only thing that has been relatively easy to do. Having to visit the teller to withdraw more than €200 was reminiscent of banking in Canada in the 80s. But with the new withdrawal machines at our local Millennium, this bit has become easier. Plus we like our banker. We have a chat about science fiction films and house renovations.
Hmm… It did happen to me once until I got my residence card. Since then I had no issues with blocks as now I am technically an EU resident. My wife has never been blocked, and she still does not have her card.
However, there are AI-based algorithms that now identify clients and then refer them for Security Department evaluation. This practice is very unfortunate and intrusive, often resulting in unnecessary blocks. I don’t know if other foreign banks in Portugal (Deutsche Bank, Citibank, etc.) have more “reasonable” approach. Maybe it’s worth a try for you.
Have you considered a donation type option? For 175 euros you can do the business deal where it may end up being a donation but could be a start to a business with an ROI. There’s also the 200-250 euro donation that has no chance at ROI.
One fact hasn’t changed - for EU citizenship the best way is through Portugal. It’s still 5 years not 10. Might change, might not. Restroactive has never happened there so if you’re in the process the odds are in your favor that it stays 5 years for you. The current talk is the GV stays untouched and they add new tax benefits.
If you truly want to have the kind of options a Portugal passport will give you, a delay will only make it worse. I say start now and just be prepared for it not go perfect but for it to happen before you’re too damn old for it to matter.
Open ended investment gives you the chance to change your mind but no investment means a chance at living in regret in a place that doesn’t make you happy any longer.
This is a highly aggressive interpretation. Personally, the best case I am hoping for is that Portugal grandfathers everyone who applied before June 19, 2025 under the old rules for counting both timeline and duration. At that point, it became clear the government intended to change the citizenship waiting period and the counting start date, and people who apply thereafter should know they are taking a huge risk.
Actually, I don’t think the final law would be applicable to some retroactive date by the time it is passed and published. If you recall Mais Habitação debates, original proposals to terminate all real-esate investment activity were also aimed at some fixed date prior to the final law draft, but it was ultimately changed to the one after the law was published.
This is precisely the problem. How they could go from punitive changes to the GV program, to doing nothing and adding tax benefits is frankly mind-blowing. Living with this level of perpetual volatility and continual uncertainty is pushing us to both a breaking point and the exit.
We are just in the process of starting - intended to do it two years back but my wife talked me out of it. Our rationale is that it’s a great hedge strategy - residency options will likely continue to exist but we want to continue to live in Europe (we live in Copenhagen today on a work visa) and want flexibility to retire, our kids to study and live here. In a few years we will move from Cph and likely get a job somewhere else in Europe (on a work visa.) But having an EU citizenship in the next 5-7 years is a great outcome.
Some of it depends on how much doom and gloom BS folks consume online. If you search for the latest news about residency in Portugal, you will see dozens to hundreds of headlines claiming it’s now 10 years. It is not.
“Living with this level of perpetual volatility and continual uncertainty is pushing us to both a breaking point and the exit.”
I’m not sure where you live but have you ever kept up with social security news in the USA? For over 30 years I’ve been told it won’t be here for me when I retire. That kind of talk is in the news year after year and that’s not ever going to stop. I’ve ignored the SS talk for the most part and I retire at the end of this year. SS is still here and not going away before I get mine.
For me to get through this GV process, I will just continue to go through the motions while expecting delays that I can live with despite the possible frustration.
Maybe, but this question isn’t about retroactivity for citizenship applicants who apply after June 19 before the new law is passed — those will likely be covered by standard Portuguese non-retroactivity principles the way that real estate applicants were a couple years ago.
This question is whether lawmakers will include a separate carve-out for GV (and/or potentially other applicants) that grandfathers those who have already made a residence application under the old citizenship qualification rules.
Yes, we have a legal argument that GVers who submitted residence applications before the law changes should be grandfathered, but unless legislators choose to explicitly encode this into law, we will be left to fight this battle in the courts.
Hi Doug. Fortunately I consume very little of the “noise” around the GV program. I do converse with a few people who are in a similar situation to us but that’s about it. I guess it’s an added benefit to having no social media presence.
Wife and I live in PT full time. So it feels kinda urgent that we get some clarity on what the government is planning. If they do nothing then we may renew and continue to stay here or we will wait it out elsewhere. If they make substantive changes to the program then we are out. Selling, moving and the like will take some planning and we will want to make the decision sooner rather than later so we can get on with our lives.
Thanks for sharing that info. You are definitely in a totally different scenario already living over there. Hope it works out like you want. I will say this, Portugal has never been a “retroactive” place when it comes to GV rule changes and on top of that the lawyers are chomping at the bit to sue if that were to happen.
Our immigration lawyer said the same thing regarding lawsuits. For us, it’d be the 3rd time we would initiate some sort of legal proceedings against the government, which we are extremely reticent to do. We really should not have to take government departments to court to get what was promised/reasonably expected. Sad that it has come to this.
But numerous lawyers have also jumped in to say “since residence law and citizenship law are separate, changing the citizenship law is not a retroactive change to the GV program”
