Hi. There are a few of us in my fam here in Portugal on golden visas. I coincidentally got a last min renewal appointment right before the holidays (saw it on the ARI website about 12 hours before the time) and went last min (drove nearly across the country for it) though naturally all my documents were expired as I didn’t have time to request updates. They did my renewal biometrics and gave me a big list of the usual docs to mail them in 10 days. I did that but haven’t heard back, and the ARI website still shows it as transferido and no updates / doesn’t even acknowledge m receipt of the docs.
Note the above was just for me and not my sig-o.
Then, in Jan, the auto renewals opened up so I tried it for me and my sig-o. Simply filled in the short form online, confirmed our address and that was it. No new docs for me, and never any docs for my sig o.
Then, as I mentioned in my other post, the cards came in the mail. It was a CTT driver on a scooter, rang my bell, had me sign on his phone, and handed me two envelopes. They weren’t marked as coming from SEF but you could feel they contained cards, and the friendly CTT driver said “parabéns sobre a residência!” Or something like that. He already knew what was inside.
So no docs needed. My lawyer had actually called me a week earlier telling me that she was worried I wasted money trying the auto renewal site as she couldn’t see it working without docs! I shot her a text with a photo of the cards when they arrived!
Best of luck everyone!
PS. One person in my fam is still waiting - they have a plus sign symbol in their email address, and because of they’re locked out of the website because of it! It let them register and confirm a password but won’t let them log in! So frustrating. We’ve now been trying for weeks to get SEF to delete or change the email associated with the account. Can’t sign up for a new login because it says the ID is already registered. If anyone knows how to get in touch with SEF IT, please let me know!