Iām not sure what exactly youāre asking
I applied for a golden visa via the imga fund December 21. I got pre approval around February this year and then did our biometrics in faro about ten days ago. Iām expecting 3-4 months for final approval
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Wow, I didnāt realize SEF was moving so quickly. Thatās great news. Do you think it was because of your investment in funds or process in general is getting faster?
Biometrics seems much more predictable now. I donāt think itās particularly fast given I waited over a year for preapproval.
But you can expect the next batch of biometrics (probably the rest of december 21?) toward the end of may or june (canāt recall when the appointments were available through)
We did biometrics in the early part of Oct 2022. Still waiting. And by the way, we were waiting for our Golden Visa cards but looks like we should now be waiting for D2 Visa.
So is D2 visa also in the form of cards or is this type of visa issued in the form of a stamp in the passports? Does it also lead to PR and citizenship?
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The changes arent law yet, but it will be interesting to see how people so close to GV final approval will be treated given that you have finished all the stepsā¦
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In a weird way, things are all moving at approx same speed for most people irrespective of when they submittedā¦ I submitted in Sep 21 and while I got preapproved in March 22, I also only got called for biometrics a month or so before you. So the relative steps in between did not matter much to overall timelineā¦
This is an educational post with a call to action, because people think everything is OK with what the Government of Prime Minister Costa proposed in Article 44 and 45.
Here is a specific problem that will impact EVERY ARI/Golden Visa investor whether you have a residence permit or just applying:
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Under new Artice 44 paragraph 5 all renewals will be converted to a residence permit for Entrepreneurial Immigrants in the terms of No. 4 of Article 89 of Law no. 23/2007 of 4 July in is current wording.
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No. 4 of Article 89 in its current wording states, āA residence permit is granted to a third party national who develops an entrepreneurial project, including the creation of an innovative based company, integrated in a certified incubator under the terms defined by an ordinance from the members of the government responsible for the areas of internal administration and economyā¦ā
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Paragraph 3 of Article 45 (which applies to new applicants) states, "the requests referenced in the preceding paragraphs (i.e. applications that āremain validā and requests that are pending procedures of prior control in the municipalities) are applied with the necessary adaptations (not defined) in paragraph 5 of Article 44. This is no. 2 above.
So that means all first time applications and renewals of existing residence permits will go before the competent authorities as defined in paragraph 4 and 5 of new Article 55 which are:
a) The AgĆŖncia para o Investimento e ComĆ©rcio Externo de Portugal, E. P. E; (The Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade of Portugal, E.P.E)
b) Banco de Fomento; (Development Bank)
c) The Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation, I. P. E;
d) The National Innovation Agency (ANI);
e) The Office of Cultural Strategy, Planning and Assessment (GEPAC);
f) Others that prove appropriate due to the subject matter.
Has anyone dealt with these authorities for your residential or commercial property purchase or rehabilitation project on a commercial building, let alone investing the appropriate amount of funds in equities?
Why is SEF or its successor AAMMP not specifically called out???..Oh, right these agencies approve Entrepreneurial Immigrant Residence Permits not ARI permits? Where in the law does it give these authorities the power to approve a real estate investment for an Entrepreneurial Immigrant visa which does not fit the definition in Article 98 No.4 (number 2 above)
In other words, we are a square peg the Government of Prime Minister Costa is proposing to try and stick in a round hole, which means our applications and renewals will all stop because there is no law or decree that states they will move forward without complying with Article 98 no. 4.
We will all have to eventually go to court to enforce our rights under the protection of the confidence of trust in the actions of the government at the times we made our investments. Another FYI, it takes 1-4 years to get to an actual hearing at the first court level on your case in Portugal right now. If you need to appeal that takes another 1-3 years and so on.
Everyone needs to stop worrying about when their pre-approval and biometric date will be and realize the Government is trying to stop all of us from getting any permits in the way the new Article 44 and Article 45 are written.
Now is the time to call your lawyers and ARI advisors and demand to know what they are doing to stop this, demand they call all of their friends and acquaintances who are connected to the political parties or SEF and demand a negative vote on the first reading on May 19 or make massive amendments during the committee hearings that would follow a positive vote.
10,000-15,000+ law suits from ARI Investors/GV applicants over the next two years will seize their court system and while that happens our investments will be frozen in a foreign country which could go bankrupt (do they have Euro 7 Billion Euros laying around to pay us back) because under Article 22 of the Constitution if we win the Portuguese Republic must pay us compensation.
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Yes, this was my point in another thread awhile back. Everyone thinks that their situation is unique and they are being intentionally stalled or delayed by SEF. However, historically all of the applications are pre-approved, approved and issued cards at approximately the same length of time. Its roughly 16-20 months from beginning to end. This was true in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 . As for 2023 applications, when you apply at the exact same time as 1,500 other people you can expect some additional delays. Thatās not entirely the fault of the government. They have only so many people who are qualified to review and approve applications. If they donāt like it they should have applied 6 months prior.
Hi Joel
Thanks for taking the time to research and understand the issues affecting us all , and to communicate the reasoned concerns to the group .
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I think we have to be thankful to Joel and others warning of the issues, doing analysis and pointing out the shortcomings of the proposed law. I neither have the time nor the skills to do it. It doesnāt matter if there is malicious intent or not. If itās vague, then everyone is at the mercy of the officer processing an application.
I just hope everyone comes together to do something about it. Individually having someoneās lawyer file a case is not going to cut out IMO.
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Hey friends,
My family and I did biometrics at SEF Lisbon in October 2022. Currently waiting for the final approval.
And basically my question is: How are we placed for Portuguese citizenship? I must admit citizenship as opposed to residency was always the end game for us. With our current passports, international travel is tricky to say the least.
Thank you so much guys.
SM
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As of now, thereās not much talk about changing citizenship rules afaict
Thereās also some scandal right now with the PS government, so it might fall soon anyway, which would at least slow down the GV rules changes
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People will now get D2 visa instead of Golden Visa, but is D2 as good a pathway to Permanent Residency and citizenship as was the Golden Visa? Or is it better or worse?
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When you apply for citizenship it only matters that you had legal residency for 5 years. Whether thatās D2 or the GV or whatever, doesnāt matter
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āSome kind of scandalā really doesnāt do justice it. āO assunto Galambaā is good theater, and unraveling the skeins of action here would take a better political observer than I am. But after the President of the Republic suggested to the PM that he fire Galamba, Costa politely told him ānoā. Further, he argued that despite every single political organ claiming he ought to do that, his conscience was more important and that he believed Galamba not only wasnāt trying to hide anything from the TAP enquiry but was trying to make sure a junior officer who did try to hide something didnāt get away with it.
That leaves the President few options. Theoretically, he can dismiss the government and ask the Assembly to form a new one, but that doesnāt really happen in Portuguese politics without new elections and it would be pointless in this case with PS holding an absolute majority. He could dissolve the Assembly and call for elections, but PSD (the main current opposition party) is against it and thinks thatās what Costa wants (Montenegro acusa Costa de fazer ā³fuga para a frenteā³ e de querer ā³provocar eleiƧƵesā³). Lastly, he can send a note to the Assembly calling their attention to it.
The President may call for elections, of course, but itās a far weaker reason for it than many, and if he does do it, he canāt do it again in the first six months after the new assembly takes it seats; if he gets Costa with an absolute majority again, he will have lost a lot of ground in the ābattle of the palacesā. As it stands now, the government looks a bit bumbling, but Costa is carrying his end of the political field very, very well.
To return to the topic at hand, a governmental shift now would slow, obviously, any change in the GV rules. But it would also slow the reform of SEF and a bunch of things that make the process a problem now. Given the EU pressure, I donāt think weāre likely to get a startling different outcome with any admnistration, so Iād rather have an undistracted government and a clean ānew D2ā personally, but since I am in the renewal phases my perspective may be biased.
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Thanks, I dunno it sounded very quaint, but then Iām American so I expect more from a scandal haha
Iāve been keeping track with my a1 Portuguese on Reddit, itās fun to watch.
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Thanks @joelvogel - Iāve loved this and all your posts/efforts and the efforts of others.
I share your concern about the whole D2 thing, but there is a general perception amongst investors and various lawyers that whilst the current wording is bad, it will be pointed out and fixed before the law is passed.
Weāre all relying on that, and we have more faith the government will do this because they have been logical and responsive to criticism in seemingly every other regard of retrospectivity.
If they donāt, and effectively make it retrospective and unfair, then we go back to the media, petitions and lawsuits talk again. Itās not a path that I want to go down.
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Hi Michael,
I agree with you. I and another person have shared our concerns with law firms and other advisors who agree with us. Some will be in the room during committee discussions. Others will be working with certain political parties.
I hope, like you, that they clean up what I hate to say is a real mess. It reads as two diametrically opposed people wrote half of each article. Or one person with 2 opposite personalities. 
My additional concern is whatever comes out will not be implemented quickly or as well as the late 2012/early 2013 implementation of the 2007 law when the first ARI applications started to be filed with a decent quantity. This is based on what I have been reading about the performance of the Government of Prime Minister Costaās performance over the past 13 or 14 months in which 13 of his ministers have been swapped out. That is very concerning in Portugal from what I read. In the US, it was common place there for a while.
I will keep posting items to raise the issues so people can be aware of the intricacies and technicalities that we need to watch.
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Can I ask how you picked the IMGA fund and if you like it? We are looking at that because itās open to be redeemed.
There were like two to pick from, IIRC I picked IMGA because more people had used it and bison recommended it