I’m expecting to be in the June-July window, and trying to plan acceptable dates. When do the appointments open up?
At this thread (Awaiting Biometrics (Stage 3)) you may want to read posts from early 2023 onwards, to have the answer to your question.
Basically, in Dec 2022, preapprovals from applications in November were invited to choose dates within January to March 2023, and thereafter early December applications were invited for April/May 2023. In all probability, towards the end of this month, the next “batch” will be invited for June/July.
Whether the next batch is the remaining Dec 21, or part thereof, is a guess. Dec 21 seems to have such has a large load of applications, that the last applications do not have pre-approval yet.
When you’re invited, choose a date that you do not miss, and by which you can get all your documents updated, if possible.
So, our applications were in October and November of 2022 and we still have heard NOTHING. Any thoughts about this? We supposedly have an immigration attorney checking daily to every other day for openings on our behalf. Have we been “skipped?”
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Unfortunately it seems so. For whatever reason, SEF skips some people. If you get skipped, it seems you never get invited. Some of us have been waiting a lot longer than you have. You could consider a lawsuit, but no guarantee you’ll win. Otherwise, it’s unclear what will happen to us.
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Do you have pre-approval? Each step is taking several months (years).
Applications from December 2021 are just now getting biometrics invitations. You will be waiting for a while.
Also, it is extremely unlikely your lawyer will be able to find you an appointment. SEF has moved to batch invitations for a specific time frame so no individual slots open up due to cancellations.
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Oh, that’s the nightmare I’ve been having, that we’re lost in some Portuguese SEF void. It’s a little early for that, admittedly, but it’s still a nightmare of mine. But good to know if we keep getting ignored for an unusually long time… Thanks.
We have not been notified of a Pre-Approval (checking now with our attorney but doesn’t seem like something she’d forget to mention to us 
), so I’d put that at “no.” Of course we were initially told it would take “2-3 months” for SEF to do this; ha!
Question: Was it widely known among the “organizers” (the Investing people who lured us investors in) that SEF was essentially shutting down/on hiatus Jan-Jun 2022 and possibly on the brink of ending the GV program then? Like, was it all over the Portuguese news? A little late to the party on this one, admittedly, but just curious for those who have been around a bit longer. I’d be curious what the general impression was. Thanks for any insight on that as a side note.
Suggest you take a look at the waiting for pre-approval thread. SEF is currently pre-approving applications submitted in late Dec 21, so you’ve got a fair way to go before autumn 2022 applications will be considered.
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It has been well known here for a while that 2-3 months to pre-approval is a pre-q3 2021 dream. Any lawyer claiming that at the end of 2022 is a major bullshitter, or has submitted so few applications they have no way to judge SEF’s speed.
Yes, at the time you were applying (Oct/Nov 2022), pre-approvals were coming through for applicants from early Dec 2021, so 2-3 months was clearly nonsense. It was obvious to everyone that December 2021 saw an absolute flood of applications aiming to beat the new rules, mostly in the last week or two of the month. The Jan-Jun 2022 portal shutdown was well-known, as was the Jun 2022 rush.
In early November 2022 the PM said that the government was “reassessing” the ARI, and that “probably, [it] has already fulfilled the function it had to fulfill and which at this moment is no longer justified.” This was widely reported.
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