By law they can’t refuse anyone, though they may refuse you specific accounts, possibly giving you only one choice of account to open. With that said, provided you meet the set out requirements for any specific type of account I’ve never heard of them refusing anyone
Have you taken a look into moey (www.moey.pt)? I have an account there though I’m a Portuguese citizen so I can’t attest to their requirements for foreigners. I can say, however, that ive read somewhere about a non resident opening an account and he/she was talking about it being a nice, smooth process.
Having said that, they’re a fee free account like activobank, with the main differences being no FX fees for non euro transactions, they use the Mastercard rate (activo charges 3.25%) and no deposit is required to open the account. They also offer a very nice Revolut like app while incorporating all the Multibanco and mbway services used in Portugal. They have no physical branches
Just like activo is a subsidiary bank to Millennium BCP, moey is connected to Crédito Agrícola, a well established legacy bank. There’s a difference in that moey is technically just another account type from crédito agrícola, though a segregated one with its own app, costumer service, etc instead of its own bank. There’s no difference in practise really
@tkrunning , maybe you could take a look into moey and do a write up about it given the trouble people seem to be having with Activo