Hi – thanks so all the active users out there. Reading Nomadgate has helped tremendously with our Portugal Golden Visa decision-making, but also highlighted that the lawyer we hired is 100% useless. She messed up our NIF application (wrong addresses and different for each spouse) and >6 months in we still have no bank account!
So to avoid more delays and paying another set of legal fees, I’d appreciate some help on the documents needed for initial GV application (sorry for the multi-choice format!). For reference, we are Americans living in Asia, so I assume we’ll need both FBI and local police checks:
Which of these documents need to be submitted for the main investor, spouse only or both?
A. FBI background check
B. Local police clearance
C. Birth certificate
D. Proof of health insurance
E. Passport copy
Is it correct that ONLY documents A through B (plus marriage certificate) need to be apostilled/certified? Not passport?
Is it correct that English language documents do not need to be translated?
If you haven’t made your investment yet, please reconsider. At least wait and ask for feedback from fellow ARI applicants who are already years ahead in the process.
(This sort of questions make me appreciate going with Mercan/IAS. Still a tedious process, but they did take care of a lot of the details…)
Anyway, the criminal record is required for each person in the family. In our case as long-term residents of the US born abroad, the main applicant was only required to provide US/FBI records, while the spouse was required to also provide criminal records from their birth country. (Go figure.)
The birth certificate is only required to prove a parent-child relationship to the main investor. In your case, you must instead provide a marriage certificate to prove the relationship between the main investor and their spouse.
No proof of health insurance is required by the government. (However, if you wish to move to Portugal and apply for private health insurance, you should arrive with complete medical records.)
The police records and marriage certificate need to be apostilled. I do not remember getting apostilles for our passports.
Aside from what you listed, we were also asked to provide proof of address (e.g., driver’s license), social security card, W-2, proof of employment, and a W-9 for reasons I no longer remember. Some of these might be Mercan’s own requirements than the governments, and whether IAS lawyers notarized those before filing I do not know.
Please take this as a sign the universe loves you and GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE. Try any other country. I cannot tell you how much I regret starting on this process. It’s not bad lawyers, it’s a bad country full of anti immigration haters and a political process which is going to prevent you from actually getting your residency or citizenship. You are lucky. I just paid 4000 euro for my renewal, right before they voted to change the law to 10 years from first card (for you, that’s years from now just to start with). Please don’t ignore what is happening.
I won’t go quite as far as Sarah. I like the Portuguese and the fun time in Portugal. I don’t like the bureaucracy, and I spend an unlikely fraction of my time on it. It’s their favorite pastime here. Immigration, banking compliance, Finanças, more banking compliance, utilities, far more serious banking compliance, trying to dig up some cash to keep living while the banking fire burns out of control, … If you’re American, expect banking sorrow that never ends.
Here’s my decision graph for what I would hypothetically do if the law passes and virtually eliminates the path to citizenship (not on paper, but listen to the government’s flagrantly racist, inflammatory speeches in Parliament and read between the lines):
5+ years: apply immediately for citizenship!
4+ years: renew once more before making a decision
2+ years: deep soul-searching; seriously consider cutting losses. Poor to middling odds of eventual success.
Reading Nomadgate has helped tremendously with our Portugal Golden Visa decision-making, but also highlighted that the lawyer we hired is 100% useless. She messed up our NIF application (wrong addresses and different for each spouse) and >6 months in we still have no bank account!