Depending on your needs, choose accordingly. For Golden Visa cards specifically, AIMA takes over 6 months to issue them, so I usually renew them 6 months before they expire. This way, if I’m lucky, the AIMA system will have just finished processing the renewal by the time the card expires. As far as I know, the current card issue date is the final decision date, so we no longer lose several months of validity on the new residence card, unlike before when the validity was counted from the payment date.
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I hired my lawyer to renew my GV which expired July 30 and she replied she’s “still waiting for AIMA to either unlock the ARI renewal portal or confirm that the renewal application can be submitted by email.”
Sounds like this issue might be specific to me? I’m still unable to create an account on the renewal portal and get error “Unidentified citizen or without access at this stage.”
What are the consequences of having an expired card without a renewal in progress?
Same thing happened to my wife and a dependent.
I was able to renew and they received the same error code as you. It took quite a few weeks to sort out that part. They eventually received their payment links from AIMA about 3 months after their cards expired. AIMA then managed to “misplace” their renewal payments. This has now been rectified, though it took a month to fix.
My wife has successfully exited and entered Portugal from non-Schengen countries (
& 
) with an expired card and no QR code twice now. The process at Faro was simple and quick, no questions asked. We’re going to test this a third time this week. So as far as our experience shows - at least in Faro - nothing happens with an expired card. 
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That article is confusing. Is it about renewals, 1st cards, both?
If they are already “ARI holders” (“Eles são” = present tense) then they’re talking renewals:
the ‘golden visa’ scheme,… AIMA… has promised to regularise the status of at least 29,000 citizens who fall into this category before the end of this year. They are holders of Investment Residence Permits (ARI).
Article then discusses the “Portal de Renovações” which is obviously for renewals.
But then we get this, which is about 1st cards:
For lawyer Catarina Zuccaro, “it is possible, appropriate and necessary” for AIMA to resolve the 29,000 residence applications involving investors before the end of this year. She points out that this group includes people who have been waiting for their first residence permit since 2020 and 2021… “We’re talking about people who are entitled to citizenship but don’t even have their first residence permit,” she emphasises.
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As a normal habit, my body automatically has goosebumps when Aima promises something! 
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Two Dependents cards expired June 2026. Lawyers have been attempting to renew them since April 2026. Unable to process either of them as of today. My 1st renewal appointment (lawyer appeared in person) was October 2025 for card expired June 2025. Still no approval or new card.
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Summary of email from my lawyer today, following their conversation with AIMA officials:
- AIMA has decided to disallow the submission of renewal applications for dependents until the main investor’s renewal application is approved (but before the new card is issued).
- The dependent will “continue to have a pending renewal process and may continue to enter and leave Portugal as required” during this period before their renewal application can be submitted.
- The lawyer expects to be able to use a dependent’s apostilled criminal records that was valid for the original submission date, even if it would be older than three months by the time of actual submission.
Grains of salt, etc.
So I had the same situation with one of my dependants, AIMA kept showing me the very first card status as approved, nothing about the renewal. Today the system shows the following message:
“Your request has been received. We are not yet able to provide the status of your application — it may still be being processed in our systems. Please check this link again later.”
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GV/ARI renewal declined. Even though the form actually says clearly exempt under SS situation, I was declined for not having a NISS. I cannot apply for a NISS online, because I do not have fulltime residency, nor employment, in PT. I am retired and spend most of my time outside of PT. Do I have to do the stupid lawyer trick for 500, Alex? Returning to PT next month. Hoping they can allow me a 30 day visit without approval (which I could have done with just my passport before I started this stupid GV thing).
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It looks like the website is giving you the option for AIMA to get you a NISS number. I believe this is a recent change. You just need to click the “Yes, start the process” button on the left. Have you tried this yet?
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Which renewal application? The one the investor submitted 1.5 years ago that is still waiting for approval? Or the one coming up in a year that isn’t relevant because oh, hey, the investor got switched to a D2 and has a 3 year renewal cycle and thus it’s too early for them to apply for renewal yet, but the dependent didn’t and still has a 2 year renewal cycle? Or..
Oh, why bother trying to understand?
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any one having problems with the link also?
I called AIMA and they said we cant ask about status anymore by phone, only online.
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Good, answering the phone for things like that is a huge waste of resources.
Static status updates should have one source of truth, and can be exposed online trivially.
Well, as long as you’re competent (not AIMA)
One of my relatives has the same message. I had applied for her renewal without a NISS. I saw this last week and clicked on the button to start the NISS attribution process. The system said thanks. Now we wait. Her profile shows that the renewal application is under review.
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I did click the Start the Process button. The english version pages on this website leave a bit to the imagination. I don’t know if I initiated a NISS request, or if I just resubmitted the extension request. I’ll be back in PT in a few weeks. I’ll stop by the SS office in my village and ask if/what/how.
Starting in late July, immigrant citizens initiating their regularisation process at the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) will automatically receive their Social Security Identification Number (NISS).
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We got that same message a few weeks ago. We clicked yes and when I checked again a couple of weeks later the NISS had just magically appeared in our profiles.
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Is there a tracker for renewals?
I submitted my renewal online early May. 3 months later, still no news. In the meantime, we are not able to submit renewals for wife and son, as the system is not working. Lawyers submitted multiple complaints to AIMA to no success.
I contacted two legal firms re taking it to court since the legal timeline allows 60 days only, they seem reluctant, not sure why. For initial approval, they all seemed aligned that it is the way to go, but for renewal, I don’t see the same reaction.
We are not able to travel to EU for work or holidays (AIMA QR only allows to Portugal), which is incredibly frustrating when that was the whole point of doing this.
The AIMA QR code extends the validity of your “expired” GV residency cards. You may not trust this or believe it but this is what it does. There’s nothing in practice to stop intra-Schengen travel either by land or by plane as your passport is only checked to ensure your identity matches that on the ticket at the point of boarding the plane within Europe. You will find that many of us in the same situation have been entirely successful entering and exiting Schengen with an expired residency card + QR code at ports other than Portuguese ones (in our case, Madrid airport). While you shouldn’t trust a stranger on an online forum, you should do more research into what your freedom of movement actually is. You will likely be without an obvious “valid” residency card for many many months if not a year or so. The QR code document is AIMA’s workaround for its own inefficiency. Be free to travel around Europe.