Thanks for sharing. I have a question and it would be great if you could share your experience.
I completed the 5year too and am thinking about applying for citizenship this year. However, my agent told me that I have to wait and donāt know exactly for how long as there is a huge queue waiting to apply for citizenship and there is no place right nowā¦
Is it true? From my understanding, once you have the necessary documents you can apply online through a lawyer or in person right away?
You should apply, but expect a wait. Iām not sure why your lawyer would suggest waiting to apply, that sounds wrong. Dig into his reasoning until you understand
The people who told me I needed to wait were from an immigration agency, they are not lawyers. They are responsible for the communications between me and the lawyer (I donāt know who the lawyer is and they donāt let me know any information about it) and some paperwork. They just said that I need to make a reservation to apply for citizenship and due to the large amount of people, there is no place open yet which sounds weird to me. I know there is a wait for the citizenship process but didnāt know that I need to wait for the place to apply for citizenship ā¦
That sounds wrong, I can DM you contact details of an independent lawyer who specializes in citizenship if you like, you can contact them and potentially start your application through them instead of your current lawyer.
Dear Feli, as people have confirmed this is not 100% accurate.
First of all, laywers can apply online anytimeā¦ At least this was the case when my application was done last septemberā¦ I havenāt heard any change on this.
Furthermore, as far as I know you can mail in (post) your submission, I know many people who did this though I donāt recommend this approach.
I urge you to work with a Portuguese lawyer directly, why on earth, you have this travel agency as an intermediary? There are many lawyer firms mentioned on this forum - as Iāve written on this forum earlier I work with Legalsquare, I canāt say if they are better or worse than the others as I havenāt worked with another companyā¦
I would simply stay away from that travel agency and ask a lawyer to do an online applicationā¦
I am on stage 4, it is actually now āthe stageā that matters, as all others finish this way or other way in very reasonable timelinesā¦
Stage 4 used to take 8-9 months provided that there were no hick-ups no documentation requests. Iāve been there for 3 months and expect to be there for some time.
For all othersā note, when you apply online, the first 2 steps are almost automatic and you start on stage 3. Stage 3 takes roughly 3-4 months. Stage 4 can take anywhere from 8-18 monthsā¦ Once stage 4 is over, Stage 5 and stage 6 are a function of it, they are completed within days if not weeksā¦ This is the reason why, when you check the citizenship application trackers on Facebook groups, 90% seems to be ātrappedā in stage 4 and you hardly see anyone on stage 5 and 6ā¦ To give you a bit of relief once you are done with stage 6, your application is approved all you need is to wait for the creation of birth certificate.
Stage 7 is now said to be automized - so it is really stage 4 that requires some patience.
Hi everyone,
Whatās your opinion on the matter that one should keep the residency valid even after you applied for citizenship, until the citizenship process is complete ? Iāve been seeing different opinions & shared experience on this. I agree the most ideal answer is certainly yes. We continue to have it renewed until the process is done, which is what we all want to do. But in realityā¦I do not know what to expect next for GV renewals. If one manages to renew it after going through a huge delay, such delay shall not affect the citizenship application I assume ? I donāt think itās practical to talk about theory only without taking into the reality.
Lawyers replies I received so far are āYes you must renewā & āwe recommend you renew itā. Iāve also seen people say " I obtained PT citizen card with an expired card no problem".
Hi, miffy, I also wonder about this question. Iām not sure if there are any law articles referring to some explanations but Iām afraid not because the replies from the ālawyersā are just conservative, in other words, they will be innocent if they told you to renew it, no matter what you do next.
As to why someone would get his passport without a valid residence card, itās said he canāt make the appointment of renewal because of SEF/AIMA rather than himself. Just for reference.
Hi Charles,
Indeed. These days before you ask lawyers in Portugal anything like this, you sort of anticipate what he/she would tell you already.
A guy shared in another forum that he went to 3 different IRNs (where nationality is processed) to enquire about this and ended up getting different answers too.
Personally Iād hope government could continue to extend the validity of resident cards, which is useless for travelling, but at least serves reassurance in this situation after you FINALLY submit citizenship.
It is a very strange advice. I expect the situation with time required for citizenship processes will aggravate, not improve, so waiting will earn nothing. The only reason to wait is for those who want to use new law about time count, because regulations are not in place. But if you have 5 years since your first residence (under old law), there is no benefits of waiting. Just imaging what happens when those regulations appear? If people wait 2 years before their residence with manifestaĆ§Ć£o, then instead of letās say 100 thousands of those who got the residence in 2019 we will see additionally thousands of those who submitted manifestaĆ§Ć£o in 2019 and in 2018.
You need to have a valid residence permit (really valid, not prolonged by Covid law) when you apply for citizenship and also later when IRN will request the information from AIMA (stage 3). It is not a conservative view of the situation, it is how AIMA treats the law. In case you will not have a valid residence when AIMA writes the reply, it will write ādoes not meet the requirementsā, and you process will be put on pause until you renew, or in the worst case simply refused. If the person could not renew because of AIMA, he/she could explain and will likely get an extension. In case the person choose himself not to renew I have no idea what happens. May be a refusal is more likely in that case. There are real cases of both situations, some with pause and resuming after renewal and later successful citizenship as well as refusal because of that particular reason. Both situations happened during Covid, when people could not visit Portugal to renew, or just could not get slots in SEF. After refusal you could renew permit and submit again, but of course the time will be lost.
āYou need to have a valid residence permit (really valid, not prolonged by Covid law) when you apply for citizenshipā, you mean at the time of applying? I already applied and at the time of applying the card was valid ( it still is). Im past stage 3 too. What about after stage 3 ?
Get a lawyer to do it. Applying for citizenship is easy to do, applying for citizenship card ( after approval of citizenship might have some crowdiness . Anyway get a lawyer to help.
Yes, at the time of applying and at stage 3. If you are at stage 4 green (no need to send other documents, analyzing), than theoretically you are fine.
There are some issue just now, specifically now. Since April 1, additional check with external authority UCFE is added, and there are reports that all processes on the stage 4 were returned to stage 3 for that additional check, and status does not show it.
Theoretically, you had a reply from AIMA already, and everything is good from that side, however it is not clear what happens if permit will expire while you process is waiting the reply from UCFE (IRN knows the date from AIMA reply). It is always a risk to let permit expire and not renew during the naturalization on residence.
There are also anecdotical evidences that when permit is expire soon and process is at stage 3, IRN might be not in hurry to pass through that stage. People say that it looked like IRN was waiting for their renewal and just after the process moved finally.
TBH If we look into the Citizenship law, we see that 5 residency period is accumulated during the last 15 years. They donāt even have to be consecutive. So why must applicant keep residency renewed consecutively to be eligible .
I think this whole thing is about the applicant being at the whim/mercy of the agent processing the file, as I believe there is still no official law backing it up. But I get what you said.
People say that the law says IS a legal resident of Portugal, not WAS the legal resident. But no, it is not at the mercy of the agent. It is AIMAās policy. Because AIMA replies in those cases ādoes not meet the requirementsā. At mercy of the agent is to wait until permit expires and to make a new request to AIMA. But these are speculations, we do not know that for fact
If it was AIMAās policy then it should be just written somewhere on the government website, loud and clear, not subject to speculations.
Nonetheless, GV renewals right now is the most tricky among all. Not eligible for auto-renewals, not accepted by IRN. Fighting for slots and suing AIMA are only 2 viable options rn. In this sense, citizenship application based on GV residency is highly risky and out of my control.
Worst comes to worst, sue Portugal in the EU courts. Thatās my plan.
Iād expect I can at a minimum get citizenship, and probably some amount of money based on the PT govāt screwing with us and stretching timelines causing extra costs