I wanted to confirm my assumptions below. After 5 years with a GV (real estate) w/temporary residency, I can…
sell my investment AND…
1a) apply for permanent residency (expensive) OR
1b) continue to renew my temporary residency (inexpensive but you have to deal with > 1 renewal, wait for cards etc)
I had planned to skip PR and apply for citizenship and renew my temporary residency if necessary. That was when it was 5 years. With the pending change to 10 years, I am trying to determine the right way forward if i choose to sell my investment in the interim. Are all the above true and under both 1a and 1b I would only be required to spend 14 days every 2 years (or 7 days/year) in Portugal until such time as I obtain citizenship?
This is hypothetical but i suspect if the change to the nationality law comes to pass, many will seek to continue to maintain legal residency while [a] selling/reducing their investment and [b] lowering the renewal cost (or friction).
Where did you get this information?
Is this how AIMA treats this in practice?
Seems contrary to the law which explicitly states the GV investment must be kept exactly 5 years (that article of the law does not condition it on anything else, like eligibility for renewals, PR etc.)
Only GV PR allows the same 7d/year as GV Temporary Residency. With Regular PR you can’t be out of PT for >2 consecutive years/36 interpolated months.
GV PR is far more expensive than Regular PR, as you know. So that 7d/year freedom has a price.
Sara advised against disposing of your investment until you actually have a GV PR card in hand (which at AIMA speed is not just 5y - add maybe another year for PR processing). In theory you can dispose after 5y, but what if at 5.8y some bureaucrat finally gets to your PR application and thinks you should should still be owning it?
I need to make some updates (namely new, higher fees for 2026) to this comparison table I produced, but hopefully it helps illustrate the differences.
I have some doubts about exiting the investment. Let’s look at the follwing example:
The main applicant has already applied for citizenship and has been waiting for outcome. He has no intention to apply for any kind of PR. He keeps renewing temporary GV until obtaining citizenship.
After the main applicant gets citizenship, he sells off his investment.
His minor dependents are about to renew their GV. They have had 3 cards (which total time accumulates more than 5 years)
Will the minor dependents be able to apply for Golden PR? Or normal GV? The main applicant has never ever had PR and now no longer holds the investment.
On exactly this scenario, in my personal experience, yes to temp GV renewal and yes to regular PR. Properties sold 2 years previously when primary obtained citizenship.
Thank you very much for your information! . Now I am hopeful that my kids will be able apply for GV PR when they are 16.5-17 years old. Then at 18 years old they will be out of Portugal and apply for citizenship themselves (with 3.5-4 years remaining on the GV PR). This must be executed perfectly with tons of luck!
I thought we’d have more than enough time between renewals to process the citizenship applications, so didn’t expect to be back with AIMA 3 yrs later and was pretty stressed about how it would work with the properties sold. It was a complete non-issue. As I said in the link,it turns out family renewals are subject to the same condition as the primary ONLY as long as the primary is subject to those conditions.
For children I’d look carefully at the conditions for regular PR. Mine was considering studying outside the EU and being at Uni was a basis for waiving the residency requirement.
Thank you very much for your detailed explanation. In term of cost, normal PR outweights GV PR without doubt. However, as my kids want to study abroad after schooling in Portugal for many years, obtaining GVPR is absolutely necessary. With your experience, now I am praying to receive citizenship outcome within 30 months so that I can exit the Fund in due time. This month marks 12 months since my citizenship’s application was submitted.
If a parent has citizenship and the kids are still under 18 they should immediately apply for citizenship as minors under Article 2 while they are young enough to be eligible.
It is tricky because Art 2 takes about 4 years (and likely will take many more than that as bureaucracy builds up quickly) to process. Also, if a new citizenship law is passed, even one of parents has citizenship, kids will still need to have 10 years of residency counting frok first card in order to apply for Art 2.
To make Art 2 worth to apply, all following conditions must be met:
one of the parents obtains citizenship
At the the same time, kids must have completed 10 years of residency counting from first card
Kids must be less than 14 years old at that moment
If kids are 14/15 years old, I prefer to have them renew a normal GV with validity of 2-3 years. Then, when they are 17 years, they will apply for GV PR with validity of 5 years. And by the time they are 18 with 4 years left of GV PR, they apply for citizenship themselve.
If kids are 17 years old, it is quite obvious that it is not worth applying via Art 2. It’s better to wait 1 more year to apply under Art 6.1
If kids are under 14 years old, for sure it’s worth applying via Art 2 immediately if other conditions are met.
If kids are 15/16 years old, it is tricky and we need to follow up closely the progress of IRN. If it shows that IRN is 5-6 years behind (right now they are 4 years behind), then it is not really worth taking Art 2 journey.
There isn’t a minimum residency requirement for Art. 2. The core requirements are 1)that the parent obtained citizenship after the child was born, and 2) that the child is u18 when they apply. If they are minors when you obtain citizenship, residency is not a requirement for them. (In fact, a big part of the Art. 2 bottleneck is apparently minor children of Sephardic Jews, who have never have set foot in Portugal).
On the timing, it’s worth asking your lawyer - and others on various forums - about linking your children’s citizenship application to yours. I believe this was introduced by IRN in April 2023, so too late for us. It makes sense for IRN to do it this way, since Art 2 is supposed to be semi-automatic. But neither AIMA nor IRN has ever been sensible. I read somewhere that it hadn’t been working as intended because of different workflows for Art 6.1 and Art 2, and I don’t know if they abandoned it. If it is still possible it means that children can lock in before they turn 18, the parent’s citizenship gets added to the file, and then it’s just a case of waiting. Don’t know if it’s still possible for you - but if people are submitting 6.1 applications before the 5 year mark, there seems to be no good reason not to try and submit Art 2 while the parent’s 6.1 is still in progress?
Have a good look at the exemptions for regular PR. Mine also did school in PT and was looking to study for 4 years abroad. My definite understanding was that exemptions from the time limits included engaging in a programme of formal study outside Portugal.
Yes, I will surely learn from your case to consider normal PR. I will 100% raise this matter to Aima officer. And I hope that they will accept it as they already accepted your case.
Regarding the early application, honestly i cannot get it thru my head no matter how convinving the lawyers try to make it to be. It seems to me surreal to me. If it takes IRN 4-6 years to process Article 3 (naturalisation via marriage), then one could submit early application of citizenship now. Then he/she can rush himself to marry one portuguese in the same year. And at year 5 when his/her application is opened for analyse, he/she is already married for over 3 years which satisfies the condition perfectly.
I am grateful to receive your advice and I am staying active 100% to observe aima/irn’s movement. For now I am just praying….
I wish your kid a speedy outcome with his citizenship. I am sure that the it will come soon because you and your family are well deserved it after all battle and hardship you’ve overcome.
Hi Maria
Probably you were mistaken. I did not say under 18 and over 14. I said if kids are 17 and over, they should not apply via Art 2. If they are 14 or less, they should apply. If they are 15/16, it is tricky and we need to monitor closely the progress of IRN at the time…pls read my post again…
Thank you for your response. Perhaps I misunderstood this part: “If they are 15/16, it is tricky and we need to monitor the progress of IRN at the time,” and therefore thought it meant under 18 and over 14 years old. I don’t quite understand why we need to closely monitor the progress of IRN at the age of 15/16?
My husband and I applied for citizenship a year ago, but we’re still at step 1. I think if one of us gets citizenship, our child will be 16 or 17 years old by then. It was a long and stressful process. It’s like a lingering, painful wound: After maintaining the status for 5 years, there was a 3-year wait for citizenship, and after one parent obtained citizenship, there was a few more years for the child’s citizenship. The investment company didn’t mention this before we started the Golden Visa application; if they had, we definitely wouldn’t have invested.
Right now the Art 2 takes 4 years to process. It seems that 4 years can easily become 5-6 years in the near future.
Now assuming that in 2028 you or your husband obtain the citizenship. You kid is 16 years old in 2028. And by closely observing the progress of IRN Lisbon (Art 2 is exclusively processed by IRN Lisbon), we find that in 2028 IRn Lisbon only starts reviewing Art 2’s application submitted in Oct/Nov 2023. It means that they are 5.5-6 years behind.
Your kid is 16 and if he applies in 2028, his application will highly likely to be opened by 2034-2035.
Is it worth doing Art 2? Or he can wait until he is 18 in the year of 2030. Then he applies himself via Art 6.1 as an adult and supposedly Art 6.1 continue taking 3 years. It means your kid gets his citizenship in 2033.
It is just my analysis. If kids are 15/16 it is tricky because there are too many uncertainties regarding portuguese bureaucracy. But I am sure that if kids are 17, it is absolutely not worth doing it. And if kids are under 14, it is 100% worth applying via Art 2.0.
One thing for us to consider is that we have more data points of Art 6.1 to estimate and at least can say sth about the process. Art 2 is very limited and actually we do not have (any) data point so far. Until now in this forum NomadGate I see only one person @Lala who applied Art 2 for her son and it’s been 4 years waiting with no outcome.
If you kids are 17 when you obtain citizenship, it’s best to apply GV PR (5 years validity) immediately. Then he applies for citizenship at 18 and out of the country. His card still has 4 years left which should be OK for the citizenship process (Art 6.1). Just out of the mess as soon as possible and let the mess resolve itself. It is just my opinion and surely it’s not suitable for all.
Thank you for explaining it so clearly to me, you are so kind. What you’re talking about is exactly what I’m concerned about. I’m fed up with this country’s slow administrative system. I want to leave as soon as possible, but unfortunately, the more someone wants to leave, the longer it takes to get their paperwork done. Without citizenship or permanent residency, I cannot withdraw my property. I’ve been through terrible things here. I don’t want to invest without any return, but it’s clear that the initial promises from this country were a joke.I started investing here at the end of 2018, which means I’ve had my capital in this country for almost 10 years. What I didn’t expect was that the process of applying for citizenship for a child under 18 under Section 2 would take so long. So, what I’m thinking about right now is applying for EU permanent residency for my child, who has been living here for 5 years. However, you know, getting an appointment with AIMA is incredibly difficult. I don’t want my child to waste their youth in a place like that. So I have to try
