Advice wanted for a confusing situation in regard to this topic. I started with a Golden Visa, with my wife as dependent. Three years ago, we moved to Portugal, but maintained the GV. That’s the background. I’m sorry, but the situation is slightly complicated, so bear with me for the rest.
In 2024 we applied to renew our temporary residence cards. We were well past the 5-year period since receiving our first cards. I had already applied for nationality. My wife had not because she didn’t yet have her language certificate. I did not want to apply for PR because of the massive cost of Golden Visa PR.
At the appointment, my lawyer opened her briefcase and sorted through my documents. The AIMA officer spotted the language certificate and offered to let me apply for PR, the normal kind, not GV, so instead of paying 15,000 euros, I paid a relative pittance (I don’t remember the amount). My lawyer mentioned that my wife’s temporary residency should be under the new category of investor rather than GV, which would be a 3-year card, also for relatively low fee, which is what we paid.
Cut to fifteen months later (meanwhile, no new cards had appeared). We were summoned to AIMA in Lisbon. I paid an additional, not large, fee for the PR and was fingerprinted on paper. My wife was told to pay an extra 3000 euros for her Golden Visa temporary (2-year, not 3) residency. How could that be? She was now the dependent of someone who no longer had a Golden Visa. They said we could request a new appointment to re-apply as investor dependent and start her case all over again and probably wait another year and a half or longer, or pay the money and get a card in 3 or 4 weeks. Pure extortion. We received our new cards, as promised, 3 weeks later.
Later, she got her language certificate and applied for nationality. But her current residence card will expire long before her nationality application is looked at. So, I want to help her apply for PR, without our lawyer’s help. For the renewal described above, my lawyer did almost nothing until the day of the appointment. Long story, but I was the one who got us the renewal appointments in the first place. I was the one to nudge AIMA into action to actually review our cases 15 months later, thanks to help from the Ombudsman. I don’t want to pay thousands to a lawyer when I’m doing most of the work.
Of course, I want to make sure they don’t pull the same trick and make my wife pay 15,000 euros for a GV PR. Here’s where it gets tricky. In my understanding, PR is based on her residence period in her own standing, not as a dependent of me. No marriage certificate is required. Will they still treat her as a GV or convert her to a regular PR like they did with me?
I ask the following questions because there is confusing guidance from AIMA and unreliable guidance on all the Facebook groups, which are 99.99% focused on D7 visas.
- What is the complete list of documents needed for a regular PR application?
- Any tips about how and where to request a PR application appointment? AIMA offers many choices for requesting appointments on their website, but none are for a first PR application.
- I need some guidance about how to make certain that she gets the same PR I have, as a regular PR, and not be cornered into the GV PR simply because her current residency card is for GV.
If anyone has been through similar and done it themselves, I’d like to hear from you. Thanks for reading.
P.S. I applied for nationality in March 2024. They’re still nowhere near to processing my case.
