If there is a causal relationship, I would say congratulations to himâŠ
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Our best hope is that we can somehow slip our applications in and grandfather ourselves before the citizenship waiting time is extended.
But hope is not a strategy!
Unless the citizenship doesnât matter to you (in which case, why choose PGV?), now is the time to look in the mirror and calmly admit to yourself that you need another plan.
Once youâve done that, smashing the mirror wouldnât be out of the question⊠unless you live in the US, because those tariffs are about to make mirrors much more expensive!
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At what point are people grandfathered in to the current 5 year (I realize itâs longer) pathway? We are putting together an application and Iâm still not fully sure about what point it is supposed to start âcountingâ regarding the rules change to start from application. Is it supposed to mean from when the application is submitted or when itâs accepted? Those seem to be vastly different things. If we start now we might be surprised next month to find out itâs twice as long again as what is already about twice as long as its supposed to be?
Read a comment in one article by one applicant- AIMA is like a toxic loverâŠpromises to change but never does. 
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Yes, youâre all fairly effectively scaring me away.
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If you already filed the citizenship application youâre probably safe. Otherwise I think they can always change the requirements.
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Look, we owe the opportunity to express our unfiltered opinion to the administrator and owner of this website. I am personally grateful to him. If i had my way, i would have asked AIMA to seek his services to revamp their website, IT system, DB, BIâŠu name it.
But then we are expected in all fairness to restrict our bluntness to this thread. If u have made up ur mind to invest in this black-hole of portugal ARI, please seek advise on other threads. This one is full of realism, ghory details of humbled ambitions, and the full account of criminal history of Portuguese state and AIMA.
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I understand that and Iâm grateful thereâs a place for people to vent. I havenât completely made up my mind, Iâm still trying to understand the possibilities and pitfalls. Thatâs why I came here as well as reading other threads. Honestly the spreadsheet and lack of movement the last few years is the most impactful negative evidence. It is very disappointing.
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Not necessarilyâŠsay if u are around 10 years of age, primary applicant, happy to continue ur education in your current country of residence, intend to pursue degree atleast till masters, have spare change to the tune of 600k euro (considering other expenses), hmmmâŠi dont think it is a bad deal. U will have the portuguese passport by the time u are 30 or 35 if passport is ur ultimate goal. I wanted immediate residency (for schengen mobility, portugal can keep itâs passport) and so waiting already for 3 years has been very unfair to meâŠand i dont think anything is moving even now and neither are there any indications of movement in near future other than periodic empty promises by one high flying minister and AIMA board.
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I would add to that⊠lack of clarity on what exactly youâll get in the end, and how long that will take to get - e.g.
- Unclear if (long) wait time after ARI submission counts towards years required for citizenship.
- Will current 5 years required for PT citizenship be doubled to 10? Not only is that 5 more years of your life, but a couple more expensive ARI renewals to pay for.
- If tax treatment is part of the attraction, no guarantee that current incentives will still be available in future.
- Will future governments make other âretroactiveâ changes that canât be fought against? This isnât specifically a PT problem, but PTâs changed fundamental things in just the past couple years, so they have form in this regard.
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Itâs a bit too early to get excited about this. This is just a discussion by a few people at this point in time. However, it does follow a pattern of the government trying to adversely affect the rights of immigrants. We saw similar types of threats during the Mais Habitacao debacle. The government can try to do this, but people have strong, established rights under the Portuguese constitution. ARI applicants have the strongest position to fight this of all immigrant residence categories. In addition to Constitutional rights, there are express and implied promises made to ARI applicants. There are also contractual rights by virtue of investments made by the ARI applicants. The law requires you to hold your investment for 5 years. By changing the residence requirement to 10 years, this is a clear change to the underlying premise of the program which will disenfranchise many applicants, and violate their rights under the Constitution.
The government can prospectively change the investment period to 10 years for anyone who obtains a residence permit after the enactment of the new law, or they can end the ARI program completely for new applications, but they cannot retroactively alter the expectation and rights of lawful immigrants who followed the rules. NĂŁo pode ser.
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Completely agree. It is just a statement atm. With an election is coming up, parties always try and appeal to voters through immigration. This could be just political posturing in a very tight election. In my opinion this is actually aimed primarily at those in the Manifestation of Interest program.
MOI is a completely different situation. That program is people who showed up uninvited and once in the national territory they filed an application for a residence permit. I would not say absolutely that they donât have similar rights, but it is a totally different situation than an ARI applicant who followed a specific âinvestment contractâ for 5 years in exchange for the right to apply for citizenship or permanent residence. The government clearly should distinguish the two situations and to clearly carve out ARI applicants from any such nonsensical change to the residence requirements. I would also point out that while the government doesnât like the MOI program, it was a program of their own creation and they alone should take responsibility for the consequences, and not pass on those consequences to innocent people.
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Constitutional rights have already been violated as I continue to wait for 3 years after making the investment for a visa on which decision should have been given within 3 months of submission. Those constitutional rights were not upheld even by the courts of Lisbon. So, i have a different opinion than yourâs.
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This is how it should be. But Portugal does not operate at a should-level.
The government has already treated ARI applicants worse than the Mais Habitaçao contingent for the past several years.
If youâre expecting to flip that around, better have a damn good lawyer.
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Can we distinguish the differences between what you hope not to happen and it wonât happen,and what you wish to happen and it will happen?
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Iâm not so sure. Itâs called the âAutorização de ResidĂȘncia para Investimentoâ (ARI) - ResidĂȘncia, not Cidadania, Nacionalidade, Passaporte, etc. They are more than happy for us to pay them large (and ever-increasing) ARI renewal fees for the rest of our lives.
Portugal could argue that ARIâs 5-year investment holding requirement was just to prevent speculation/flipping (back when you could get a PT GV within a year or two!). And that any similarity to the 5-year residency requirement for naturalisation was just coincidence - which investors and GV promoters read too much into.
Yes, there are official government statements that ARI investors can âApply for Portuguese nationality by naturalisation, fulfilling the other requirements of the Nationality Law (Law no. 37/81, of 3 October, in its current wording).â (to use this AIMA example about Art. 90.Âș-A) But âin its current wordingâ also suggests that wording is subject to change. If you havenât requested citizenship yet, can you really hope for the wording of non-ARI (nationality) legislation to be locked-in too?