I cannot help but think that at this point there will be some backlash from the news that the foreigner/resident population has jumped so high. Immigration is already a sore point - the pressure on housing and social services and healthcare add up. In addition, the common person starts seeing their culture getting diluted in ways they do not approve of. The narrative is terrible too. Consider as one example how many Americans see Portugal as a place to run to, and talk about how they are moving for the free health care and how âeverything is so much cheaperâ. The actual magnitude of the numbers does not matter; itâs the narrative and perception, the soundbites created. Meanwhile, the younger people are for understandable reasons leaving for more money and greener pastures.
On the whole, people donât tend to like change, and they start looking for some, for any tool to stop it - and I cannot blame them at all.
This is not a unique-to-Portugal phenomenon of course; immigration has become a massive problem for many countries because of the disruption it is causing to cultures and economies. A few immigrants are one thing; a flood is another.
This is also not about âwell if they lowered taxes or got more investment or whatever then people wouldnât leave / economy would be better / etcâ. Maybe true, maybe not, but thatâs neither here nor there - itâs what people are thinking NOW.
My point would be that I donât think any of this around citizenship etc is aimed at GV in any specific way. Itâs people looking at the flood of everyone else who is going to become eligible in a few years, and of course the publicity around those who are simply here for the passport and moving on to other pastures, GV and not, and the retirees who are here for the public services but potentially contributing little.
The reason I say this is that if you look at it only through the lens of âhow it affects me/GV holdersâ you may not get the results you want. You either have to address the entire picture, or find a story line around how/why GV people should be treated differently that will sell.
(As an aside, I suspect the Americans-on-social-security-moving-to-live-cheap thing will fix itself in due course. Iâve read enough of AmericansAndFriendsPT to know many of these people are not even vaguely considering exchange rate in their budget calculations, and are operating on thin margins. The dollar appears to be headed for the tank; in any event currencies tend to be cyclical, and it wasnât so all long ago that EURUSD was 1.40-1.60 - I suspect even EURUSD 1.20-1.30 is going to start breaking some of them, and thatâs not so far away.)
This is an interesting point. I too read that FB Group and am astonished at the number of low-but-just-enough-income Americans evidently fleeing the country with Portugal as their target destination. They appear to give little thought for the very real life problems they will face from language and bureaucracy to cultural assimilation when theyâre the only English-speakers in the village and the erosion of their meagre income in USD as you identify. I really want to know who put low-end living in Portugalâs hinterland in their minds as viable in the first place. At least we can identify an industry of lawyers, real estate agents, and relocation companies spinning their lies to entice us in but the lower-income group are not on their radar because thereâs little money to be made from them. Fantasy YouTube videos perhaps.
Whether we should have better or prioritised treatment to other immigrant groups because of the up-front investment we made in the country is a moot point because weâre not getting it. We just feel more aggrieved because weâve contributed a lot of cold hard cash and feel that this makes us more deserving - a position clearly not shared by any of the authorities.
Now weâre in Lisbon, Iâm asked sometimes by Portuguese why we chose to live here after 12 years living and working in SE Asia. My answer usually focuses on the climate (300 days of sunshine haha!), ease of day-to day living, the long cultural ties between the UK and Portugal, and proximity to the UK for trips home. The only reference I make to cost of living is the price of good quality wine which is usually taken positively otherwise I think itâs potentially insulting to say youâd come to Portugal because itâs cheap - because the Portuguese definitely do not find it so.
How about âWhich group of immigrants supports thousands of jobs, is rebuilding the country house by house, pays a huge amount of taxes and tens of thousands of euros in fees? And what if I told you that this group of immigrants generally does not even live in Portugal so as a whole they arenât consuming medical care, social security, they dont use the roads daily, infrastructure and seats on buses? And would you believe that this group of immigrants is more strictly vetted for criminality more than any other group of immigrants and is probably the least likely to commit crimes in the country?â
Nothing wrong to say that itâs cheap. Portuguese people know it and understand it. I am asked quite often by local portuguese and my answer is: âI choose Portugal because of a combination of 3 reasons: good weather, cheaper living cost, and friendly people.â After hearing my answer, none of them said anything. Some of them even said: youâve made a right decision.
Well for me,itâs quite common to see people referring to the people, nice of course, when they are asked what attracts them to this place. I canât help thinking how much they know about the people here as tourists. I know you have been living in PT for a long time so I am not pointing to you.I am just describing a phenomenon.
I canât say those hypocritical words based on my contacts with the staffs of the bank and legal team in PT. Sorry to spread negative emotions.
You raise a good point, I was mostly thinking that the end of NHR has drastically reduced Portuguese affordability for foreign retirees, but a big currency swing would double that effect!
Itâs also obvious that historically, people angry at D7 Americans taking up housing have mostly turned their rage on GV which they assume all Americans are on! And then are surprised that tightening and tightening the GV faucet, has no effect on the D7 Americans pouring in!
I am fascinated that there are many in this forum warning of existential threats to the program and wanting to advocate to salvage the investments of money and time, and yet there seem to be an almost endless number of new arrivals here inquiring about investing into a GV despite all the obvious red flags. I am not sure if I am the crazy one, or if itâs instead the new investors who are crazy?
I get a lot of GV huckster emails (go to one âMoving to Portugalâ show and youâre on their list). According to their sales pitch:
There are some GV processing delays, but âAIMAâs new processâ and its Mission Structure aim to have the backlog cleared by June (yes, the month after next)
Foreign interest in Portugalâs Golden Visa continues to grow, as per AIMAâs 2023 stats (they forget to mention that we used to get stats every month, but thatâs been broken since 2023)
New âNHR 2.0â is even better than old NHR (in some ways, but qualifying for it is far more difficult than they let on - plus you have to re-qualify every year)
âŠit goes on and on
If you donât read this forum, you might actually believe that everythingâs just amazing
People simply donât know. They see all the glossy ads and believe them. They donât know about the red flags because, well, how many of them are talked about outside of this forum and in whose interest is it to do so? Itâs in tkrunningâs interest to up his SEO game to get our negative viewpoints flung far and wide, but no one elseâs⊠(and yes, even I have negative viewpoints, hard to believe as some might think)
Also, people want to believe. They want hope in their dark time. Itâs a great story and means they get something they want. And thereâs always some naysayers after all. We all must have done something wrong, no system can be that bad!
People go for too-good-to-be-true things all the time. (Why, once I believed 15 impossible things before breakfast!) And there are plenty of folks willing to sell them that story for whatever the market will bear.
At least the people showing up here are attempting some sort of due diligence. But you know they represent just a fraction of those who are applying.
This is exactly the problem. Portugalâs immigration programs attract too many people through the door into the garden, who are now lining up to get into the house. Now instead of shutting the door into the garden first, they debate whether to shut the door into the house (hoping maybe a stampede in the garden will work things out).
To make it more selective and less attractive to get into the garden, they can do many things:
remove NHR 1.x (already done).
shut the door on MI (already done, but should have been done in 2021/2022 looking at the numbers).
too many D7/D8 residents? Raise the income requirement to 2x of what it is now.
too many GV applicants? Restrict qualifying investment types (already done). Make you line up outside the garden for 3-4 years to get your first GV card (already done). Increase the investment threshold. Shut the door on the program altogether.
too many new immigrants using public healthcare?
Make every new immigrant pay for health services consumed, until theyâve become permanent resident / citizen.
Still worried about long-term costs? Do what Canada / Australia do, and make new immigrants go through physical exams to assess the cost of any long-term illness that would be costly to the public system in the long run. Canada / Australia have turned sick people away.
Still worried that non-EU people only come to Portugal when old and sick (aka to retire)? Make them pay a one-time contribution into the public health system.
too many new immigrants bringing kids who use the public education system (especially older kids who donât speak good Portuguese already)? Make them either sign pledge to use private schools, or pay a one-time contribution when obtaining dependent / family reunion visas for their children.
the list goes on.
To make it harder to get into âthe house,â Portugal can do it gentlyâŠ
raise the language requirement from A2 to B1/B2 (itâs perfectly fair for any country to want new immigrants to integrate and speak its language, before being allowed to naturalise)
require an interview where one must answer questions about Portugalâs history/constitution/etc. in Portuguese (more onerous, but plenty of other countries require this, so fair game)
âŠor harshly:
increase legal residency requirement (e.g. from 5 years to 7 or 10 years): itâs perfectly within a countryâs right change its law on this. People who are already residents but have not clocked enough time to apply to naturalise are unfairly affected (because of reliance), but they get a grace period or they suck it up.
impose physical residency requirement: this is where only GV holders are hurt disproportionally, especially considering the NHR1.x rug pull. The other visa types already require at least >183 days in Portugal each year. So GV holders get a grace period (because of reliance), or we suck it up (which could mean re-do 7/10 years while being a tax resident, while doing an expensive renewal every 2 yearsâif lucky enough to secure a renewal appointment), or we exit the garden.
It seems highly likely that Portugal could find the political will to make its programs less attractive, in which case I hope we donât get screwed over in the stampede in the garden.
And to end on a very dark note on this Good Friday, it is possible that Portugal GV will remain popular, until an explicit physical residency requirement is written into the Nationality Law.
Then the question is does the new parliament choose to do it? If yes, are we given a grace period? Iâm not looking for answer BTW.
And then are surprised that tightening and tightening the GV faucet, has no effect on the D7 Americans pouring in!
It is hard. People just need a scapegoat to blame, they donât even look at the statistics nor the public media wants to correct the facts since blaming GV is always easy and politically correct.
I think people donât look because itâs complicated. You have to spend a fair bit of time looking into these matters to understand them, and most people most of the time donât have the time or energy to do it, all they can afford to process is the soundbite. The poorer someone is and the harder they have to work just to get by, the less energy they have to spend on esoteric topics like figuring out how GV works and fits into the immigration picture.
Perhaps convenient that these revelations appear as the election nears?
A new controversy has opened up over the Easter weekend: that of over 120,000 immigrants who were able to enter Portugal during the âdying daysâ of former borders agency SEF without the necessary background checks.
âThese applicants were given a one-year residence permit without any face-to-face assistance and/ or manual verification of documents submitted, such as the compulsory criminal recordâ.
This lapse was verified by AIMA â the agency created to replace SEF â which calculated that 120,157 people had managed to get residency authorisations without proving that they âticked all the boxesâ to actually qualify for them.
AIMAâs analysis quickly threw up various anomalies: some of the files that obtained residence permits âfound blank sheets of paper in place of the criminal records that had to be submitted by the applicantsâ; others detected false documents in place of criminal records.
I wonder what the old SEFâs director is doing at the moment. Will he have to take any responsibility for his decision? Most likely he is gonna be fine. Right now perhaps he is enjoying his easter holiday in Algarve or in France and laughing about what itâs written on the news.
This is what happens when politicians play politics with immigration processes. I take this serious and when I was granted residence I followed the rules and try to contribute to the community such as donating to charities and volunteering. I have now stopped all donations in Portugal along with stopping all investments and large purchases because of how we have been treated. When Portugal honors its commitments to me and the other GV applicants I will resume.
Amen, brother (or sister). I would also add the astonishingly unerrated wines. I think a pushback is coming, in lisboa and porto, due to over concentration of rich immigrants. We are in the countryside in Algarve and there are no such problems here as long as you stay clear of the big towns.
This isnât a dig at you @piggy, but your experience and mine provide a perfect illustration of the random and arbitrary treatment that Portugal ARI applicants can expect from AIMA and the PT legal system. Even more than the years of waiting, the complete disregard for any sense of fairness or âfirst in, first outâ is what infuriates me the most⊠and I say that on behalf of the many ARI applicants whoâve been waiting years longer than I have, too.
New GV applicants, I provide this real-life example to illustrate how capriciously Portugal treats investors - and the huge importance of luck in its senseless ARI process.
Event
Your experience
Our experience
GV application
June 2023
Feb 2023
Lawsuit filed
Apr 2024
June 2024 (rejected â ), July 2024 (appeal)
Lawsuit won
Nov 2024
Sept 2024 (appeal accepted, but as of Apr 2025 still has not been adjudicated)
Biometrics
Jan 2025 (new process, card fees paid at Bios)
Dec 2024 (old process, as of Apr 2025 still waiting for final approval and payment request)
Residence cards received
Apr 2025
nada so far
â Initial lawsuit rejected as âno urgent ties to Portugal,â despite providing evidence of PT house and car purchase, PT home renovations, household goods importation to PT, and seventeen different return flights to Portugal since applying for ARI. [Since youâll ask, we didnât do D7 instead of GV because at the time we had full-time in-office jobs in the UK.]
I feel your painâŠ
The rule âfirst in, first outâ does not really function in Aimaâs process. There are too many reasons for it:
GV applications are distributed to different branches Porto/LisbonâŠand inside each branch, there is a certain group of aimaâs officers who analises the applications.
Applications are different from each other due to nationalities, marital status, kids/without kids,âŠ
Investment route can be different (real estate/fund/donationâŠ). Even in the same category i.e. investment (fund route), different fund will have a different timeline to be checked.
Different aimaâs officer has different competence/attitude/work ethic when analising our applicationsâŠ
However, it is still unacceptable and unimaginable to see that 120k illegal immigrants during Sefâs period went into the country and obtained the cards without even showing criminal records while GV investors are being treated worse than the dogs of those immigrants
