Hello everyone,
I was wondering for those who are on the D type of visas, from what I’ve heard the permanent residence in Portugal allows absence of 30 months in a 3 year period. Does this mean that on a permanent residence you would only need to be present in Portugal 2-3 months per year and still be on a path towards citizenship or would you still need 6 months presence per year?
Yes you are correct. Currently there is no physical residence requirement for citizenship, only legal residence. So if you have PR and satisfy the physical residence for PR, or have GV and satisfy the physical residence for GV, then your legal residence is sufficient to count for citizenship.
But nothing prevents Portugal from changing the law and as we saw with the 5 to 10 year change, the government does not feel bound to grandfather existing residents. So you could have 9 years of legal residence and the government might decide you need 10 years of physical residence to get citizenship. Buyer beware.
I’m confused, everything I read says, “Residency requirement ~183 days per year”.
Regular PR has much longer in-country time requirements and costs a few hundred Euro for a five year card. GV PR (supposedly) has 7 day/year requirement and costs €8000 for a five year card.
From what I’ve read, it says that you’re allowed a 30 months absence in a 3 year period. If you divide 30 months by 3 years it ends up being 10 months of allowed absence in a year from what I understood.
I know that GV folk only need to be present 7 days per year. However, for regular PR I was wondering if they only need 2 months of presence since it says “allowed absence of 30 months in 3 years”
My original D7 visa allowed less time than that. 8 months total in 2 years. The last thing they just checked for was every page of my passport. I kept a spreadsheet because I needed to go back for my mothers 2 surgeries. Also, that was helpful for tax purposes.
The 8 months in 2 years is for the temporary residence permit which is well known. However, I’m talking more about permanent residence.
The rules can vary greatly depending on your country of origin and family status. If you have permanent reaidency already you should be able to read the Portuguese law directly. As all things Portuguese there are exceptions and if you would exceed the normal limits you would need to communicate with AIMA directly.
If you line it up exactly it might work. Eg if you are in Portugal June and July every year (with some buffer days)
But if one year you only arrive in Portugal in August, you may have created a 3 year window with more than 30 months absence. You would have to calculate carefully if you are cutting it very close.
Yes, that’s correct. Just keep in mind what @anonymous69 flagged, since this three-year period is not linked to a card validity period. IIRC it’s within any 3-year period (rolling basis).
Either a spreadsheet or dedicated apps can help make sure you stay on the right side of the limit if you’re really cutting it that close.
Do you have a source for this requirement for the non-GV PR? It was hard to find when I was looking up a non-GV temporary stay requirements.
I would also like to know about the three year window/30 months out concept. I would be concerned about permit validity period versus time-in requirements. Like Chinbawambi mentioned, 8 months in 2 years for the 2 year permit. But, they did not change the numbers when they started issuing 3 year permits, so the time-in became more restrictive, leading to 10 months per year required in-country.
I will be reading all I can about specific requirements so I don’t get caught out.
As an aside, I have friends who arrived in Portugal on D7 visas, got residency permits, have been here for a few years, and think they only have to be in-country around 6 months per year.
Does this help?
https://diariodarepublica.pt/dr/detalhe/lei/23-2007-635814
Lei n.º 23/2007, de 4 de julho (known as the Lei de Estrangeiros)
Artigo 85.º - Cancelamento da autorização de residência
2 - Sem prejuízo da aplicação de disposições especiais, a autorização de residência pode igualmente ser cancelada quando o interessado, sem razões atendíveis, se ausente do País:
…
b) Sendo titular de uma autorização de residência permanente, 24 meses seguidos ou, num período de três anos, 30 meses interpolados.
…or in English:
Article 85 – Revocation of a residence permit
2 – Without prejudice to the application of special provisions, a residence permit may also be revoked where the holder, without valid reason, is absent from the country:
…
b) If the holder of a permanent residence permit is absent for 24 consecutive months or, within a three-year period for 30 non-consecutive months [interpolated].
Hi everyone,
I have a small question here. What’s the requirement for GV PR then? Is it still 7-day per year? And also, for calculating 7 days, it is related to the card validity period, right? For example, if the card is valid from 17 Apr 2026 to 17 April 2028. Then I need to stay 7 days from 17 Apr 2026 to 17 Apr 2027, and then another 7 days from 18 Apr 2027 to 17 Apr 2028.
Thanks and Best Regards!
b) If the holder of a permanent residence permit is absent for 24 consecutive months or, within a three-year period for 30 non-consecutive months [interpolated].
That’s what I understood from before, no absence longer that 30 months non-consecutive in a 3 year period. If you take this into account, it would mean you only need 6 months of presence in a 3 year period as long as it is non-consecutive.
But still I kinda feel like they won’t let you naturalize once you reach 10 years and apply for citizenship if you spend 2-3 months per year in Portugal. Am I right?
Portugal’s already demonstrated that they’re fine changing what we thought were the Nationality rules 5 years ago. Nobody knows what they’ll come up with in 10 years, but clearly the trust has been broken.
That’s why people who say “PR is just as good as Citizenship” are wrong. It’s very hard to take your Citizenship away, whereas PR is subject to political whim (just ask PRs in the UK, which is retroactively doubling their required years).
True, they can also remove naturalisation as an option like the Stamp 0 in Ireland or like they made it in France where now you need to prove that most of your income is derived from France.
Yes but they won’t do it right away because they want to collect more fees and investments first. They’ll wait until all the people disqualified by the 5 to 10 year change are getting close to 9.9 years and then change it again.
Please stop giving ideas to evil minds. This is an open forum and many can read what is written here. What you are doing is normalising what is being done and making us feeling worse. We had already experienced a massive rug pull recently and we feel really upset.