Police Clearance for Golden Visa Dependents (country of birth & country of residence)

[thedeep8 (JM)]

Hi everyone. I am relatively early in the process of getting a Golden Visa from Portugal (in particular I am gathering the documents to make the application). This forum has given me quite a lot of insight on some of the challenges and I appreciate the sharing of information.

I have received conflicting information from my lawyer and other immigration consultants about one aspect, and thought I would ask what other people’s experience has been.

Me, my wife and my parents were all born in a different country to the country we currently live (and have been living for many years). Indeed my parents have not lived in their country of birth for over 40 years.

I have been told that (as the main applicant), I only need a Police Clearance from my current country of residence, however all my dependents (as they would be under Family Reunification) will required two Police Clearances, one from our current country of residence and another from their country of birth.

Is that what other people have found to be the case? In other words, did your dependents need two police clearances from the two relevant countries? Or is my situation less usual (because we don’t live in the country we were born in).

The reason for my question is that getting Police Clearance from the country of birth is proving more difficult because we are not citizens of that country and nor do we have an address in that country that we can reference (for non-citizens they may consider issuing a Police Clearance if you have been living there recently).

[cj807 (Chris J)]

Welcome. I think what you have been told is technically correct. I am in a similar position to you: I am the main applicant, and my wife has not lived in her country of birth for over thirty years. However, I did not submit a police check for her country of birth in my application - just ones for our country of residence, and we received preliminary approval with no problems. It may be, though, that if/when we finally have a biometric appointment, the SEF requests this additional documentation. And of course different SEF offices may have different approaches on this point.

[tommigun (Tommy Gunn)]

Please refer to my post here responding to the same question:

Unknown unknown of Portugal Golden Visa

Unfortunately, the official requirement is different when it comes to the ‘reagrupamento familiar’ as compared to the main GV applicant. It may sound funny as it is, but the main GV applicant is required to supply their criminal check from the country of nationality OR from the country where they have resided for more than one year. For the dependants, the coordinating conjunction changes from OR to AND, i.e. BOTH criminal checks will be required if their country of nationality is different fr…

Technically, what matters is the country of nationality, not the country of birth.
So if your dependants are NOT the nationals of their country of birth then the certificate would not be required.
By the way, I am in the same situation for one of my dependants, and I am not planning to obtain the police cert from their country of birth due to them not being the national/citizen of that country (and never have been).

[thedeep8 (JM)]

Thank you both for your responses. Thankfully the country of nationality and residence are currently the same for us, but it sounds like technically both is required (with it being up to the SEF official to decide if they ask for both of them or not). It would be interesting for me to know any experiences people have had, particularly if only one Police Clearance was submitted but then either SEF asked to provide the other one, or alternatively were issued a visa without SEF asking for the other one.

[tommigun (Tommy Gunn)]

@thedeep8

Thankfully the country of nationality and residence are currently the same for us, but it sounds like technically both is required (with it being up to the SEF official to decide if they ask for both of them or not).

Not sure what you mean here by ‘both’. If your dependants have the same country of residence and nationality, and they hold no other nationalities, then only one single Police Cert should be required.

The somewhat gray area is whether SEF will look at the ‘country of birth’ on your dependant’s application and decide to request a Police Cert from there. I am not sure if they are allowed that discretion.

[thedeep8 (JM)]

That’s a good point. The SEF website says “nacionalidade” in Portuguese but “country of origin” in English (which could be construed differently). I am going to ask my lawyer again.

[tommigun (Tommy Gunn)]

That’s why you should always refer to the original Portuguese text
As far as my limited knowledge goes, “origin” would be “naturalidade”…

[thedeep8 (JM)]

I spoke again with my lawyer. He told me that (in his experience) SEF interpret “origin” as country of birth and not nationality.

He also told me that they can ask for it any time before they issue final approval (ie if they realise you haven’t submitted a document they are expecting), which means you may be pre-approved and completed the biometrics and still be asked to provide additional documents (including a potentially hard to get Police clearance).

[tommigun (Tommy Gunn)]

Ok, thanks for sharing your lawyer’s advice.
My lawyer advised the opposite which I hope will turn out to be true with SEF, as I really do not like the idea of my dependant going to their ‘country of birth’ and trying to obtain a police certificate without ever being a resident or a citizen of the said country and not speaking the language.

[thedeep8 (JM)]

Hi @tommigun, on the assumption that you already have pre-approval (I think I read that on another thread), do you mind letting me know which location you had your Biometric appointment?