Hi Adrienne,
SEF is very slow. It’s now been 1 full year we submitted all online documents. 3 months later, (by law) I was pre-approved and had an appointment at the SEF for them to take my picture and finger prints. We also had to submit the original document. That was in early December, 2018.
So as you can see, it makes things complicated when you are on a 3 month tourist visa (I’m not from the EU zone like you) during all the year. I had to travel and jump from one country to another… thanks I work online!
That said, I asked my lawyer if there was a way around it… because it’s quite ridiculous to wait so long after the pre-approval and payment of the fee.
3 months ago, my lawyer suggested to obtain a “Declaration” from the SEF that should let me stay in PT as long as I want, until they finally release the residence permit. I don’t have more details so I will update on this. They actually just received it today.
(It is quite disturbing it takes the SEF more than 2 months to deliver a document until they deliver the resident card… why wouldn’t they just take 1 extra hour / day to complete the application instead?)
Regarding the shipment of furniture, I’m not really aware of this. You are probably correct that they might ask you to pay duty & taxes if you don’t have your residency… but I would ask a Lawyer on this particular question.
I know for sure that they tax everything in Portugal. Ordering stuff from Amazon.com (instead of .es / .uk, etc.) you end up paying 20-30% more.