Thanks for your questions. Yes, it is one of the requirements for applying citizenship. And it is a little vague as in a lot of government info/ services.
Your investment in Portugal is one tie to the Portugal, and then if you rent a place in Portugal for long/ short term stay, would be another tie. And your knowledge of the language is another tie. So the lawyer would need to get all these for you, and ask you to prepare materials/ documents for the application.
Of course, if you live in Portugal, that would be great. But If you are not living here, then you need to have other ties such as the ones I have mentioned above.
It is not as simple as the GV process, but once you are in the club (GV, other residence program), you could always find a way to establish those ties with a bit of an effort.
sorry I missed your message. The citizenship approval takes 1 - 2 years. Please note it is not as simple as getting your kids the citizenship after your naturalisation. It can’t be done like that. They won’t be able to get their citizenship just because you become a citizen. I can’t stress enough that getting citizenship is not as easy/ simple as some of you think. And it is not a automatic process that when the parents become a citizen, their kids under 18 can become a citizen without cause. The process is not that easy, especially if you/ your family are not living in Portugal.
I suggest all my clients to have their kids applying for the GV as well. And even with GV, it is not easy for kids to apply for citizenship if they don’t live in Portugal, but it will be easier, because they have at least 5 years of residency.
One more item. Does anyone know how an unmarried couple living together for more than 2 years can apply together (via a single 350k investment)? Is it part of the family renunciation piece? Also anyone know the Portuguese statute that addresses this? And on a practical matter does this delay processing?
Hi Susan,
Thanks so much for the detailed explanation for the various options after 5 years of GV. My wife and I are in process of filing our GV (via investment fund) application.
We have sons who are currently 30, 28 and 24 years old and independent. Unfortunately we are unable to afford GV applications for all, but were told there may be a way for them to obtain future Portuguese citizenship via family unification. Do you believe this is possible (assuming they establish ties to Portugal by living there, language proficiency etc) or would they have to establish 5 years of residency in order to qualify.
Hi, have to live together more than 3 years. You need to make a declaration that you have lived together for 3 years. under the family reunification.
The main investor can submit the application this year (if you want to catch the timeline), and the when you have the 3 years, then the other partner can apply as dependent.
To my understanding, they have to live here to get the 5 years of residency and then natualize themselves to get the Portuguese citizenship. It is not a automatic process for kids that they will get the citizenship, when their parents get the citizenship.
I’ve been researcing the Golden Visa for a very long time and honestly this is the best information about the process I’ve ever seen on the internet. Thank you so much.
I have 2 questions: Are you an immigration lawyer ? Does Portugal infrom the client’s native country after granting thier citizenship ? I’m wondering for the people who thier native country won’t allow dual citizenship.
Hi @susanayang . Thanks for all the valuable information so far.
I have a two month old. So best case we can apply for citizenship when he is 6-7 years old. Will he be required to pass the A2 test to be eligible or is there an exemption? Do you see any point of adding him in the GV application?
Considering it might be tough to travel with my baby at this point (and hence spouse), if I decide to apply alone, how long will it take my wife to get the citizenship after she gets her residency? Does residency allow her to work freely in EU or only Portugal?
We are an immigrating firms that specializes in golden Visa and offers a one-stop shop solution for it. Our strength is to analysis the investment options that is right for you. And centrally coordinately the whole property buying/ fund subscription process + documentation gathering and application submission process.
To your questions about whether or not they inform the client’s native country, unfortunately, I don’t have a definitely answer for this.
We recommend all our clients to apply the GV for their under 18 years old children. There is a adapted test for kids under 10 years old. And the test are made to be easily passed.
You can apply first, and then add your spouse and baby later. She would still need to count 5 years from the time she gets her resident card. The resident card only allows her to work / live in Portugal, not other EU countries.
What I gather from this is that GV is still a useful mechanism even if children are older, or if they fail to qualify after first biometrics.
Here are a few scenarios:
-Child is age 22 at time of biometrics, and after 4 years child is age 26 and not eligible for GV.
-Child is age 15 at time of biometrics, and after 3 years child gets jobs and married.
-Spouse is married at time of biometrics but after 4 years is divorced.
In all scenarios above, the dependents/spouse would have a few years of GV before they become disqualified. In this case since the children/spouse had GV for 4 years, they should be able to get a D7 (or some other visa) for 1 years, and combine these two and have 5 years total residency to qualify for citizenship.
So, if this is correct then the GV is useful even in the case where it is known in advance that the children cannot get all 5 years of GV eligibility.
Well, I would say that the utility of the GV - one way or the other - is that it allows you to run the clock. That’s all it really does anyway even for the primary applicant - runs the clock without being there. It’s not like there is some special carve-out in the nationality law saying there’s some preferential treatment for GV applicants, after all.
You’re right of course - life is unpredictable. I suspect that even for the cases you list, though, once the dependent has the GV permit, they can sometimes hang onto it. I don’t want to dig into every case but there are various carve-outs in the law - ex. article 107:
The first residence permit granted to a spouse under the legal framework of family reunification will be autonomous, provided that he/she has been married to the resident for more than five years.
It’s not worth going through every possible “might happen” scenario, but there’s a number for which the clock continues to run and/or can be kept running with some machinations, in addition to the clock having run for however long it may have run, which may make it worth doing depending on one’s situation.
Article 9 of the Nationality Act states:
1 - The following constitute grounds for opposition to the acquisition of Portuguese nationality as a result of the will: a) The inexistence of an effective connection to the national community;
And then:
2 - Opposition to the acquisition of nationality based on subparagraph a) of the previous number does not apply to situations of acquisition of nationality in the case of marriage or de facto union when there are common children of the couple with Portuguese nationality.
3 - The opposition to the acquisition of nationality based on subparagraph a) of paragraph 1 also does not apply to situations of acquisition of nationality when the marriage or de facto union has taken place for at least six years.
Acquire Portuguese nationality for spouse (if she did not live in Portugal) when you become Portuguese citizen is not a problem.
But for child who did not live in Portugal under 18 lack of connection to the national community can be a barrier for acquiring Portuguese nationality.
@susanayang Thank you so much for the elaborate explanation. I got two questions: (1) Must the applicants keep the Portuguese residency throughout the process of naturalization to Portugal until citizenship was acquired (may take up to 2 years)? (2) Do you have clients who don’t actually live in Portugal but successfully naturalized merely with holding the GV for 5 years? Thanks!