I am getting ready to submit my PT GV application, and just wanted to double-check my understanding of a few practical details related to the submission:
I understand that the investor must first submit their documents and pay the fee before eligible family members can do so. Is this correct?
For fee payment, the ARI website refers to a âSingle Collecting Document (DUC)â. Is this like an invoice or a receipt?
Can fee payment be done by credit card, or is it a multibanco thing? If the latter, I assume one simply issues a payment instruction to oneâs bank?
Is there a timeline for acceptance / acknowledgement of the investorâs fee payment (before the family members can proceed with their applications)?
Do the family members need to each create an account and submit their applications individually, or is it collated somehow? How are the various applications linked back to the investor?
DUC is an invoice that you will get as a PDF upon submission. Please note youâll need to wait 48 hours before attempting to pay it, there is a small print in DUC explaining that.
Online banking â select âPayments to the Stateâ â enter the reference # from your DUC
You should expect your application status to change to âUnder analysisâ within 1 business day after payment. Then you can add your family applications.
You create your family applications in the same portal under your main applicant login. There is a section to add them after you have paid your own DUC.
By the way, most of this is described in the official step-by-step instructions from SEF at the bottom of this page here: https://ari.sef.pt/account/default.aspx
Thanks so much for this enormously helpful reply. It mostly confirms what I had inferred from the ARI site and other resources, but sometimes the phrasing there can be a little ambiguous, whereas your answer nails it. Thanks a lot!
A follow-up to question 5, if I may: does each family member get their own individual DUC invoice, or are they grouped on a single invoice?
(Small background for this question: I have a situation where one family member has all documents ready but with one document expiring soon, whereas another family member wonât have documents ready for another few weeks. Ideally, I would hope to submit the first member in the next few days, and the second member in a few weeks. From the ARI site I wasnât sure whether this is possible as I am still on the investor-only screen.)
Each person will need to pay their own DUC, so you can go ahead and submit only one family member first, and then submit the other separately when you are ready.
Please note the portal gives you a choice of the payer, ie you will need to select as to who will pay the DUC - main applicant, family member, or your legal rep (if you have one). This choice is made by selecting appropriate NIF from the drop down menu before each DUC is generated.
Please also note that not all required documents from the official SEF guidance are mandatory for the initial online submission.
The mandatory ones are marked with asterisk on the portal.
So if some of the non-mandatory ones are missing, you can still submit and then present the missing documents at a later stage.
For example, I had one document missing for a family member (social security declaration), but it was not marked âmandatoryâ so I went ahead and submitted.
I plan to obtain it later and either re-submit to SEF online or in-person at the biometrics appt., depending on what SEF will ask me to do.
Well, I cannot guarantee on behalf of SEF that it will be in the end âmandatoryâ but you will find that there are a few discrepancies between the official PDF guidance from SEF on their public website vs. the list of documents in the drop-down menu on the SEF portal.
Notable differences:
SEF portal marks some documents as âmandatoryâ and some not, while the PDF does not do that
SEF portal lists a few additional documents that are not mentioned in the PDF, namely:
tax and social security declarations required for an adult family member, i.e. same requirement as for the main applicant;
âTerms of responsibilityâ document required for each family member (signed by the main applicant). The template is found on the SEFâs website, you can simply google âTermo de responsibilidade SEFâ.
Thatâs super interesting - thanks. I had previously taken the PDF at face value. The ToR seems straightforward to add, although I guess it will need to be PT-notarized. The tax and SS for family members are more cumbersome - the first requires a NIF and the second a trip to a regional SS office. I think I may take a gamble that the PDF is correct and these two things are not in fact required for family membersâŠ
I recommend obtaining the NIFs for everyone in the family, as it will be required in all sorts of situations not even related to GV, e.g. booking a medical appointment etc.
The âno debtâ tax declaration as you probably know is obtained in a few clicks online.
The social security declaration - yes, a trip to the local SS office, but you may also want to check the PT consulate in your country if they can provide this for you.
And the ToR - yes, I had my signature ârecognizedâ by my lawyer before submitting to SEF.
Thanks for these very helpful inputs! I should be submitting my investor application next week so will have access to the family member page and will report back on whether NIF appears necessary for them.
We did apply for the whole family but it was just me who had the NIF. If it saves time donât go through the hassle of getting one for all the family members particularly if you are looking to submit soon.
Now that I have access to the ARI portal for family members, I can see that the NIF is not mandatory for them. However, one document thatâs apparently mandatory for the spouse is âsupporting documents of cohabitationâ. I hadnât seen this in the original list. I wonder what type of documents people submitted here?
Hi Philipg
Iâve been reading the previous messages and it seems to me that you should contact a Portuguese lawyer to advise you and accompany you in this process. There are several lawyersâ offices offering this service with different service prices.
The process, despite appearing simple, effectively has several small details and deadlines to be met. To be able to join the golden visa, you have to make substantial investments and lawyersâ prices will be a reduced comparative effort.
Cohabitation evidence is marked mandatory because SEF donât know what kind of spouse you have got
For a legally married couple, you only need to supply your marriage cert, issued (or re-issued) in the last 6 months.
For a non-married couple, you would need to provide evidence of cohabitation with your partner.
There is no place for âifs and butsâ on the drop-down menu so SEF just marked both documents as mandatory.
Ah, got it! That is very logical. Thank you for this insight. So I guess a married couple can just leave the cohabitation documentation blank, then - even though it is marked with an asterisk as mandatory.
You donât even need to attach a blank document, the asterisk âmandatoryâ flag is not technically checked/enforced by the SEF Portal when you click Submit.
but you will find that there are a few discrepancies between the official PDF guidance from SEF on their public website vs. the list of documents in the drop-down menu on the SEF portal.