Personally, I am three years, four months since submitting my GV application and investment. No residence card. No idea when it’s coming.
And from reading the stories of others and browsing the PGV / ARI timeline tracker on this website, I’m actually one of the lucky ones because my application has progressed through more stages than most others in my Dec 2021 cohort.
Before investing EUR 500,000, it’s worth at least reading about the experiences of the dissatisfied customers of the same program on this thread:
Personally, if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t invest in PGV, and if I could pull my money out now and receive my original investment back, I would. Instead, I would invest in programs that have a clearer path and higher probability to yield results, and avoid like the plague any program with excessively high visibility, popularity, or political exposure. This means avoiding not just PGV, but also Malta MEIN (which yesterday got shot down by ECJ), Greece GV, Malaysia MM2H, etc.
These less-visible programs may require slightly more initial effort from the applicant, but the reward is smoother processing and much lower risk of delays or program reversal. Just as in most European cities, the area immediately surrounding the main train station is one of the least pleasant parts of town, but if you make the effort to walk outside of that area, you’re immediately rewarded, so also with migration programs, if you make slightly more effort to avoid the “easy way” or the crowded gate, your life gets much better.
BTW, although this is anecdotal, a friend in the D7 program mentioned that its physical presence requirements are actually rather flexible if you can prove you have a business to run outside Portugal, so that may be worth checking.