I am not aware of such thing as âCertidĂŁo de ResidĂȘnciaâ.
There is a thing called âAttestado de ResidĂȘnciaâ which is obtained at the local Junta de Freguesia.
My story I already shared.
First attempt was in person at my local Financas office - they refused to change my address over to PT unless I showed them my residence card issued by SEF (which I did not have at that time).
Showing them the famous âDespachoâ did not help.
Second attempt (credit to @Starts for an excellent tip) was through my lawyers, and they were successful. I understand they applied under PoA in some Lisbon-based Financas office.
Once I got my address changed, getting the NHR registration was extremely easy - simple form on the Portal das Financas and a couple of days wait.
Thanks Tommy. Same thing from the local Freguesia.
But you had a residence card, others may have proof of something else (house/Cardeneta Predial) etc. Many thanks!
The point being I did NOT have my residence card when applying to change my NIF address. Nevertheless, it was successful from the 2nd attempt (via lawyers).
In terms of the documents submitted to Financas, I had the following:
escritura
Attestado de Residencia
receipt from my SEF biometric appt.
I am not exactly aware which of the above docs my lawyers actually submitted to Financas.
Neither did I (and still donât) have my residency card. Finanças in Lisbon (Finanças 10 on Fontes Pereira do Melo) accepted the Atestado de ResidĂȘncia from our Junta da Frequesia (Santo Antonio), and promptly changed the address from U.S. to Portugal after simply checking the passport photo and signature. No need to present SEF papers or anything else.
Junta da Frequesia wanted to see the passport and Escritura Publica de Compra e Venda for our apartment (no SEF papers, no Dispatcho, not even signatures of two neighbours). For my wife, however, they did want to look at our marriage certificate (not translated or apostilled, just regular CA certificate). For a nominal fee of 7.25⏠per person, both my wife and I received the Atestado de ResidĂȘncia within four business days.
Once the address was changed, NHR was obtained on-line via Portal das Finanças, through one simple form. It was granted the very next day.
Three days later, we repeated the same process for my wife, except that we did it at Finanças 7 on Rua Alfredo Soares 2A (much better service, donât use Finanças 10).
My tax preparer is of the opinion that because the property we have in Portugal is in my name only (which my lawyer said was necessary to comply with the GV rules), we canât use it for my husbandâs and motherâs residenceâthey need a lease or their own properties. That seems bizarre to me because weâre a family and will be living together in that property once we get to Portugal.
Has anyone used their individually owned property to get the NHR for their reunification applicants?
And, for those of you that have been successful, did you have to be in Portugal to do it?
Firstly, your lawyer may have been incorrect in requiring you to âhideâ your married status on the escritura. I had a similar advise from one of the lawyers I spoke with, and I understand why they do it but itâs still wrong.
They just donât want to go into the complications of understanding the nature of your marriage type (of which there could be 3 main types) so theyâd rather cut corners and declare you âsingleâ.
But itâs perfectly fine to acquire your GV property in joint names with your spouse for 2 out of 3 marriage types.
Now, when it comes to Tax Residency, there are two scenarios:
You apply after you get your GV card, in that case your family will have the same address printed on the GV card, so no problem at all. Can be done easily via e-balcĂŁo.
You apply before, so youâd need some other evidence - see examples from the post from @PCERoman above. Still no âfakeâ lease agreement between relatives would be required.
Sometimes it may be worth obtaining NHR for all the family members as different types of income can benefit from it.
In case of retired parents for example, they may want their pension to be taxed at 10% under NHR instead of whatever may be the higher bracket in their âprior homeâ country.
I am the primary GV applicant, and my wife is secondary. And yes, the title to the apartment is in my name. That is why when my wife was changing her address, she presented her passport, our marriage certificate, and the title to the property. That was enough to receive an Atestado de ResidĂȘncia, and in turn to submit it to Finanças for the change of address. She did have to appear in-person to both Junta de Freguesia and Finanças (since we live in Portugal, it was not an issue).
Once her address was changed, she was granted NHR the subsequent day.
Any chance you could post a link to the Youtube video that can be clicked on please or maybe send it to me by private message. I cannot click on the graphic in your post and Iâve tried searching YouTube for this video but all I get is out-of-date NHR videos from history.
Curious if having applied for a GV would put us in category C (Initiated the process for a residency visa or residency permit with the competent authority)? I just finished my bio-metrics recently and my GV application is by investing in funds, so I donât own property.
@Gundu Yes. That is exactly the relevant GV scenario the woman outlines in this video.
Her first caveat is that the budget will be voted on by parliament on 29 November so nothing is 100% certain before this date. Her 2nd caveat is that Category C appears to discriminate against EU residents who intend to move to Portugal in 2024 because they do not need a visa to do so and hence there is no provable process to initiate before the end of 2023 so the President may ask for Category C to be loosened further to all EU residents (or something like that - they do not suggest Category C would be tightened so any modification to Cat C would not affect GV applicants who are all non-EU residents).
So, nothing is yet 100% for GV applicants to apply for NHR through 2024 but it is almost certain to take place. I am spending this week corroborating this interpretation of the proposed budget amendment. The issue is that almost all professional people we talk to about this (lawyers, tax accountants, relocation firms) desperately want to charge fees today to implement a workaround today and so I am finding it difficult to get a truly objective interpretation like the one in this video.
@richn4 - to you point on charging fees - I wrote to the two lawyers in the video interview about my situation asking if I would fall into the C bucket, and if I did if they would be willing to file for my NHR. The response was setup a paid consult and we can discuss, although I was very clear in my email on exactly where I was and what help I would need. A formal proposal from them rather than pay them to repeat myself would have been more professional in my opinion.
Thank you all for your contributions to this discussion. Our situation is that we have done our biometrics for a Golden visa (by buying an apartment) and are waiting for the final approval. We hope to move to Portugal sometime in the future but it is very uncertain when that would be possible (we live and work in the US). The apartment is finally being finished and we will hopefully be able to rent it out soon. I have several questions:
1)If I get NHR will the tax on my rental be cut into half?
2)What are the steps to go through if I want to apply for NHR on my own while living in the USA? Is 1600 Euros a reasonable fee to pay my lawyer for this?
3) Besides pensions and capital gains, what are some other stuff I would be exposing myself too if I become a Portugal tax resident?
Thank you very much for the input.
@Gundu Yes. This is my experience too. These people tend to want money today when what we want should come under the title of âbusiness developmentâ where they tell us what we can do, how they can help us, and what they will charge.
Neither entity that I have contacted has mentioned the amendment to the budget that gives us until the end of 2024. They just urge me to spend money today with them to lock in tax residency today and thereâs a lot of downside to this. Iâm even having trouble with my existing suppliers getting a definitive statement on what I will be liable for under NHR given my income streams. NHR is definitely the correct route for me once Iâm in Lisbon next summer but I do not want the liability prematurely if it will result in a pension and capital gains tax bill from today.
Anyway, Iâm setting up some more calls this week and will continue to try to get some answers. For the record, my tax accountant in Portugal charges âŹ100 to register me for tax residency when I have one of the appropriate documents. Just so you know how much others are ripping you off.
