Thanks - Iâm non-US 
For the US, I believe youâre referring to this? As in âI already paid the US taxes on my capital gains, so donât have to pay them againâ?
Not exactly. Reports are that US citizens with NHR had a straight forward experience filing for 2023 on the basis that non PT capital gains were exempt.
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We hired a firm to process our tax residencies and NHR applications based on our Dec. 2022 ARI applications that are, of course, still not pre-approved. The firm was very confident it could change our tax residencies based on our ARI applications.
No decision for me (main applicant) yet, but my husband and mom had their tax residency denied:
Per the attorney:
â Husband
-
Does [husband] already have an appointment in AIMA? The Portuguese Tax Authority is saying that they cannot change the tax address to Portugal based on a Golden visa request that is under review.
-
Are you in Portugal right now? The Portuguese Tax Authority did not accept as [husbandâs] proof of address the deed of the house because you are married in the separation regime and, therefore, he is not the owner of the house. If you are in Portugal, you can go to the parish of [municipality] and ask for a residence certificate.
[Mother]
- Does your mother already have an appointment in AIMA? The Portuguese Tax Authority is saying that they cannot change the tax address to Portugal based on a Golden visa request that is under review.â
Moral of the story - If you havenât been pre-approved and want the 2023 NHR, SUE NOW! It may already be too late.
You do not say if you are all living in your property in Portugal or not. If you are not then this is your first problem and issuing a summons (not âsuingâ) to AIMA to progress your application wonât help your husband.
Before you can apply for NHR on the basis that your residency application was initiated before the end of 2023 you must first become legally tax resident. As the sole named property owner, you can use this address however your husband would need either a property deed or lease in his name or - if you are actually living in Portugal - a residency certificate as you have been advised. Too late now but this is one reason why our property deed is in both our names despite (in Portuguese terms) being married under the separation of assets regime. The other reason of course is that weâre married and want to own our property together.
If you are not living in Portugal, the easiest way to get around this in the remaining 2.5 months of the year is to get a lease on a ghost or actual property in your husbandâs name. I say easiest⊠itâs not actually easy because you will have to navigate some additional sharks to get the ghost lease if you go down this route but you will end up with a legal property lease in your husbandâs name that can be used to change your tax residency to Portugal and then subsequently apply for NHR on the Financas portal. Focus on the legal address proof (deed, lease, certificate if in country) first as you wonât get anywhere without it.
My understanding is that (in addition to meeting the grandfathering criteria for NHR) we need two things for tax residency:
- A legal right to be residents, and
- A residence.
Putting aside the residence question (and the absurdity of refusing residence for a spouse regardless of the regimeâwe are married we obviously live together), the ATâs position seems to be that an âunder analysisâ (i.e., not pre-approved) ARI application is not sufficient for the first requirement of having a legal right to be residents.
Thatâs an interesting Catch-22 then. Your application date for the GV is enough to qualify for NHR under the transitional regime in 2024 however to apply for NHR you must be tax resident and theyâre saying your application date alone isnât enough to become tax resident.
This may be the case but I would get at least a second opinion. If we rewind to around October/November 2023 when the abolition of NHR was announced we were not living in Portugal, did not own property, and were awaiting final approval (so, yes, we were ahead of you). We spoke to a number of intermediaries in Portugal about registering for NHR before its abolition at the end of 2023 (this was before the 2024 transitional regime was announced) and we were going to go down the ghost lease route to give us a legal address in Portugal. Nothing was mentioned about our GV application status at all with any of the intermediaries.
You are right that it appears absurd that your husband isnât allowed to claim he lives at his wifeâs address. But this type of bureaucratic nonsense is endemic here so Iâd get used to it and just do what you have to do to get what you want rather than getting upset with their nonsense. You have more similar hills to climb as you move here.
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Catch-22, exactly.
I think we can overcome the residence part but probably not the legal right to reside part. Likely too late for a lawsuit to move us up to pre-approval this year.
The unmitigated disaster continuesâŠ.
If one spouse already owns a property, seems it would be simplest to write a âleaseâ granting the other spouse rights to live in the same property. @ThroughtheMill did your lawyers suggest anything?
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Iâm waiting to hear more, but Iâm not too worried about the lease/deed part. Itâs the lack of pre-approval that is the intractable obstacle. Her suggestion was to get an AIMA appointmentâlol.
Three things I recommend:
- Get your residence papers arranged for all family (i.e. deed for you that you already have, lease agreement on your own house to your husband and mother - better 2 separate lease agreements to be safe)
- Get Attestado de Residencia at your local Junta de Freguesia for everyone
- With all the above plus your existing GV docs, engage a âwell-connectedâ lawyer so they arrange your change of address with AT (donât go to AT by yourself for this).
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Donât think Iâve seen these âStricter Residency Requirementsâ mentioned about NHR 2.0 before⊠anybody found confirmation that this is true?
- Stricter Residency Requirements â Under NHR 2.0, the Portuguese Government is applying stricter rules to verify genuine residency in the country. Individuals must prove that they spend a significant amount of time in Portugal, usually defined as 183 days per year, or demonstrate that Portugal is their primary place of residence (owning property, having family ties, etc.). This is meant to prevent people from using the program as a tax loophole without genuinely living in Portugal.
âŠand of course the decreeâs not published yet:
October 22, 2024
Please, note that the Portuguese Government has not yet published the decree that will enable the above measures to be implemented
Well, this squares with the explanation our attorney gave us for why they were unable to change our tax residency based on an under-analysis (not yet pre-approved) ARI:
â Indeed, I have been able to change the tax residency for pending visa applications. However, the internal Portuguese Tax Authority rules seem to have change without any prior notice, making it harder to change the tax residency to Portugal. Please, note that I mention âseemâ because they have not publish the ânewâ criteria anywhere.â
We moved to Porto in October this year even without GVâs pre-approval. We rent an apartment through Idealist and signed the rental contract with the term of three years. Then we obtained a residence certificate from the parish based on the rental contract.
But when we took the residence certificate and asked the AT officer to change our tax address to our apartment, the officer told us that they could not change it temporarily because we did not have a residence card.
Fortunately, we had a tax representative. After we gave the rental contract and proof of residence to our tax representative, they immediately summited the application in the AT system. After waiting for about a month, the address change was successfully completed.
After the address was changed to Portugal, the tax representative was cancelled by default. I applied for NHR on the AT portal by myself according to the information on the Internet, and it was approved after waiting for one day. The whole process did not cost any fees except for a few euros paid to the parish to apply for a residence certificate.
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Where are you in the GV process? Iâve been told by an attorney that I cannot longer apply for NHR status. I submitted an application in spring 2023. Of course, itâs still under analysis, but I think thatâs enough, along with a lease to qualify before the end of the year.
You should be able to apply for the old NHR, just hurry as the country will go on Christmas vacations soon.
I think weâre almost the same time, March 2023. Yeah thatâs enough. The only issue bothering us was that we had waited for one month to change our tax address to Portugal.
If you are already in Portugal, you could shorten it to as little as one week.
The grandfathering of âold NHR 1.1â announced November 2023 is still in effect, but not for much longer⊠and as @PCERoman notes Christmas holidays are near!
âŠpeople who become tax residents by December 31, 2024 and who have a promise or employment contract, promise or secondment agreement signed by December 31, 2023, with the exercise of functions taking place in national territory, or who have a rental or home purchase contract signed by October 10, 2023, may also register for the scheme.
The scheme is also accessible to families with children enrolled or registered in an educational establishment domiciled in Portuguese territory, until October 10, 2023, as well as to those who have a residence visa or residence permit valid until December 31, 2023 or a procedure, initiated until December 31, 2023, for granting a residence visa or residence permit, with the competent entities.
As a real-life example, my spouse and I donât live in PT yet (despite buying a house Jan. '23), are still âunder analysisâ for GV (applied Feb. '23) but have a Dec. '24 biometrics appointment (yes, lawsuit + appeal).
Our GV advisor and I visited our local Finanças office in Funchal this week. After an hour of ânĂŁoâ and âpor queâ progressing from the front-line, to their supervisor, to their supervisor, they finally agreed to change our fiscal address to Portugal (i.e. âbecome tax residentâ). With Portugalâs national budget finally being agreed Nov. 29th, we now need to decide which NHR to apply for - old 1.1 or the new IFICI.
These things seemed key in winning AT over, despite us not having actual PT residence (yet):
- AIMA Biometric appointment letter
- PT house deed (Jan. '23)
- PT house utility bills (obviously with a PT address), some in my name, others in my spouseâs name
- âŠnot taking ânĂŁoâ for an answer, and a lot of persistence!
Perhaps this document can help someone out when trying to change their address to Portugal with Finanças:
InstruçÔes de Serviço. Alteração de residĂȘncia fiscal para PT. Requisitos.pdf (2.6 MB)
Note that itâs actually two documents, one from March and one from May 2022. They are both instructions sent to the heads of Finanças offices and Lojas do CidadĂŁo.
Section 3.1 of the former states that for a foreigner (non-EU/EEA national) to change their fiscal address to Portugal, they need to show a residence document issued by SEF (now AIMA).
Translation of the relevant section (3.1) of the first document
3 - Residence Authorization Titles or equivalent document.
3.1 Change to Resident - Foreign Citizen
Under the terms of paragraph 4 of article 24 of Decree-Law No. 14/2013, of January 28, changes to the registry follow, with the necessary adaptations, the procedures and formalities provided for initial registration.
Thus, at the level of supporting documentation for the change of address of the foreigner to Portuguese territory, there is no difference regarding the documents required for registration. Therefore, the request for a change of address from non-resident to resident must always be accompanied by a document proving residence in Portuguese territory, namely, public deed of acquisition of property for housing, rental contract of property for housing, or work contract.
In the case of a third-country national, holder of a Tax Identification Number (NIF) assigned as a non-resident, even if another document proving residence in Portuguese territory is presented, the interested party must present a residence authorization title (valid at the date of the request), issued by the Immigration and Borders Service (SEF).
The address to be registered must be the same as that on the residence authorization title. If the citizen indicates a different address, they must prove that they have requested the competent entity (SEF) to change their address (the document to be shown must contain the address they intend to update with the Tax Authority). This procedure must also be adopted in situations where the foreign citizen (nationality of a third country) is already registered in the System of Management and Registration of Taxpayers (SGRC), as a resident, and wishes to change the address in Portuguese territory.
The second document was issued shortly thereafter since they realized that it was unreasonable to demand a residency document given the processing delays.
Translation of the second document
Various situations have come to the attention of this Directorate of Services involving delays in processing residence authorization requests by the Immigration and Borders Service (SEF), which have caused constraints due to the fact that the interested parties have been residing in Portuguese territory for some time but still do not have the said authorization title, and thus their fiscal address is not changed (continuing as non-residents until obtaining the document from the competent entity).
Therefore, it is necessary to amend the procedure stated in point 3.1 of Service Instruction No. 90052/2022, Series I (Registration and Change of Individual Taxpayer).
Accordingly, the following information is provided:
Change to Resident - Foreign Citizen
1 - According to the provisions of paragraph 4 of article 24 of Decree-Law No. 14/2013, dated January 28, changes to the registry follow, with the necessary adaptations, the procedures and formalities provided for initial registration.
2 - Thus, at the level of supporting documentation for the change of address of the foreigner to Portuguese territory, there is no difference regarding the documents required for registration.
3 - Therefore, the request for a change of address from non-resident to resident must always be accompanied by a document proving residence in Portuguese territory, namely, public deed of acquisition of property for housing, rental contract of property for housing, work contract, or document issued by any public entity.
4 - In the case of a third-country national, holder of a Tax Identification Number (NIF) assigned as a non-resident, any of the following documents must be presented where the address to be indicated as fiscal domicile is expressly stated:
a) Residence authorization title (valid at the date of the request), issued by SEF;
b) Document of expression of interest or request issued by the registration platforms used by SEF, in cases of requests made under articles 88, 89, and 90-A of Law No. 23/2007, of July 4, in its current wording (Order No. 12870-C/2021, of December 31, from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers);
c) Document proving the scheduling at SEF or receipt proving a request made in all other situations of pending processes at SEF, namely grants or renewals of residence authorization, based on the general regime or exceptional regimes (Order No. 12870-C/2021, of December 31, from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers);
Note: Whenever the documents referred to in items a), b), and c) do not include the address, it may be changed provided that any of the documentary proofs referred to in point 3 is also presented:
4.1 - If the citizen indicates an address different from the one in the documents issued by SEF, they must prove that they have requested this entity to change their address (the document to be displayed must contain the address they intend to update with AT). This procedure must also be adopted in situations where the foreign citizen is already registered in the Taxpayer Management and Registration System (SGRC), as a resident, and wishes to change the address in Portuguese territory.
5 - Point 3.1 of Service Instruction No. 90052/2022 is hereby revoked.
In particular 4 c) of the latter instruction also accepts a âdocument proving the scheduling at SEF or receipt proving a request made in all other situations of pending processes at SEFâ which to me seems to apply to all GV applicants (whether they have pre-approval or not). Then again Iâm not a lawyer.
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Where is that quote you reference from?