Is this the final regulated law? Or are do we need to wait for any more “final” publication that some people in this forum were talking about? Like waiting for the exact specific terms and fine points about this law.
Sometimes in Portuguese legislation you get the Law, which covers the generalities, and Regulations, which cover the detailed implementation. The Diario link posted a couple of days ago is the final version of the (amendments to the) Law; that won’t change, and the amended Law will take legal effect on 1st April. But we await amendments to the Regulations, which have not yet been published.
So we will have an interim period, where the law requires certain things to be done, but there is no legal provision yet for the detailed implementation.
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I’m waiting on the regs to see two big things:
- In counting five years of legal residency, is the change affecting the “legal” or the “residency”: is it (1) five years from the earlier of submission or being in country 7/14, or (2) five years from the later of submission or being in country 7/14, or (3) just five years from submission.
- What and when will AIMA certify to IRN, and what IRN will require.
Thank you Chris! Well explained, better than my lawyer 
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time elapsed since the submission of the temporary residence permit application
This is still confusing to me. If you applied for D7 or D8, is this from
a) when you applied to the consulate?
OR
b) when you physically applied at the AIMA office after receiving your visa in your passport?
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The law is not yet clear. But probably when you apply for your residence permit at AIMA when you are already in Portugal.
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Right! There are many unknowns re whether we (who are still waiting for our 2022 application to be accepted) should be spending a week in PT every year now. Might not be helpful to start making those trips, until more clarity on this issue is gotten.
It has been extensively discussed that the residency stays are to fulfill the requirements for renewals. This means that until one has their first residency card in hand, there is no requirement to stay in Portugal from a GV perspective.
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The person/lawyer/agent on this new video posted today which advertises for GV, claims that the time starts with the initial application in regard to GV. Any thoughts?
Well he would, wouldn’t he ?
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Quote: “We have been consulting our legal partners, and they are all in agreement that this 5 year citizenship timeline will now begin from the application date”
To me, it sounds like an opinion, nothing more at this point, as everyone is looking at the same law. My lawyer believes the same, though he says he understands why some lawyers believe it can be from biometrics (upon biometrics you file a form to request a residentship permit – that’s why).
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Good explanation. Regulations are meant to provide practical guidance for application of laws. Although in practice regulations are often just as open to interpretation and subject to legal challenge, especially if they are seen as inconsistent with other laws or exceeding the authority given to the bureaucracy.
Truth is we may not have clarity until some brave GV applicants apply to gain citizenship 5 years from application date and are either accepted or rejected.
Even then the decision could be subject to a lengthy appeals process. And given citizenship applications are currently taking two years to process, we are still a long way from that point.
Conservative interpretation would be that GV applicants will have citizenship approved around 7 years after biometrics appointment. Anything short of that will be a nice surprise.
The 7/14 day rule should also be open to challenge too. It seems unfair to be excluded for citizenship on that basis since there was no reason to fulfill that requirement when you thought the clock hadn’t started for residency. Likewise, if you were from a country that required a visa to enter it seems doubly unfair to count that against them. There’s so much more to play out here it seems premature to come to any conclusions or opinions yet.
Is there any reason to believe a citizenship application would require the 7/14 days? As discussed endlessly here, that seems to be a rule for renewing the visa, not a requirement of a citizenship application.
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I think it’s a sort of implicit requirement, in that you have to hold a valid visa until you get the citizenship, which means continuing to abide by the term of the GV while your application is pending.
Regardless of what this forum says, every lawyer is going to tell you that you should meet these stay requirements.
Just like it’s prudent to not assume residency starts from the initial application, one should not quickly dismiss the stay requirements.
I agree the practical advice here, for many reasons (including that it’s a nice place to be!) Is to visit Portugal for a few weeks a year
But that is not the same as agreeing or really even worrying that you need to hit the stay requirements for a citizenship application
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Still seems like two different things.
My thinking:
If your visa is not active, no stay requirement yet exists. Your visa is not active until final approval. Therefore, no stay requirement exists until final approval.
The government giving you credit for time served, after you receive final approval, doesn’t mean a pre-final approval application is suddenly active.
Just my thoughts, I am obviously not an expert, and it will depend on however PT feels like implementing it.
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Actually my lawyer told me that there are no stay requirements till you hold a valid residence card (he sent quite a lengthy explanation, which has been repeated here on this thread several times).
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I think there is also an implicit landing requirement. This is the first moment AIMA will be able to certify that you have been in Portugal. Reading “five years of legal residence” literally, not “five years from the start of being able to be in residence legally”. I’m interest in what the regs say about the certification. But we just have to wait and see.
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