I have some very anecdotal but positive news I’ll share because hey it’s something!
I met with a lawyer who has been doing this for a long time. They were extremely convinced that the date is the day of submission of the initial application / payment of fees (the ideal outcome).
I pressed hard which data they had to support this considering the regulations have not been published and the context of the law was not ARIs.
They said they have recently submitted citizenship applications for people based on this date, who have not had their cards for five years. We of course won’t know for certain until they’re approved which will take years, but when I pressed further, they said they have an email from someone in the immigration office clarifying that they are counting the date for this specific residency type as the date of initial submission.
So, we have supposed confirmation that at least one individual in the immigration office has chosen this date as the date! Let’s all hope we get them when we apply.
I probably should have asked for a screenshot of the email…
Does it mean that when the citizenship application was submitted, no resident card whatsoever was presented ?! For me, the most interesting part is that the application was successfully made in the absence of a valid resident card. I think it’s likely because it was submitted online, not over the counter. At sage 3, IRN would verify if the applicant is in possession of a valid resident card, even if 5-year is fulfilled. If at stage 3, the applicant has already received the card, then the application could go on smoothly, I think.
The person they submitted for citizenship had a residency card; it’s that they hadn’t had it for 5+ years. I didn’t ask how long but I assume it’s >1 and <5. Everyone has to have at least one residency card because the law states you have to be fully approved. I submitted my initial application in 2021 like many of us and the lawyer explicitly told me I should plan on submitting my citizenship app in 2026 (and I have to imagine I’ll have at least one residency card by then… right AIMA?)
Cherry on top, we’ll all save a few €k in renewal fees.
Ah okay.
Yes, at least one resident card. More practically speaking, I think one initial card + one renewal is sufficient for the entire citizenship process to complete under the new law， considering citizenship is taking 2+ years and ideally residency must remain valid at all times of the application.
So once you apply for citizenship, do you need to then continue your investment which qualified for the GV in the first place? Anyone know the answer to this? Or put another way, when can you safely exit that investment? If the citizenship process takes say 2 years, will you indeed need to renew your GV a 2nd time and this still need to maintain your investment at least thru that possible renewal? All very unclear to me.
If someone really has to liquidify the fund because he seriously need money, i would suggest him to file a lawsuit for getting PR appointment. Go to the appointment and get the 5 years PR in hand. Then divest the fund. It will probably cost 5k/lawsuit + 8k for PR cards. But with 5 years in hand, it will be much safer. Of course, anything can happen. But I am just saying about a way to reduce risk.
Article 65-B of the Foreigner’s law sets the required investment period. Article 65-B (Minimum time requirement for investment activity)
The minimum time requirement of five years for maintaining the investment activity is counted from the date of granting the residence permit.
However, it is a minimum period. I would argue that this means that the investment is no longer required after the 5 years and you can renew without problem. Otherwise, the language of Article 65-B is merely superfluous. If you need to maintain it continually to renew, then why even set a minimum period? The law in that case would just say that you have to maintain the investment as long as you want to renew the residence permit.
The renewal law does state that you must prove that you have the investment in order to renew, and I don’t recall seeing any exceptions to this so it’s simply unclear or not precisely defined.
One of our funds will stay open until 2027 so this may just barely work for us to get to a passport - 5 years from 2020 + 2 years passport. Under the old method of counting residency, we’d be screwed as we’d need probably 9 year total to get to an actual passport.
I think once you get the Portuguese birth certificate that means you are already a citizen. But I believe getting the citizen card and passport is very quick after the birth certificate anyway.
Hmmm, I wonder what that means for d7/d8… does that mean from the moment we applied for a schengen visa at the consulate/embassy and paid the visa fee, or does it mean when we had our initial AIMA appointment and paid the residence card fee?
