I assume I would need it to apply 5 years after application date, instead of 5 years after first card date?
And I assume itās better to apply sooner than later, since applications are probably processed roughly in order, even if I have to file a lawsuit to get a renewal / PR to unstick my application one year after applying.
Unfortunately, currently we could assume nothing about the date. First card date definitely goes well. Application date ā¦ well, we have not seen so far any contagem de tempo for a GV holder that have application date in it.
While you do not need contagem de tempo in your application file by law, you could attach it, and most believe that it is better to do it. So in case we continue to be in a gray zone, I suggest that the best is to receive that contagem de tempo before applying. In that document you will see what date AIMA uses in your case. If you are wrong with your date and applied earlier than that, the application will be rejected and you will lose approximately 2 years of time. IRN will accept your application, they do not check at this stage if you comply with all conditions or not, it is all done at almost last stage. They will check if all documents in place, than send all requests to authorities, wait for replies, and only much later start checking the conditions.
You could apply again if something goes wrong, but you will lose lot of time.
But of course, you could apply even if your card is valid so 1 month, and deal with renewal later.
I think the suggestion to get the contagem is to see if AIMA will report the earlier date. If they do, you could go ahead and file; if they donāt, you need to wait until you are sure of the five years.
We thought about it, but by the time we would have gotten it, we would have passed the date our original cards were issued.
Does anybody know how to get the Contagem de Tempo?
Would someone share it if you have already got it? with important information hidden of course.
Thank you.
By appointment only, is my understanding when I explored that route.
Must the applicant be present, or a lawyer can do it by themselves?
The inquiry was by our lawyer, and the response was ambiguous:
Please be informed that the certificate request must be made in person , so you must present yourself at the
On the date indicated above, you must bring the application form for the certificate, available at https://aima.gov.pt/pt/ impressos-e-minutas (model 7), duly completed, signed and indicating the reason for which you require the certificate, as well as all the documents necessary for this purpose (e.g.: copy of the Residence Permit, birth certificate of minors, birth declaration, proof of school, social security, among others).
The value of the certificate(s) issued is 22.00 Euros, and payment must be made via ATM , as cash payments are not accepted.
Please note that the certificate will be sent via CTT to the address indicated in the application and that any matter related to this appointment should be sent to geral@aima.gov.pt
Best regards,
Did you lawyer tell you how he/she got the appointment with Aima for this certificate?
No. I think it was in response to an email inquiry but there might have been calls before hand.
Great, so it requires another AIMA appointment. That you have to request through their great black hole of email/phone.
There didnāt seem to be an issue getting an appointment for thisāalthough it was five weeks outāperhaps because it is a different and perhaps simpler request.
5 weeks is too good to be true. Iāve been bombarding emails to Aima for 2 weeks. Nothing so far. Letās bombard for 6 months at least and see what is going to happenā¦
I am in exactly the same situation as you Sean.
Contagem de tempo is requested via personal visit. You need to write email to AIMA and they send you a date and time. Your lawyer for sure can do it. Mine did it at the end of 23. Then the document is sent via usual mail. It took to my lawyer about month to get the date, which is also was a month ahead, and sending this document by AIMA took also 2 months (despite AIMA said to my lawyer that it will take 2 weeks), however Iāve got X-mas inside that period. Overall 4 months.
For someone who is not desirous of moving to PT anytime soon, or needs the GV urgently, if the wait time now counts towards the 5 year period for residency / passport, the current delays in processing applications works somewhat in their favour. When the GV is (hopefully ) successfully issued, and the 5 years from application mature, they can file for residency / passport without having had to stay in PT for 7 days/yr or 14 days in 2 years in the intervening period.
Is this substantially correct, or am I missing something? Assumption - wait time counts from date of application (perhaps an optimistic assumption at presentā¦)
We already know it does not in the eyes of AIMA as they still issue contagem do tempo from the date of first GV card.
So either some regulations would be issued to clarify the situation one way or another, or we would have to go down the path of individual lawsuits.
But I was told by the lawyer submitting the GV application for me that the citizenship process is handled not by AIMA but by the Civil Registration Department. You can submit the application as long as itās been more than five years since the online submission
AIMA issues Contagem de Tempo which mostly starts from the first GV cardās first date.Then the way that the Civil Registration must verify that you fulfill the requirements of having been resident in Portugal is through that document,namely 7 days per year.
Unfortunately we still donāt have a successful case because of the backlog.
Yes - IRN deals with citizenship.
Yes - AIMA issues contagem do tempo (currently still from the first GV card)
But:
No - IRN does not verify your residence period separately from AIMA. They rely on AIMAās contagem do tempo.
No - IRN does not care about your 7 days per year at all.
Can you submit? - Yes, you can. 
But how can you confirm to IRN that you have been a legal resident for 5 years? - By supplying AIMAās contagem do tempo (or by having IRN to get it from AIMA themselves).
And what happens if your contagem do tempo does not show 5 years? - you get rejected by IRN and would have to file a lawsuit, I suppose.