I assume itās because this legislation was driven by the concerns of hundreds of thousands of Comunidade dos PaĆses de LĆngua Portuguesa (CPLP) immigrants. We few thousand GVs, Dās, etc. donāt even register on the protest meter.
Fineā¦ but surely some bright government spark would have pointed out āHey, we have a bunch of other immigration routes here in Portugal. We should also address those before sending this bill to o Presidente.ā
Maybe half-baked legislation is just par for the course?
I think I have the answer to when the clock will start to be counted in terms of legal residency for citizenship - it looks almost certain to be pre-approval.
I have carefully re-read the court ruling requiring AIMA to issue residency permits to my wife and 12-year-old son (I mentioned it in another thread on lawsuits yesterday).
It specifically mentions that I submitted a manifestaĆ§Ć£o de interesse atinte a concessĆ£o de autorizaĆ§Ć£o de residĆŖncia in November 2021 - which was when I got pre-approval. I applied for the GV in March 2021.
So if you add that to the DiĆ”rio de NotĆcias article citing the office of the lawmaker who sponsored these legislative changes as saying the legal residency will be counted from the time of the manifestaĆ§Ć£o de interesse I think this is pretty convincing.
Is pre-approval in this context post-biometrics? I have done biometrics in Lisbon (fairly recently, so still early) but wasnāt sure if pre-approval was before or after biometrics. I skipped a step in between due to lawsuit so I went directly from my initial application to biometrics. thanks.
In my opinion, it most likely will not be pre-approval.
This pre-approval thing is apparently unique to GV, besides I (as an applicant) have literally no record or evidence of the pre-approval event/date/time.
So I would argue it is totally irrelevant to me as the applicant, whereas my initial application has a pretty solid evidence in the form of DUC payment and receipt from SEF, confirming my request for the āresidence titleā which is precisely the wording of the draft law.
Anyway weāll wait and see some time soon.
Pre-approval is before biometrics. In my case I applied in March 2021, was pre-approved in November of that year and had my biometrics in March 2022.
I donāt have any record of the date of pre-approval apart from an email from my lawyers but somehow it must be officially registered because the court ruling for my wife and son referred to a specific date.
I guess the whole point of the upcoming changes are consequences of long waiting pre-approval times. It can be little weird to making changes in the law to not solve a pain at all. I was expecting to wait 3 years at least before this change honestly to get a residence permit. I think that officials are trying to solve this problem at least some way partially.
Waiting another 5 years after pre-approvals will be disaster after all now.
Our lawyer send us an update 2 days ago regarding it:
Dear Client,
We hope this email finds you well.
We have good news regarding the Portuguese citizenship. The Portuguese Parliament has recently approved a law foreseeing that the residency period will start being counted from the date of submission of the process at the Immigration and Border Services (and not with the issuance of the first residency card).
The Law is not very clear on what should be considered āsubmission of the processā, but we believe that it will be considered the date of the payment of the analysis fee, which is due upon the online submission of each Golden Visa application.
In case our understanding is correct, the residency period of 5 years for citizenship application purposes will start counting from the online submission of the Golden Visa application of each applicant.
As for applicants below 18 years old, they can only apply for the Portuguese citizenship once they complete 18 years old or once one of the parents obtains the Portuguese citizenship.
In the light of the above, please see attached our informative note on the matter.
Notwithstanding the information above, kindly note that the Law is not in force yet and the wording can still change. We will keep you updated on this.
It does seem the date the application was accepted ā pre-approval ā is most likely to be the starting point.
Itās not ideal but better than biometrics by far.
Again, like all GVāers Iād love 5 years to be counted from initial application. But the tea leaves donāt suggest that for me at the moment. Most happy to be proven wrong!
The difference is only four months in my case. The people this really matters for are the 29th-31st Dec 2021 applicants, most of whom are still waiting for pre-approval 25 months later.
The fact that you make payment at the time is a pretty strong argument for that being your application. In other countries, you donāt pay the visa fees when you file your Expression of Interestā¦you pay them when you actually apply.
So, I agree, anyone who has paid SEF/AIMA has applied. (I hope SEF/AIMA, the courts, and everyone in Portugal is listening!!)
My lawyer also suggested that the start date will be when payment was made for the application. In our case it was summer of 2023. It could be years before we are āpre approved.ā She seemed fairly confident start date for us is summer of 2023.
