some parts of D5 (related to the start date)are further discussed in D7, I am not a lawyer, idk if D7 helps us
I just wish there could be a definitive answer, or a crystal ball, or an end to this madness. I don’t know how people are expected to make decisions or plans or live their lives with this level of confusion and instability but I guess maybe that’s half the point. Maybe I should start to accept that I’ll be living and dying on American soil and got to enjoy a Portuguese beach house a few times lol.
Personally, I don’t want to live with this level of uncertainty. It’s not good for my blood pressure 
I was waiting for clarification on the law, but it appears that isn’t coming, which makes my decision much easier…
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When can we expect actual lawyers to opine on implications of this judgement? I just got my GV approval today (I submitted my application in Oct 2021 and biometrics were done in Jan 2023!) but would like to get more clarity on the implications of this judgement before sending off €6k in fees to pay for AIMA’s Christmas tree decorations!
Post Script Addendum: For fun and games, I ran the legal question through both ChatGPT and Gemini as to whether the provisions in D7 protected me under the concept of “legitimate expectations”. I got conflicting answers - ChatGPT is saying that the clause applies to citizenship applications filed before the new law takes effect while Gemini seems to be saying that all pending GV applicants are protected under this clause. This is why it is really important to hear asap from lawyers.
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Global Citizen sent out an email stating: “Today the Constitutional Court delivered an important decision on the nationality law, striking down four key provisions as unconstitutional. This represents a significant constitutional safeguard and ensures that fundamental rights protections remain intact. However, the provisions that concerned us the most were not considered unconstitutional.”
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Differentiating between citizens based on their citizenships might have been ruled unconstitutional if the PS had proposed it. That could help our case by making it 7 years for all of us, or 10 years with less backlog.
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The proposed law does not, it differentiates by citizenship. This is already allowed for visas e.g. CPLP get special visas, EU doesn’t even need visas.
The key is that e.g. if you were born in India but become a Swedish citizen, you are treated according to your EU citizenship (allowed) not according to your Indian origin (not allowed).
sorry, thanks for pointing it out, I meant EU(who are not eligible for GV) and CPLP citizens, I guess PS didn’t want to impact voters with CPLP family members
ARI Lawsuit interest WhatsApp group:
“ Hi all. The TC ruled some parts of the nationality law unconstitutional, but it’s looking like they may have declined to find the parts that matter to us unconstitutional. We are still waiting for the Portuguese lawyers to discuss the (200+ page) ruling in detail and draw some conclusions. In the mean time, a summary pass of the law did seem to suggest that hopes for a transitional regime, and for counting time from application, may have been neglected.
At this stage, we are uncertain as to what is actually going on, but there was certainly not overwhelming good news today. It sounds like there is a decent chance that the 10 years from first card provision would indeed be considered valid.
At this point the bill will have to return to parliament as the president is obliged to veto it. Our fate may well come down to whether PSD and Chega are prepared to work together again, or if PS gets a seat at the table and can introduce amendments in our favour.
Either way, sadly, the fight isn’t over. I’m going to hold off on unlocking the channel until we hear from one of the lawyers more concretely about what the ruling means.
Hang in there y’all.”
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Prime Legal posted this very disappointing summary on LinkedIn: 📢 Portuguese Constitutionall Court Rules on New Citizenship Law Of the seven provisions submitted for review, the Court found four to be unconstitutional! As a result, the draft legislation must… | Prime Legal - Portugal
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Full text of the Prime Legal summary below
Portuguese Constitutionall Court Rules on New Citizenship Law
Of the seven provisions submitted for review, the Court found four to be unconstitutional!
As a result, the draft legislation must now return to Parliament for revision and a new vote. While the impact on timing is not yet clear, there are several practical factors to keep in mind:
- This is the final week of parliamentary votes before the year-end recess; sessions resume on 7 January.
- Once a revised version is drafted and approved in Parliament (which may depend on an agreement between the minority Government and the Opposition), the text must be sent again to the President of the Republic for review or veto.
- Presidential elections are scheduled for 18 January. According to current polls, a second round is possible, which would take place in February.
Overall, these are relevant developments, as they require the legislative proposal to be reconsidered and amended. While the matter is not closed and may continue for several weeks or months, the decision offers important guidance — particularly for clients with ongoing residence procedures.
That said, for those of you with ongoing residence processes, these seems to be the Court conclusions:
Not unconstitutional: Repeal of the rule currently set out in Article 15(4), which provides: “[f]or the purposes of calculating the periods of legal residence provided for in this law, the time elapsed from the moment the temporary residence permit was applied for shall also be considered.”
Justification: The Court noted that counting the waiting time was introduced in a context of significant backlogs at SEF and later AIMA, to mitigate delays affecting applicants. In the Court’s view, as backlogs are being reduced, foreign citizens should not assume that this rule would necessarily remain in place indefinitely.
Not unconstitutional: Absence of a minimum transitional regime: The Court also did not find unconstitutional the lack of a minimum transitional regime—i.e., it did not consider it necessary to introduce a period protecting applicants with pending residence procedures.
Justification: The Court considered that Article 7(2) of the Decree—by stating that the current law applies to administrative procedures pending on the date the new Nationality Law enters into force—functions as a rule preventing retrospective effects and, in practice, serves a transitional purpose.
The Court also emphasized the need to balance legitimate expectations with public-interest reasons supporting legislative change.
While this position may raise concerns for some applicants, we underline that the legislative process is still ongoing. A revised text will be produced, approved (subject to parliamentary dynamics), and submitted again to the President of the Republic for review. Importantly, the final wording may still address these issues differently and can evolve further during the next steps.
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If I’m understanding this Prime post, this is a total loss, correct? For us GV investors it seems we have lost the grandfathered-in hope, and the clock is ticking from application not residency hope, correct?
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Excuse my confusion, but this sounds like a lot of nonsense if the ruling is still open to interpretation.
Seems like it…
Let’s take a step back and look at the broader picture. The Court has struck down the law, and the debate has now shifted back to the political arena. At this stage, parsing the court’s garbled legal language is not the best use of our energy.
What will make a real impact is action. We have an opportunity to help shape the revised law. As Golden Visa holders and applicants, we should all reach out to the individuals and companies who have benefited from our participation (our lawyers, bankers, fund managers, and others) and ask them to lobby Parliament and advocate on our behalf.
We should channel our energy into ensuring that our voices are heard in the legislative process. Portugal is not a large country, so a small but determined group of people can make an outsized impact.
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As a follow up to the post a couple days ago (way upstream at this point), the outreach to my investment funds all received favorable replies to trying to find actionable ways to promote the benefits from the ARI program.
Most importantly, Blue Crow will be producing a vid this Thursday for the @ACorDoDinheiro youtube channel that will post on Monday (accelerated from March of next year…yay) and is set to emphasize the benefits of ARI investments.
Telling a good news story to offset the BS like the “Grumbling Americans” link from the recent vlog with Natasha Doom listed above is useful for changing or balancing the narrative.
Y’all have at least 350k euros into your respective funds. You are investors and clients whose cumulative investments are reshaping the Portuguese startup community. Ask them for help and favorable PR. We need to set the battlefield going into next year with the various political parties. I do believe that the fund partners, et al, are doing what they can behind the scenes…mine are…but lets get some public views out there also since the Pols respond to the perception of public attitude and visibility. The perception of reality is usually more powerful than reality.
and adding a PS: show up at your fund’s annual general meetings if you can. Meet the people, ask good questions. Enjoy the hospitality of their investor days. Relationships matter.
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Why do you need lawyers’ opinion? It’s only up to the parliament now what to do next with the law. There are just few realistic options.
One is that they give up and do not proceed further, i.e. leave the law unamended. However, I would not consider this as a main option.
Second one is that they modify the draft to remove/adjust the unconstitutional parts, and promote it in next months.
Second one is not good enough for you, since nobody knows how much is it going to take and will it or not happen before October 2026.
In my case with my citizenship application deadline coming January 5th, 2026, I am hopefully covered now.
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According to DN: “PSD considera que pontos centrais foram viabilizados”
It’s probably safe to assume PSD will remove the unconstitutional clauses and give the “core” clauses (5 years—> 10 years with no transition period; counting from effective date of the first card) another try.
Question for the lawyers: could 2021/22 GV applicants sue the government for the >4 years wasted, which the TC admits happened, but is not worthy of recourse because the backlogs are “getting better”?
The variance in treatment was substantial and random (or intentional for political gains):
- there was preferencial treatment given to MI/CPLP/then renewals before GV applications, as admitted by PSD ministers, so some MI applicant from 2021 until program was cancelled would have received a residency card >2 years before a GV applicant from 2021;
- Some CPLP applicant from 2023/24 would have received a residency card before a GV applicant from 2021;
- Some 2021 GV applicants who were lucky enough to get biometrics in places other than Lisbon would have received their residency cards 1-2 years before those sent to Lisbon;
- Those 2022-24 GV applicants wise enough to sue SEF/AIMA early would have received their residency cards >2 years before some 2021 applicants / applicants who applied on the same day but didn’t sue;
- Etc.etc.
This is on top of the government breaking promises made in SEF/AIMA regulations (90 days + 90 days, or whatever it is).
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So one lawyer on the WhatsApp group did post that they think people who already got their cards (before the law changes) can count the residence time from application because that was the law in effect at the time.
I’m not sure if the logic is rock solid but they explained it like this:
Suppose you applied 2022 and got your card 2025: during this time the old law is in effect, so these 3 years count as residency for citizenship.
In 2026 the law changes to only count time from card and require 10 years. But you already have your card, so you can still count the 7 years from 2025 - 2032 under the new law.
Then in 2032 you have accumulated 10 years and can apply for citizenship.
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I applied in 2022 but don’t have my card 
:
- In 2023, I thought it made sense for SEF to be taking a while to get through the Dec 2021 applicants first, so I was not wise enough to sue.
- In 2024, the Nationality Law was amended to count the 5 years from application, so I thought that’s a solution—once I have the passport, I would never have to deal with AIMA again. So again, I didn’t sue.
- In Jan 2025, this was confirmed by head of AIMA. So “don’t worry about the delay, your citizenship clock is running!”
- I was finally given a biometrics appointment in April 2026 in the latest biometrics dump. The last time this happened, it was the biometrics dump for Dec 2021 applicants in 2023. Based on what happened that time, it will take me anywhere between 2 months and 2 years to receive my card.
If fellow 2022 applicants who have their residency cards (which means they’ve sued) get to count their 10 years from application but I can’t, it definitely calls for a lawsuit against the government. Everyone must sue them at least once I guess 