When does it come into effect?
It is not possible to know the exact date. The texts need to be sent to President António José Seguro, who has 20 days to analyze them. If he decides to send them to the Constitutional Court, he needs to do so within the first eight days. After the analysis, the document needs to be published in the Official Gazette (DRE) and comes into effect the following day.
For example, in the immigration law, the vote took place on September 30th and the document was signed by the President on October 16th. It came into effect five days later, on October 23rd, 2025…
Could it be rejected by the Constitutional Court?
Yes, but it’s a highly unlikely scenario. The opposition itself understands that there are no longer any unconstitutional aspects in the overall text of the law (with the major changes). If it is sent, it will only be the part that amends the penal code and includes the accessory loss of nationality. In other words, it does not alter the deadlines of the other rules.
Hi guys, how can we exactly follow where the law is at any point of time? For example, how to know or get notified when it will be sent to President, what President does with it, etc?
I understand that there is a parliament official page but it is updated in real time?
Yes, momentarily putting aside the whole citizenship law change situation even though this thread is about that, the base program itself is a scam. It’s a really difficult situation to be in because you have the entire government of a western democracy scamming you. They ask you to invest, miss their own internal deadline by years, and then treat you like this when they finally give you an appointment which you need to travel across the world to attend.
I don’t know how this isn’t a bigger scandal in the international news, the government of Portugal is scamming investors. This isn’t about people going on work visas, this isn’t about people going and overstaying their visas in the country. This is about a financial product which the government is selling to investors.
If they don’t count from time of application, this negatively and unfairly impacts families that applied together. My husband, the primary investor, has had his biometric appointment and will supposedly get his permit and then his clock starts ticking. My daughter and I don’t have biometric appointments, like most family members, so have no idea when our clock starts ticking. And now AIMA is incentivized to delay delay delay. Aside from the arbitrary impact of starting the clock from the time someone receives a permit, this adds an additional and unfair impact on families creating even more uncertainty and confusion.
Getting a big story in a big US or UK paper would maybe be the best chance of reversing this decision. It needs to become a national embarrassment for them and to truly affect the golden visa investment.
And… to add insult to injury, to add salt to the wound, they actually kept our hopes up the past few months by issuing biometric appointments and collecting EUR 6k+ in fees from us only to be rugged pulled again. Many of us were already considering backing out of this craziness but some of us kept a dose of positivity and decided to still go through hoping that the TC decision, change in president, etc. would somehow alter the proposed law a bit to our favor (fair transition provisions/periods). Clearly that did not happen.
Now those who have just paid the biometric fees, card issuance fees, etc. realize that you had just given away thousands of Euros to this very inconsiderate government. Many of us are also having a hard time withdrawing from closed-ended funds, so we are stuck with bad investments and bad/mediocre returns. I really hope some well-known media outlets document this very unfair practices (scam) from the government.
In normal/traditional debts markets, when a country or government default or fail to deliver on promises to investors/lenders, there are dire consequences (credit rating hit, etc). In short, one does not want to f*ck up their investors/lenders. In this case, what is our last resort when the government broke its promise? Nothing. The next time the Portuguese government encounters a financial crisis and in need of investments/funds from foreign private individuals, may we, the investors, remember how we were short-changed by them. Never again!
(Sarcasm on) Yes, thanks for pointing that out. Let’s continue to be hopeful that the situation becomes favorable to us. In the meantime, let’s continue also to spend more money in this scheme by paying for lawyers fees, lawsuits, media campaigns, etc. etc. (sarcasm off). The intention is clear, whole scheme just wants our money but they are not willing to keep their promises. The question is, when do we cut the losses?
Who is actually handling these lawsuits? It seems like no one is.We submitted a case several months ago for my family due to the delay of their biometric appointments. We were told the court should issue a decision within 15 days, yet nothing has happened again due to a significant backlog of cases excuses
GV investors who are still waiting for biometrics, residency cards, or who have only recently received them represent a very small minority. Unfortunately, it feels like our situation is not a priority, especially given the much larger challenges the country is currently facing.
From a media perspective, whatever is written will likely be short-lived and quickly forgotten amid global events.
When the law was returned in October, it did not include any grandfathering provisions without any consideration of the country reputation, investors rights, EU values while it was their fault of delaying massivly the process. Unless the respected new president decides to address this now, there seems to be little hope for change.
Apologies for the pessimistic tone, but this reflects the current reality as we see it.
The two biggest countries in EU are Germany and France. Both requires 5 years for citizenship. Maybe Portugal wants to be in line with small countries like Latvia and Slovenia…
Thanks a ton although the weasel words remain at the end. I am hunting for the text in Portuguese but funnily enough the Portuguese AI summary had the delicious wording - my translation - ‘those who applied under the old rules are OK (initially). Which could mean the criminal stuff will apply or it could mean ‘it ain’t done yet’.
