Hehe. Pro tip for the legal community. Communication correlates to trust. More communication = better relationship, more trust. Subscribe to a bulk email service. Send your clients updates at least once a month. if you are going to the trouble to create great content, make sure to let your clients know about it. On a related note, be open and transparent about things. It can go a long way.
Just to be clear, that’s not what I was suggesting. I’m talking about a carve out that honors prior commitments to existing investors.
No matter how EU looks at it or even EU favorably wants the faster citizenship for investors, PT still keeps its ground. I am confident to say that no PT GV investor gets citizenship at 5 years mark. It is also possible to say that there is no investor who was/is able to apply for citizenship at 5 years + 1 day mark. If, by EU’s definition, 5 years is “fast”, then it’s OK to make it longer by extending the requirement to 7, 10 or even 20 years as EU wishes!
Exactly, totally fine to just waltz across the border or roll in on a “tourist” visa, sling ref magnest in a Sintra shop, and bam—apply for residency and citizenship. EU loves that.
But drop half a mil—plus another hundred, hundred-fifty grand—on lawyers, gov fees, lining realtors’ pockets and yeah the super efficient tax guys’, ohh and yah paying property taxes for a decade, then sit on your hands for another ten years? Nope, that’s the real crime.
And after twenty years, when you finally sell that property, do the math and see what you would’ve made if you’d just dumped it all into Tesla or Nvidia instead and s-hoot yourself
Let’s be real, IMI is a joke and may as well not exist.
Imagine a proper LVT…
I think it is only in historic parts of Lisbon, Porto, etc. If you buy a rural property, IMI will bite a bit harder.
I mean, maybe, but the whole point of a Land Value Tax is to tax the entire value of the land. Land in the city is worth a ton. Land in rural areas is usually more or less worthless
Yeah, a rubbish video, which is sad for a Nomad Capitalist channel..
The guy could not even pronounce Schengen correctly
I wonder how Portuguese voters feel about Montenegro disrespecting Portuguese institutions.
Given the level of political education reflected in the voting populace worldwide these days, I don’t think people are particularly aware of how legislature, executive, and judiciary should be separate. I hardly think they will even register that the PM is not supposed to criticize or meddle with the courts. It’ll be a non issue.
Finally, drafted a message to the deputies and president. Does anybody have any insight with respect to the timing, i.e., in August, I am wondering if these politicians read their work email messages…? Wise to wait to send it till the end of August? Or maybe, they don’t receive many messages during August and it is a good time to send it.
This seems mainly directed at MI immigrants, but could affect PT GV’ers who drive in from Spain, or are looking to rent accommodation.
The petulance of losing at the Constitutional Court and finding other ways to make immigrants’ lives miserable is worrying (if true)… what else is AIMA going to start getting extra nit-picky about?
AIMA: immigrants entering Portugal by land will have to register with the police, Publico Brasil, August 18, 2025
(AIMA) is increasingly restricting the regularization process for immigrants in Portugal. Both at the agency’s traditional offices and at Mission Structure centers, staff now require registration with the Public Security Police (PSP) of the declaration of entry into the country by land. Many foreigners arrived in other European countries but later migrated to Portugal.
“In recent days, we have seen an unprecedented tightening of the AIMA’s demands for the regularization of immigrants,” says lawyer Tatiana Kazan. This stance, she adds, became even more evident after the government’s defeat in the Constitutional Court. The court’s judges rejected the anti-immigration package approved in just 16 business days by the National Assembly. “Every detail of the law is being strictly followed, with no room for negotiation,”
For lawyer Catarina Zuccaro, by requiring AIMA to strictly follow the law in every detail, the Portuguese government aims to demonstrate that the days of relaxed immigration are over. “The requirement to declare entry into the country by land has always existed; however, there was room for other documents…”
There is one group, in particular, that AIMA is keeping an eye on, requiring the declaration of entry by land into Portugal: the immigrants who were left in “limbo” after the expression of interest was closed on June 3, 2024.
…A week ago, Público Brasil reported that the immigration agency began requiring immigrants renting housing in the country to provide a declaration signed by the property owner, “under oath of honor ,” notarized or endorsed by a lawyer or solicitor. It has also required a liability waiver signed by a Portuguese citizen or a legally registered immigrant in the country for those whose sources of income are unclear.
Doesn’t this kind of defeat the purpose of Schengen? Are they expecting all tourists to file paperwork with AIMA, or is this specific to those entering the country to live?
This is AIMA’s (newly enforced) requirements for people looking to immigrate to PT.
They used to ask for this back in the day as well. It wasn’t complicated to get. Just visit a sef office and fill a form with the details of the entry.
Does anyone know when the Government will begin meeting again on this issue after the summer holidays? And when the changes could be legislated?
From earlier in this thread:
As someone who can apply for citizenship in October under current rules, I’m following this timetable obsessively, as are my lawyers, so here is what I know from them and from reading Portuguese media.
As others have noted, the nationality law bill is still in the constitutional affairs committee. Parliament is on break until September, so nothing moves before then.
Once MPs are back, the committee needs to finish hearings, draft the report, and send it to the body that sets the parliamentary agenda, which then schedules it for debate.
In the fastest case, the committee signs off quickly in 3rd week Sept, parliament votes at the end of Sept and the president signs right away. That could put the law in force in early Oct. That’s certainly what PSD is pressing for, but most commentators think there are too many procedural and judicial hurdles to make that feasible.
The likelihood is the president will send it to the Constitutional Court for review (like he did with the immigration law reforms in July). That review takes 2-3 weeks even if urgent, which would collide with debates for the state budget scheduled for Oct. So a more realistic timeline is a plenary debate in late Oct, or even pushing into Nov or Dec, which would push entry into force to late 2025 or early 2026.
On top of all that, there’s now pressure for a full debate on the government’s response to the wildfires. That will eat up at least one plenary session and could push the nationality bill further down the agenda for at least a couple of weeks.
And then there is the question of the retroactivity clause. If that survives (by no means certain), applications filed after 19 June could be judged under the new rules once the law is published. If the Court strikes it, the tougher rules will only apply to applications submitted after the law is published.
Lucky for you that you might get in under the wire. My citizenship eligibility date would have been May 2026, so no way I’ll be grandfathered unless they explicitly grandfather everyone.
If they don’t I’ll definitely be suing on the basis of disparate treatment - how was I supposed to know applying in May 2021 that I would have to wait 5 years longer than someone applying in September 2020?