That was me. I hope it’s accurate…
2 Likes
Well there are different stages. Publishing in the parliament’s records is before the President promulgated it and it’s published as finalized law.
2 Likes
Man, I’m really going to need that full ten years to pass the citizenship test!
6 Likes
There are two separate publications: the Diário da Assembleia da República, which is Parliament’s internal gazette, and the Diário da República.
A bill is published in the Diário da Assembleia da República once the text has been finalised, and MPs then have 3 days to raise any further issues with the text. Once it’s been promulgated by the President it’s published in the Diário da República as law.
3 Likes
Thanks for preparing this. I’m trying to get a clearer timeline from my lawyer, but I haven’t received a response yet.
3 Likes
This may ruffle some feathers and I really don’t want to generalize, but in the five years that I’ve been involved with Portuguese immigration (initially D7, now ARI), I’ve consistently found that Portuguese lawyers are not very creative thinkers/problem solvers. There’s a certain resignation to bureaucracy that seems very ingrained in the culture that is very foreign to me. On several occasions, my well-compensated team of attorneys have told me that I had to do something in a way that was either expensive or bureaucratic (usually both) to which I would respond by suggesting a more affordable/reasonable approach and to my frustration, their response was usually “Oh, sure! You can do it that way.” Like, “why wasn’t this your original suggestion?” I would think to myself. I’m very appreciative to my lawyers for a number of things, but I no longer expect them to ever think outside-the-box for me, which is a bummer because the best lawyers are good at finding shortcuts/loopholes.
16 Likes
Of course, if it goes to TC and TC comes back with issues, then there’s a whole new round of committee stage, plenary vote, finalisation, 3 day comment period, send to President etc. I may be wrong, but given Xmas, this should put the effective date of a revised law well into January.
1 Like
I would settle for April, or even September, to avoid rushing things and making careless mistakes!
6 Likes
I think what you’re describing is a factor of the differences between civil law (most of Europe) and common law (most of the anglosphere) education and practice. This is a bit of a generalization, but civil law lawyers are trained to be logical, precise, systematic in applying statutes, ie interpret and apply established legal norms accurately. Common law lawyers are trained to be adversarial, and the system rewards innovation ie. identify areas of ambiguity in the law that you can exploit on behalf of clients. My lawyers in Lisbon are great, but when you come at these problems with experience in a common law jurisdiction, you notice the difference.
9 Likes
A lot of us suspected it was. There were various hints dropped over the course of time, and of course there were the straight-up results that we could all see, just that no one came right out and said it.
4 Likes
Yeah, we all sort of knew, but there’s always the chance you were wrong, that it was something in the way the offices worked, these cases involved some special step that mostly someone didnt know how to do, maybe it was the unofficial holdup caused by a few unhappy people who happened to be the critical path, etc. But, no, it was the policy coming from the top the whole time.
5 Likes
I think it’s a matter of principle that some legal action is done about this at this point. Especially now that they’re scheduling primary applicants without dependents, do they think GV investors have money that grows on trees and can just reschedule their lives and buy double or triple the plane tickets to take their families in and out of Portugal?
It’s a complete scam, this whole program is a government sponsored scam. It’s quite shocking, I want to go to the EU court with this or some other body. Forget Citizenship and nationality laws for a moment, even the bare minimum of delivering the thing you sold investors they failed to do, and have given absolutely no recourse. It’s a complete scam and they need to answer for it in court.
And it can’t be a Portuguese court, it needs to be some higher court or EU court, this needs to become an international scandal so that no future investors get trapped in this scam.
Not only do they make investors wait for 4 years, then they make them take 4 separate plane tickets for all 4 of their dependents.
There’s a topic on this forum, is the Portuguese Golden Visa a scam?
The answer is yes. Tell everyone you know, spread the word as much as you can, since the courts wont hear it, the public must.
24 Likes
It’s hard not to feel like this situation is a mix of uncertainty and what almost feels like a scam. They’ve suddenly started issuing a flood of biometric appointments. Both to people who have been waiting over two years and to those who applied only a few months ago and we still have no clarity on how this new law will actually work.
If the timeline truly starts ten years from receiving the first card, when will that first card even be issued after biometrics? How often will it need to be renewed during those ten years ? every two, three, or five years? What will the renewal costs look like?
And what about the physical presence requirement? Is it still seven days per year or fourteen days every two years? Will that rule change again in the next round of updates?
Then there’s the investment: does it need to be held for ten years or possibly even longer if policies shift again?
Right now, it seems nobody has reliable answers, not even the policymakers. Until there is real clarity,which I am doubtful, I’m not comfortable committing. There’s simply too much uncertainty, and the process is starting to resemble a scam rather than a structured policy.
15 Likes
pure scam, nothing less
8 Likes
Indeed…
1-March, 2025
7-May, 2025
8-May, 2025
13-October, 2025
3 Likes
I applied for GV in 2014. That means I’ve been through the corruption scandal that suspended the GV in 2015, multiple law changes, multiple platform changes, the change from SEF to AIMA, biometrics/renewals at 4 different SEF/AIMA offices, each with different rules and practices. SEF/AIMA lost nearly 4 years (even while they took my biometrics and ever-increasing renewal fees during that time). It was impossible to get answers, so I sucked it up and did more time.
Along the way I’ve seen how completely arbitrary law-making is here. There is no policy-thinking informing it and no engagement with state capacity. Ironically, this was most obvious in the more “positive” reforms a few years ago, which have overwhelmed IRN’s capacity and had so many unintended consequences (including, arguably, this backlash). The one constant (especially living in Portugal for the past 5 years) has been the visceral dislike for people perceived as “rich” and especially those on the GV. So I’m not surprised at what’s been said in Parliament - and the fact it was said out loud just speaks to the depth of popular and bureaucratic antipathy.
16 Likes
It’s truly admirable that you were able to stay so long. Just as I understand it, many early investors left very disappointed.
4 Likes
We know a number of early investors who got badly burned both on the immigration and property side. In our case, we only realized that we’d “lost” those years just before moving permanently to Portugal, which was just before Covid. Now we’re going through the equally dysfunctional citizenship process. The biggest implication has been kids aging out and all of those implications. Nothing is straightforward.
9 Likes
Same here — I applied back in 2015, and it’s been a total nightmare ever since.
7 Likes
With kids aging out, have you been able to find a solution? I am in a similar boat - just applied for citizenship but with a daughter who is currently 17years and only in possession of a residency card this year after a 5-year delay, it’s going to be tricky.
2 Likes