Itās not cut and dry and no attorney will advise you that moving to PT prior to at least having pre-approval is risk-free. There are also challenges, albeit maybe manageable ones, of moving between pre-approval but prior to having your card.
If you move prior to pre-approval, you run the risk that your application will either be rejected (if found not to have met the investment/application parameters), in which case you will likely have to leave. We also have no idea if/when AIMA will resume pre-approvals, which have been stalled for more than a year, so you run the risk of living with the below problems, which range from inconvenience to arrest, for an unknown length of time. You may choose to undertake those risks, but donāt let anyone talk you out of making that risk assessment for yourself or glibly say that you have a right to move to PT.
The real practical risks include:
-significant limitations (and potential risk of arrest) on your freedom to travel intra-Schengen or via a route that goes through another Schengen country, which risks are likely to increase when the EU introduces its ETIAS system;
-difficulties obtaining tax residency/registering for NISS/obtaining a numero de utente, and with all these things, increased difficulty obtaining a host of public services (health care, prescriptions, driverās licenses, etc.) and generally navigating Portugalās bureaucracy;
-potential increased challenges obtaining updated versions of your criminal background checks etc. if/when AIMA ever does get around to processing your application
First of all, thanks to all of you who have added info to this thread.
We introduced our GV application in Feb 2023 and are waiting for our biometrics date. The more I read posts on this forum, the more I realize another year may pass without hearing back from AIMA.
We are wanting to move soon to Portugal. The posts from @PCERoman have been eye-opening for us today (no one ever told us we can move before our biometrics).
Our legal team has been too quiet and we are getting tired of their performance.
I would love to hear what lawyers/firms people have used to sue to accelerate the process. I would also love to know the cost of doing so. I am sorry if that info has already been posted on nomadgate.
We met with an attorney yesterday (listed on NomadGateās recommendation list) and were told we could not live until our GV was approved. Others say different. Do you know where I could find a definite answer?
Well, thatās not what I have been doing for over the past two-and-a-half years, and so from my personal experience, thatās not true.
However, I do not have it in writing. My lawyer has told me from day one that we can reside in Portugal whilst our applications are being processed. We had one request at the passport control in Lisbon airport to present confirmation of our pending application. Once we presented our SEF confirmations, we were allowed through with no issues. Hence I could only conclude that even if this type of stay is not formerly condoned, there appears to be neither an outright ban nor a stringent enforcement of this type of irregular residency.
For the full disclosure: we have U.S. passports with automatic tavel visa waivers for EU.
Thereās rarely such a thing as a definite answer, and so it is in this case, where only half of the answer is definite.
People who applied before 1 Jan 2022 are very definitely allowed to live in Portugal by law.
Those who applied on or after that date are not referred to in the law, but in practice seem to be treated the same way regardless.
Great question! As per our IAS attorney, we should NOT be moving to Portugal until AT LEAST our biometrics, when thereās an assumption that weāll be approved for the GV. She did say that there are applicants pre-biometric who have made the choice to go ahead and move to Portugal, but that she would NOT advise it.
For reference, our application was submitted in November 2022, and apparently itās going to take another 17 or so years even to get to our biometrics.
