WIKI: HOW-TO: Golden Visa Renewal Mega Thread (January 2025 -> )

Residencies & citizenships Portugal Golden Visa 🇵🇹
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This is a Portugal Golden Visa Renewal thread for the new AIMA process announced January 2025. All renewals will be presential (in-person) with AIMA, and renewal applications must be made on the AIMA portal. This WIKI will be updated by the community as new information is available.

Update April 14, 2025 There is no new news on the status of renewal appointments. A handful of people have reported getting appointments by emailing AIMA - but this is not a proven approach.

AIMA Portal Status:
The URL of the AIMA portal has not been announced.
The AIMA portal is not currently open for renewal applications (as of April 14, 2025). The launch date is not known at this time.

Agency with jurisdiction over renewals:
All GV renewals will be handled by AIMA, not IRN.

For a list of required documents, see:
Wiki: Required Documents for Portugal Golden Visa Renewal - Residencies & citizenships / Portugal Golden Visa :portugal: - Nomad Gate Community

Time Limit for Decision on Application by AIMA
Once your renewal application is filed, AIMA is required by law to provide a decision on your application within 60 days or it is tacitly granted.
(Article 82(2) of the Law). The 60 day period does not include weekends or holidays according to DL n.º 4/2015, de 07 de Janeiro at Article 87(c)) – HT: @cj807

Category of Residence permit granted on renewal
There was some discussion by AIMA that renewals must follow updated transitional regulations. ARI renewals maintaining eligible investments (non-real estate) are processed as usual. For cases where investment conditions have changed, renewals might convert into immigrant entrepreneur permits or generic residence permits. This appears to mean that ARI residence based on real estate will be transitioned to a entrepreneur permit valid for 3 years, whereas fund investments will remain as ARI permits valid for 2 years. This raises a number of questions such as how to categorize funds based on real estate and whether family members will be renewed into the same type of residence permit as primary investors from the July 2024 auto-renewals period. The precedent from these earlier auto-renewals is that fund based real estate investments will convert to entrepreneurial permits valid for 3 years. It is not clear if this interpretation will continue with in-person renewals. This information is based on preliminary interpretation and is subject to change.

Fees
The fees for renewals will remain at the higher ARI based fees of €3.090,40 for both primary applicants and dependents, rather than the entrepreneurial (D2) based fees, even in the case of entrepreneurial permits. Even though the renewals are in-person, AIMA does not intend to charge the in-person penalties for the renewals. This information is based on preliminary interpretation and is subject to change.
Official AIMA fee schedule link here: tabela-de-taxas-e-demais-encargos-a-cobrar-pelos-procedimentos-administrativos.pdf

FAQ

Q: Will automatic renewals return at some time?
A: No. Automatic renewals are not planned to return.

Q: If I cannot renew by June 30, 2025 will the government extend the decree for validity of expired cards.
A: There has been no announcement about extending the decree past June 30, 2025. For more information about extensions, see this wiki: Wiki: Validity of expired documents and permits (Portugal) - Residencies & citizenships / Portugal Golden Visa :portugal: - Nomad Gate Community

This wiki was created by @portugalwanderer. If you see an Edit button in the bottom right, you are welcome to contribute your knowledge.

Contributions by: [If you make any changes to this wiki, add your username here]

Read more about wikis on Nomad Gate here.

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At the last AIMA webinar, officials did say that a new form would be launched for ARI renewals, but did not mention a specific timeline that I recollect. Can you please link to the source for the March 2025 date?

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This is what i recall from one of the meetings. I doubt they will meet that deadline anyway. If you have more up to date information, you can update the Wiki.

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Which meetings, have there been any more since the Jan 14 AIMA-lawyers webinar?

I watched the video of the webinar, listened to the Portuguese audio (with my limited understanding), read the translation, googled, but I could not find a mention of March 2025 as the renewal form launch date anywhere. If I get any positive information I will update the wiki.

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I am not sure. I updated the wiki to be more vague about the start date.

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We are still waiting our first cards but after such a horrible 2 years I am curious about next stages.

  1. Is there any link to renewal fees to check?
  2. Is it possible to apply for renewal before expiration? I mean many people needs to get a visa to enter Portugal and it is terrible to get a schengen visa to apply for renewal.
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I added a link to the fee schedule for whatever good that will do you. If you haven’t received a first card but you are starting to worry about second card?? Just buckle up. It’s going to be a long and bumpy ride.

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I have some other questions in my mind to enrich topic:

  1. When can we apply for renewal prior to expiring card?
  2. Will renewal be online at near future? Is this expected?
  3. Can lawyers apply for renewal on behalf of us?
  4. Will a new card be sent after renewal or we will continue to use the first card?
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Hello,

I am enquiring if anyone with the erstwhile physical real-estate visa attended a physical renewal appointment, and if so, whether the fees charged were the ARI fees or the D2 renewal fees?

Thank you

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This is already answered above in the wiki. See “Fees”. If this information is inaccurate, it should be updated by someone. Otherwise, assume it is accurate. That is the beauty of the wiki :slight_smile:

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Hello, the Wiki says the fees for a GV renewal for real estate is 6610,30 but the link provided to the Official AIMA fee schedule says it’s 4030,90.

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Hi Terence,

Thanks, yes I did read the wiki and the amount mentioned. However, since on the other Renewal online thread, there are a mix of responses of both in-person and online renewals . I think it would be good to hear of a first-hand experience of someone with a real-estate GV who has secured a renewal appointment and actually gone through the process. I couldn’t find a first-hand account so far, hence the query. Although someone has mentioned recently about paying the ~600 euro processing fee.

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Consolidating 2025 renewal news from other threads. These are physical appointments.

There does not appear to be any special lawyer channel, they’re sending mail to the standard address, geral@aima.gov.pt

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Can confirm our attorney just emailed for the appointment. Before she did she said she had absolutely no idea when we would hear back, nor when the appointment would be. She was very surprised to hear back the same day and even more surprised for us to get both appointments within three months of our request, at the same office, appointments 30 minutes apart.

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Common theme here seems to be that they are prioritizing primary cardholders, even those with dependents?

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Thanks, this is a great idea!
Update, my lawyer contacted me 2 weeks later and she managed to get an appointment for my dependent as well for June but 2 weeks later than mine. His card also expired in January 2025.

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Actually, looks to me like most people with dependents (4 out of 5) got appointments for everyone in the family, either in one shot or in quick succession.

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My point being that there are a lot of dependent applicants whose permits expired in 2023 and 2024. These reports seem to suggest that AIMA is skipping over those dependents and giving renewal appts to people whose cards expired in 2025. My theory was that they were prioritizing primary applicants with expired cards. Dunno, it’s the AIMA lottery.

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OK, I see what you mean. Automatic renewal was active off and on through mid-2024 but there were reports of dependents not being able to avail the automatic route.

I don’t think AIMA is skipping over anyone deliberately, right now they’re handing out appointments to whatever mails catch their attention, and they’re definitely not looking at their backlog mails. Once they formalise an online application process, maybe things will get more orderly and they can start processing according to some criteria like expiry date or application date.

My guess is that if the dependents (or their lawyers) whose cards expired in 2023/2024 send email now, they have as good a chance as anyone, primary or dependent, whose card expired in 2025. The appointments-by-email process seems to have picked up pace from mid-March.

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I’m sorry if the information I’m asking for has been mentioned before (I have not been able to find it). My residency card expired in March, 2025. Should we be actively writing emails to AIMA asking for a renewal appointment or should we be waiting for further notice from AIMA about what they are going to do about renewals?