I’m hearing whispers that the legacy renewal processes are being approved up through November 2025 renewal appointments. Can anyone confirm or deny?
To be clear, this does not include the new renewal processes under the online renewal portal started Feb 2026.
Not true, Aug 2025 havent been done yet(my partner).. They have requested for 6 more documents for my renewal(Oct 25) which are irrelevant and not in the list of documents needed.. so, the whispers are as good as garbage
Would you mind sharing what documents they’re asking for or perhaps just the general category if it’s sensitive? Thank you.
general copy paste email from the initial approval phase, nothing special..
Unfortunate update for me as I await my residency renewal, I have been denied boarding to Portugal. I am a citizen from a country that require a schengen visa.
my card expired in 2024 and for the past 2 years I always used direct flights to Lisbon, and the day before the trip I go to the airport so they can email Lisbon’s immigration office that I was “ok to board”, and for the past two years it worked.
This time I got “not ok to board” and the reason is that my renewal appointment (11/11/2025) is more than 6 months old.
calling AIMA (very surprisingly) did nothing, they told me its “under analysis” and I should have waited and not left Portugal.
Can any one here advice me on what to do? what about trying for tacit approval? would that help?
Thank you.
That’s a trap..
If you have or can still get the tacit approval, then sure go ahead and try to use it for boarding.
My family received renewal residency cards. Appointment in Santarem in Nov 2025. Issue date 6th July. Received on 17th Jul.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I feel your pain…it’s absolutely brutal. How many time in the past 2 years did airline allow you to board? Who exactly sent an email to Lisbon’s immigration office? Airline sent? Or airport/passport control sent?
I think that the safest way to board successfully is to obtain a Schengen Visa beforehand. Once you have that, just act as if you are a tourist to board. After landing, I believe that you will be allowed to enter the country.
around 4 times, airport/passport control
I guess it depends on the country. For us (in Turkey) it was the airline that sent the email to Lisbon’s immigration. Once they get a possitive reply, they enter a note in their system for that specific flight.
I understand it is the airlines responsibility. If you are rejected entry into the destination country, they have to pay a fine and fly you back.
My wife and I received our first cards a few months ago (Dec 25/Jan 26). We don’t live in Portugal and figured we’d take some time off of worrying about this process, so haven’t been thinking about renewals. Our cards are valid for two years, and our lawyers at Prime Legal stated very clearly that “If the residence card is valid for 2 years, the required stay is at least 14 days over those 2 years.” So we have been planning to satisfy the entire 14-day requirement sometime next year. But on this site, I have only seen statements that one must spend 7 days in Portugal during the first year after the first card is issued. Can anyone comment on our lawyers’ advice that we’ll be fine as long as we spend 14 days in Portugal at some point during the initial cards’ 2-year validity? Thanks.
There’s an entire thread for that very topic:
Plus an intense debate on the same topic here:
I am in the process of our first renewal. Our initial permits were for 2 years. My lawyer (not Prime Legal) has requested proof (hotel invoices and boarding passes) of 14 days stay in Portugal throughout this initial 2 year period. Nothing was requested regarding proof of stay in Year 1.
Having said that I chose to be safe and we visited both in Year 1 and in Year 2, because like you I was confused as to what the legal requirements actually were. My lawyer said the same as yours- 14 days in the first two years- but due to all the contradictory claims online, we decided to visit every year just in case. Not suggesting that anyone else needs to do the same.
I did the same for the same reasons…
When GV started, in the beginning, the first card that was issued is 1 year. So cards were issued in the sequence of 1 year, 2 years , 2 years. At that time, you must meet your initial first year. At some point, it was changed to 2 years, 2 years, 1 year or 2 years, 3 years as stated by my lawyers. At this point, you have to stay either 7 days per year or 14 days in 2 years. There is no pattern in it because the law only stated about the pattern of 1, 2, 2 years. For the 3 years, my lawyer said that we can stay the first 7 years, and the remaining 14 years for the remaining 2 years.
So the issue of staying 7 days for the first year recently is what I’m not sure of. People just do that for careful seek.
No, you must spend 7 full days (i.e. full 24 hour days not counting days of entry and exit) in your first year counting from the day of your card issuance.
I already gave a live example in that other ‘heated debate’ thread about an experience in a parallel universe where a country X (not Portugal) decided one day to enforce their own regulations without any warning. The lawyers who were advising their clients to relax and not come in for the mandatory physical stay simply issued an email saying sorry guys we did not expect the regulations would become enforced, but it’s the law you know, so you guys should have known better and followed the law..
Luckily, some people 
followed the law anyway, hence got their renewal with no trouble.
Come on people, even the more recent Mais Habitação law that came into force as late as 2023 left the physical stay conditions exactly the same, despite that by 2023 the cards pattern was already 2+2+ years, and the Mais Habitação itself was changing it to 2+3+ for conversions!
I quote Article 42:
“..devendo os seus titulares cumprir o prazo mínimo de permanência de sete dias, seguidos ou interpolados, no primeiro ano e de 14 dias, seguidos ou interpolados, nos subsequentes períodos de dois anos.”
I understand some folks don’t like to travel, but it’s the law 
I don’t understand why this is controversial or even being debated still. This advice from @tommigun is better advice than what you would pay for. It’s a reasonable and conservative interpretation of an unclear regulation/law. If you want to stay more or less days, you can do that.
Sure, you are right. 1st year matters based in the information you provide. Thanks.