SEF/AIMA also had a website outage in first half of 2022 that prevented ARI applications. Reportedly one applicant had enterprising lawyers that mailed physical copies of the application to SEF, and they later got confirmation that their application was dated to during that time (ahead of everyone who waited for the site to come back up).
Write up a formal request for renewal and send it to AIMA both by email and by registered mail with receipt on delivery from CTT. Technically your ‘lapse of residency’ may occur after 6 months passed from your expiry date of Oct 4th, but you did ‘nothing’ to request your renewal. In practice though we heard reports from people who were unable to renew since 2020 but had no ‘lapse’ in the eyes of AIMA and were given a channel to submit their requests back in 2025.
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And if AIMA doesn’t respond to a registered mail request, you could file a complaint online with the Ombudsman to strengthen your paper trail. Hard for AIMA to argue you did ‘nothing’ to request renewal if you can point to an Ombudsman complaint.
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Congratulations.
My appointment in late sept in Évora as well. No card.
The status portal show briefly “card delivered” a month ago and then back to “em analise”. My lawyer went to AIMA Lisbon to track the “delivery” and was told the status info on portal was not reliable.
I suggest you send your lawyer to Évora as the next step. Your card may be sitting there.
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I have actually been hoping that my renewal approval can drag on further to save my total renewal cost and align with the citizenship analysis timing.
But if it was approved and sitting, then it would be a bad news. Will give it till end of Oct. When my lawyer was in AIMA Lisbon office, the funcionário was able to check my renewal status at their backend system.
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Well it’s been 3 months and I still can’t even submit my renewal, 30 days out from expiration, due to that portal error. Called, emailed, visited AIMA, sent my lawyer five (!) times to AIMA. Sent error reports. Sent registered letters. Nothing. So uh. Shit.
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I would love, love, love to attend a “Moving to Portugal Show” and relay stories like yours (and mine: >3.5 years and still no approval) to the crowd.
The poor sheep at these shows really need to hear PT GV reality:
- Years to get your first card
- Then more hell a couple years later trying to renew it
- Then more hell trying to procure the new shiny thing they’re flogging: “PT Permanent Residency in 5 years” (which we all know is another lie)
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Well, one thing we can do is to start a YouTube channel with real life accounts of our GV adventures. We can even reference some great articles and advertisements to help future seekers make informed mistakes…
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Our cards expired last Jan 2025. We could only get a renewal appointment in December 2025. 10 months later and still no card. Maybe we’ll get our cards 2 years after the previous cards expired, who knows. It’s a terribly stressful experience for sure.
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Question for old guard: my 3rd GV card expired 24 months ago, lawyer applied for renewal 12 months ago, I didn’t have to go to the appointment, received the “recibo comprovativo de pedido” without the QR code as of 12 months ago. However, I still didn’t get the new card. Is there anyone else in the same boat with similar dates? I talked to my advisor and she said nobody in my cohort got the card but it is hard to believe.
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My wife, two children, and I were in the same situation. We went through the third renewal of the real estate Golden Visa in Lisbon and Santarém. The interview took place in October 2025, and we received the cards in August 2026.
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A post was merged into an existing topic: Awaiting Final Approval (Stage 4)
Your case is similar to mine. I’m based in Portugal full‑time and learned that only three offices handle GV files, so when an in‑person renewal sits for 9–10 months it usually means a document is pending or DPAQ needs clarification. Unless your renewal was formally rejected, your representative should go to the Centro de Apoio in Lisbon or email DPAQ to understand what’s holding your file. In my situation, once the officer identified the missing document, I resubmitted it and my lawyer received confirmation within a month. Now I’m simply waiting for the new cards at Portugal’s usual processing speed.
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What is DPAQ? I’ve never heard about this…
For clarification, the renewal was not in-person, it was handled by the lawyer. Don’t know if that makes a difference as you said “so when an in‑person renewal sits for 9–10 months it usually means a document is pending or DPAQ needs clarification”. I asked the lawyer and she said they have over 100 clients in this stage waiting for the cards to be printed.
Even with a lawyer, the renewal still counts as an in‑person appointment. What you can control is tracking the application status online. If it’s stuck in Stage 2 – Analysis, then everything I said earlier applies fully. If it has already moved past that stage, there’s nothing further to do except wait for AIMA to process the cards.
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Are you sure there is tracking for applications from +12 months ago? The ones with Recibo’s without QR code are from the old system (appointment before 16-Feb-2026) and don’t have online tracking as far as I know.
I am in the same boat. I suspect many others too
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The tracking via Contactenos ‘works’ for all applications, old and new.
It is not always accurate though, as was discussed here earlier extensively.