Last Friday, Portugal’s parliament approved amendments to the country’s nationality law. The changes will enable residents to begin counting their five-year residency period towards citizenship from the day they apply for residency, instead of the date they receive approval. This change could potentially save several years on the path to citizenship.
Foreign residents of Portugal were previously allowed to apply for Portuguese citizenship after five years of approval of their residence permit in the country. However, the immigration authorities’ severe administrative delays can extend the time between a residence permit application and its approval to two or more years.
It can take around 7-8 years for a golden visa investor to become eligible for naturalization after they file their initial application due to administrative delays. These delays have impacted not only investment-based residency types but also other types of residencies.
The current situation has led to a delay in the citizenship process for individuals applying for residency. This delay is not caused by any fault of their own but due to the state’s inability to process applications on time. For instance, the processing time for golden visa investors, which is supposed to take no longer than three months according to the legislation, now takes more than two years.
The amended law’s Article 15 stated to have a new rule:
“If the request for a temporary residence title is approved, the time elapsed since that moment will also be considered in counting the legal residence periods as provided by this law.”
This new rule allows us to recognize that the delay in public services causes damage to applicants and further aims to overcome this through administrative and automatic procedures.
Investors who apply for golden visas can begin counting the five-year requirement from the day they submit their online application and pay the processing fee.
For example, those who submitted an online application in January 2019, can apply for Portuguese nationality in January this year (2024), provided that the Golden Visa process has already been subject, in the meantime, to notification of approval and payment of the issuance fee for their residence title.
Once the amendment is implemented, there will be no need for individuals who have submitted their residency application to worry about their long waiting period being wasted. This is because the date of the residency application submission will be the sole consideration for the approval or card issuance.
For instance, If you applied for residency in December 2020 and are still waiting for approval, you will be eligible to apply for nationality in December 2025. Suppose you applied for residency in March 2021 and waited 18 months for approval. In that case, your first residency card may have been issued in October 2022, and you will be eligible to apply for nationality in March 2027. If you apply for residency now (early 2024), you can expect to be able to apply for nationality in 2029, even if there are any delays in processing your residency application.
However, It is important to note that the amendments have yet to take effect. They will be sent to the President for approval, veto, or submission to the Court for analysis.