Portugal’s New Citizenship Law

Will they, or won’t they? That question has been on the lips of every observer of the Portuguese immigration scene in recent months.

Just before the national elections in May this year, Portugal’s ruling coalition proposed to increase the number of years required for citizenship by naturalization from the current five years to ten.

At the time I argued that it was an electoral ploy intended to steal some electoral thunder from the hard-right Chega Party, which is strongly opposed to easy immigration.

Now comes this news out of Portugal:

Portugal’s parliament has approved a new law introducing stricter criteria for acquiring Portuguese citizenship. The legislation was passed last Wednesday with the votes of center-right and far-right MPs.

Under the new law approved last Wednesday in Portugal, the minimum legal residence for naturalization has been extended from five to 10 years for most applicants.

Citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries — Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor — and EU citizens can now apply for citizenship after seven years while applicants from all other countries must wait 10 years.

In addition, children born in Portugal to foreign parents will only be eligible for nationality if at least one parent has legally resided in the country for a minimum of five years, up from one.

The upshot is that anyone embarking on the pursuit of a Portuguese passport today can expect a longer wait once the new rules come into effect…

It’s important to remember, also, that the clock toward naturalization only starts ticking once your residency is approved—even if you’ve been in the country before that.

As anyone who has interacted with Portuguese immigration authorities AIMI knows, right now, already, it can take 3-5 years to process an application given the enormous backlogs… applications for Golden Visas have rocketed by nearly 75% in the last two years. Unless AIMI gets its act together, new applicants under the proposed rules could wait up 15 years to get a Portuguese passport.

Portugal isn’t the only country tightening its immigration rules. Starting in 2023 with Ireland’s decision to end its Golden Visa program, countries like Spain, Italy, Greece and Malta have made it more difficult to gain European residency and citizenship.

Some of these changes are due to pressure from the European Union, as in the case of Portugal’s abolition of the Non-Habitual Resident (NHR) tax break and Malta’s elimination of citizenship by investment. But at a deeper level, these changes reflect a shift in public perceptions of immigration in Europe. Voters are watching the US and the UK dramatically tighten their rules and eject immigrants.

The lesson here is that political winds are blowing in a different direction these days… Anyone hoping to find a new life in Europe would be advised to act sooner rather than later—because rules can change and change again.

Of course, I’ll be keeping a close eye on these matters—and will continue to give you a head’s up whenever a shift appears to be on the horizon.