The road to Portugal is paved with 22 pages of processes and costs.
I know this fact because a 22-page proposal landed in my inbox on Monday from a visa agency I’ve hired to help me and my family decamp to the Iberian Peninsula after several years of living in Prague.
Just to catch you up: My wife, Yulia, and I are looking to move to Portugal, which I’ve been mentioning in dispatches here and there since last summer. This desire springs from two causes and two opportunities.
Cause 1: My step-son is routinely sick in Prague and he never was before. As such, Yulia wants to return to a warmer, seaside climate, similar to where she grew up in Crimea, and where she was raising her son before we married. After our various travels over the summer, she and I have come around to the view that Portugal is the best destination for the lifestyle we want.
Opportunity 1: Portugal launched a digital nomad visa on Oct. 30, which makes it exceedingly convenient to pursue a life in the country, a place everyone in my family likes. (Note: In the first 2.5 months since the new visa’s creation, Portugal has already approved more than 200 digital nomad applications, a testament to the country’s popularity these days and the popularity of this visa.)
Cause 2: We want to obtain citizenship in a European Union country that will then provide all of us with EU passports, which, in turn, will allow us to live and work anywhere in the 27-member bloc of nations that stretches from Greece up to Finland and across to Ireland (and there are a number of places in that bloc where I’d like to live for a while, like a Greek island).
Opportunity 2: Portugal’s digi-nomad visa is renewable, and after living locally for five years we are eligible for citizenship and that coveted EU passport. Just gotta learn some Portuguese—but I am mildly fluent in Spanish gibberish, so I think I will far more easily pick up Portuguese than I’ve been able to pick up Czech.
That out of the way, on to the 22-page proposal from the visa agency.
That proposal outlines the processes and timings I need to hit in order to get Portugal’s new digital nomad visa. And there’s a lot going on…
I need to be in Portugal by mid-summer because my lease is ending here in Prague…but I have to work out timing that will also allow me to fly back to the U.S. in September to speak at an International Living conference, and to potentially get to Ireland in March for a golf story (tough life, I know!) and there are travel/border-crossing stipulations tied to this visa process that create some logistical challenges.
And I will say this: The digital nomad visa is not one you pursue on a whim because living in Portugal seems like it would be fun.
Many such visas are relatively inexpensive—some application fees and whatnot. But Portugal’s visa includes some meaningful financial hurdles to meet, including the need to have nearly $44,000 (for a family of three) in a Portuguese bank account, along with provable minimum monthly income equal to a bit more than $3,300.
I mean, I have that covered, not a problem. But I know lots of digitally nomadic people who absolutely would not be able to cover that amount, particularly the savings requirement.
It’s quite clear as well from reading through the visa requirements spelled out in the proposal that it’s best to hire a pro to manage the process. I am sure there are people who manage this visa process on their own, but I am not sure that’s the wisest or most cost-efficient approach.
You clearly need to be in Portugal for some of this stuff, and you’re clearly going to need to navigate Portuguese bureaucracy. Portuguese friends tell me (jokingly…I think) that foreigners routinely get lost in the maze of paperwork and are never heard from again.
And, so, the process now begins with the help of a visa agency I’ve hired, and which has a 100% success rate in obtaining all sort of residence visas for interlopers like me trying to move to Portugal.
With luck, I’ll be sending you pictures from the beach in Cascais, on the outskirts of Lisbon, by mid-summer.
Either way, I’ll keep you informed of my progress…
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