Portugal

The Golden Residence Permit Programme is still open, and its investment minimums are unchanged for 2026. The CMVM-regulated fund route, at EUR 500,000, does most of the work. What has changed is not the visa itself but the endgame. The property and capital-transfer routes were abolished back in October 2023 by the Mais Habitação law (Lei 56/2023). Then Organic Law 1/2026, in force since 19 May 2026, rewrote the citizenship timeline. So the programme most investors thought they were buying, a five-year path to an EU passport, no longer exists, even though the residence permit does. Anyone still marketing an EU passport in five years on this programme is quoting a repealed law.

For most non-EU, non-CPLP nationals, the naturalisation clock is now ten years. It counts from the issuance of the first residence permit, not from the date of application. The problem is compounded by AIMA's backlog, which runs to roughly 400,000 immigration files, including around 55,000 Golden Visa files. So the first card itself can take two to three years. Article 15(4), the 2024 provision that let residence count from the date you filed, was expressly revoked by Organic Law 1/2026. That means the backlog now eats directly into the citizenship clock. A realistic 2026 investor is looking at twelve to thirteen years from a passport. That is why permanent residency at five years, not citizenship, is the honest reason to do this deal in 2026.

No. This is actually the programme's strongest remaining feature. You need only 7 days in year one and 14 days in each subsequent two-year period, among the lightest presence requirements in the EU. The real trap is tax, not immigration. The Golden Visa does not make you a Portuguese tax resident, but spending over 183 days in the country, or keeping a habitual home there, will. Once that happens, Portugal taxes worldwide income at an effective top of 53%. If you want the light-touch residency, keep your actual presence low and make sure you do not accidentally acquire tax residence.

Probably not. This is the single most costly misunderstanding of the 2026 reform. Article 7(2) of Organic Law 1/2026 preserves the old five-year rule only for nationality applications already pending on 19 May 2026. It does not apply to people who simply held a residence permit on that date. Holding a card does not protect you. Only a filed and pending naturalisation application does. The distinction is worth millions to families who assumed otherwise, and it is currently being litigated, including challenges before the Constitutional Court.

No. IFICI, in force since 1 January 2024, is routinely mis-sold as NHR 2.0, but it is far narrower. It gives a 20% flat rate only on income from a qualifying Portuguese highly-skilled activity, plus a blanket exemption on most foreign-source income. You must register with the tax authority by 15 January of the year following your first year of residence or you lose it. Crucially, pensions are excluded and taxed at progressive rates up to 53%. That is the decisive break from NHR, and it invalidates most pre-2024 Portugal retirement planning. Income from blacklisted jurisdictions is taxed at a flat 35% with no exemption. A passive investor or retiree gets nothing from IFICI.

Yes. Nationals of CPLP countries, including Brazil, Angola and Mozambique, face a seven-year residence clock rather than ten under Article 6(1)(b). Under Article 6(10), they are presumed to satisfy the language limb of the naturalisation test unless a manifest lack of Portuguese is evident. That makes the CPLP position materially better than the general one after the 2026 reform. The clock still runs from first residence permit issuance, so AIMA's backlog still applies. Even so, the seven-year base and the language presumption are genuine advantages.

Portugal allows dual citizenship, so naturalising or claiming nationality by descent does not mean giving up your current passport. The Golden Visa is generous when it comes to family. It covers a spouse or de facto partner, children under 18, dependent unmarried children under 26 who are in full-time education, dependent parents over 65, and minor siblings under legal guardianship. The passive-income D7 and digital-nomad D8 routes cover a similar family unit. Family members follow the same residence timeline as the main applicant, and eventually the same path to naturalisation.

No, on both counts. The EUR 500,000 and EUR 350,000 property routes, the EUR 1.5m capital-transfer route and the EUR 500,000 listed-securities route were all abolished from October 2023 under Lei 56/2023. So if you see a 2026 offer promising Portuguese residency for EUR 280k–500k of property, it is describing a route that no longer exists. The Sephardic descent route is gone too. Organic Law 1/2026 revoked Article 6(7) with effect from 19 May 2026, and the Jewish Community of Lisbon stopped accepting new certification requests on 4 May 2026. Only applications filed before those cut-off dates continue under the old rules.

Not yet. Naturalisation under Article 6(1)(c) now requires demonstrating knowledge of Portuguese language, culture, history and national symbols. That is a broader standard than the old A2 CIPLE language test. The 2026 reform also extended this test to grandchildren claiming citizenship by descent. The implementing regulation that sets the exact level and format was due within 90 days of 18 May 2026, but it remains outstanding as of mid-July 2026. In practice, this means the test's standard is genuinely unsettled, and clients cannot fully prepare for a format that has not yet been defined.