Portugal government last month has proposed sweeping changes to nationality and immigration laws to curb immigration..
- Naturalization time by residency increased to 10 years.
- Cultural knowledge and integration will be introduced.
- Family unification only available after two years of legal residence.
- Loss of nationality for criminal record holders.
Unfair
Experts and lawmakers say the changes are unfair and unconstitutional, raise serious legal challenges, the law could still may take years to come into effect. The Law could also be vetoed by President for inciting inequality and violating basic rights. Expats and immigrants living in Portugal have also criticized amendments to immigration and nationality laws being too strict and restrictive.
The New measures begin to undermine fundamental principles of law, such as equality between native-born and naturalized citizens, the protection of the right to nationality, and respect for human rights. For example, the possibility of losing nationality for those naturalized less than ten years ago, the revocation of nationality in cases of crimes punishable by five years or more, and the significant restriction on family reunification, which may violate rights guaranteed by the European Union. There is still time to reverse these measures, and the Constitutional Court will have a decisive role.
Petition Signed
More than 7,500 people have signed a petition opposing changes to Portugal’s Nationality Law. As a result the changes to the law have to be re-debated in Parliament.
Sweet Incentives
Portugal expected to bring more tax incentives similar to NHR tax regime to golden visa investors. Currently GV investors can invest 250K euro in cultural/artistic donation or 300K hospitality investment fund
Backlogs
AIMA has analyzed some 440,000 pending applications, is still yet to process around 10%, 40,000 to 50,000 applications, these cases likely to be fully resolved by end of 2025 due to slowdown in processing, the minister announced in a latest press conference.
Our advice has been for clients to speed up the process as rarely Governments manage to implement laws retroactively,
