The Golden Visa backlog is over? 2025 has started with promising news!

2025 has started on the right foot with some positive news on the Portuguese Golden Visa program.

As some of our readers may already know, a new Portuguese Government was elected in March 2024 which finally addressed the difficulties investors were facing in terms of obtaining their first resident cards, namely due to a slow processing of pre-approvals and an even slower scheduling of immigration appointments.

In effect, most of the investors that applied after 31/12/2021 are still waiting for their Golden Visa applications to be pre-approved and, therefore, to receive the resident cards to which they are legally entitled to.

Although the latest changes to the Citizenship Law have given investors some relief – the 5-year period towards citizenship now starts counting from the date of submission of the Golden Visa application, and not from the date of issuance of the resident card, as before –, many investors are not only interested in ultimately becoming Portuguese passport holders, but also have the legitimate interest in having a Schengen resident card while they don’t.

In face of the above, the new Government has made a commitment to solve all pending immigration applications (including Golden Visa applications) until June 2025, and several actions have been taken in order to achieve it, namely by opening new immigration centers, hiring new immigration officers and establishing partnerships with the Portuguese Bar Association for lawyers to assist the Immigration Authority (“AIMA”) in processing application documents.

More recently, AIMA has announced a change specifically directed to the Golden Visa program, which shall now follow the proceeding summarized below:

1. All legally required documentation is fully submitted, process and approved online (investors no longer have to deliver updated documentation on the immigration appointment date, except documents which weren’t previously available);
2. Once the documentation is submitted, AIMA will automatically notify the investors and their family members of the respective appointments date with a prior notice of 30-90 days;
3. The documentation having been already processed and approved online, the immigration appointments’ purpose will be exclusively to collect the applicants’ biometric data, and resident cards are expected to be issued shortly after the appointment date (although it’s still soon to comment on what these timings will be).

Furthermore, not only new investors will benefit from this new proceeding, but also all investors with pending Golden Visa applications, which have already been notified through their respective legal representatives to submit update and complete information online.

GoldenVisaFunds will keep our readers updated on these news and the new expected timings over the next months.