Portugal Golden Visa

What the Portugal Golden Visa is

The Portugal Golden Visa is the common name for the Autorização de Residência para Investimento (ARI), a residence permit created in 2012 under article 90-A of Lei 23/2007, the Portuguese immigration law.³ It lets a national of a country outside the EU, EEA and Switzerland obtain temporary residence in Portugal on the strength of an investment, without first holding a residence visa.

The permit is issued for two years and renewed for further two-year periods while the investment is held.¹ Holders may live and work in Portugal, travel within the Schengen area, bring close family, and after five years of legal residence apply for permanent residence. Citizenship follows a separate law with its own, longer, clock (see permanent residence and citizenship).

What sets the ARI apart from most European residence-by-investment permits is the stay requirement: seven days in the first year and fourteen in each period after that. It is a permit designed for people who want the option of Portugal rather than an immediate move.

Qualifying investments

The law lists the investments that qualify. Since Lei 56/2023 took effect on 7 October 2023, five remain, and none of them may be directed, directly or indirectly, at real estate.¹² Every route carries the same undertaking: keep the investment for at least five years from the grant of the permit.

Comparing the routes

The table below separates what the law requires from what the route means in practice. The legal minimum is fixed; the practical column is a summary, not advice.

Who can apply

The main applicant must:¹

• be a national of a country outside the EU, the EEA and Switzerland;
• make one of the qualifying investments personally, or through a single-member company of which they are the shareholder, with funds transferred from abroad;
• have no conviction for a crime punishable in Portugal by more than one year in prison;
• not be subject to an entry ban or flagged in the Schengen Information System;
• hold health insurance recognised in Portugal for the period of residence;
• have no outstanding debts to the Portuguese tax authority or Social Security, evidenced by a certificate issued within the previous 45 days;
• have entered and be staying in Portugal lawfully at the time of the biometrics appointment;
• sign a declaration on honour to keep the investment for at least five years.

There is no age minimum in the law beyond legal capacity, no language test for the permit itself, and no requirement to become tax resident in Portugal.

Minimum stay

The holder must be present in Portugal for at least seven days in the first year and at least fourteen days in each subsequent period.¹ The days need not be consecutive. This is the lowest presence requirement among European residence-by-investment permits that keep a path to permanent residence open, which is why many holders keep their main home elsewhere.

Time spent in Portugal under the ARI counts as legal residence for permanent residence and for naturalisation, but the Nationality Law now applies its own tests of duration and connection. Low physical presence does not stop the clock for permanent residence; it may weigh on a later citizenship application.

Family members

Family reunification may be requested at the same time as the main application, and is decided only if the main application succeeds.¹ Under article 98 of Lei 23/2007 the family covers:

• the spouse, or a partner in a stable relationship of at least two years;
• children under 18, and adult children who are unmarried, dependent and in full-time education;
• parents of the applicant or spouse who are dependent on them.

Each family member holds their own residence permit with the same validity as the main applicant's and pays their own government fees. The investment threshold does not rise with the number of dependants.

Application process

The order below follows AIMA's document list. Timings are deliberately absent: the agency has carried a large backlog since 2023, the government undertook in October 2025 to clear pending Golden Visa files during 2026, and published estimates from advisers vary widely. Treat any specific promise of processing time with caution.⁶

1. Obtain a Portuguese tax number (NIF)Required to open a bank account and to hold the investment. Non-residents appoint a tax representative in Portugal.
2. Open a Portuguese bank accountThe qualifying funds must arrive by international transfer into an account in the applicant's name, or the name of their single-member company.
3. Make the investment and collect the evidenceFund units, research declaration, GEPAC declaration, or company registry documents, depending on the route.
4. Submit the application on AIMA's ARI portalUpload the identity, criminal record, insurance, tax and investment documents and pay the application fee.
5. Attend the biometrics appointment in PortugalAIMA collects fingerprints and photographs from the applicant and each family member. Entry to Portugal for this appointment may require a Schengen visa.
6. Receive the decision and pay the issuance feeThe residence card is valid for two years from issue.
7. Renew every two yearsShow the investment is still held and the stay requirement met. Renewals can be filed through AIMA's online renewals portal since February 2026.

Fees and other costs

Government fees are set by Portaria 307/2023 and updated periodically.⁵ Figures published by legal advisers in 2026 for the fees AIMA actually charges fall in these ranges, per person:

Confirm the current tariff on AIMA's own fee page before budgeting; the spread above reflects different advisers quoting different revisions of the table. Beyond government fees, applicants usually pay for legal representation, tax representation, translations and apostilles, health insurance, fund subscription or management fees, and travel for the biometrics appointment. None of these has a fixed price and this site does not estimate them.

Permanent residence and citizenship

Three different statuses are often run together. They rest on different laws.

Temporary residence (the Golden Visa)

2 years renewable while the investment is held

Permanent residence

After 5 years article 80, Lei 23/2007; a specific ARI permanent permit is issued

Citizenship by naturalisation

After 10 years 7 for EU and CPLP nationals, under Lei Orgânica 1/2026

The Nationality Law was amended and republished by Lei Orgânica 1/2026, in force since 19 May 2026.⁴ For applications made from that date the residence period required for naturalisation is ten years for most third-country nationals and seven years for nationals of EU and Portuguese-speaking (CPLP) countries. The period counts from the grant of the residence permit, not from the date the application was filed. Applications already pending on 19 May 2026 continue under the previous five-year rule. An earlier version of the reform, passed in October 2025, was partly struck down by the Constitutional Court in December 2025 before the current text was adopted.

The Golden Visa itself was not changed by the 2026 law. Holders still reach permanent residence after five years of legal residence. What changed is how long they must hold residence before a Portuguese passport becomes available, and the law's integration requirements, which include Portuguese language at A2 level and a knowledge test.

What changed in 2023

Until 7 October 2023 the best-known routes were the purchase of property (from €500,000, or €350,000 for renovation, with 20% reductions in low-density areas) and a €1.5 million capital transfer. Lei 56/2023, the housing package known as Mais Habitação, removed both, along with the option of investing in real-estate funds.²

Applications lodged before that date continue under the old rules, and permits already granted on a property investment are renewable. Anyone reading a guide that still quotes a property route, or a €350,000 or €280,000 threshold, is reading pre-2023 material.

Documents

AIMA's list for the main applicant. Family members supply their own identity, record and relationship documents.¹

• Passport or other valid travel document
• Proof of lawful entry and stay in Portugal
• Criminal record certificate from the country of origin and any country of residence for more than one year, apostilled or legalised, with a certified translation
• Authorisation for AIMA to consult the Portuguese criminal record
• Health insurance recognised in Portugal, or proof of coverage by the national health service
• Certificate of no debts from the tax authority and Social Security, issued within 45 days
• Declaration on honour to maintain the investment for at least five years
• Proof of the international transfer of funds
• Route-specific evidence: fund certificate and manager declaration; research institution declaration; GEPAC declaration; commercial registry certificates and contracts
• Commercial registry certificate of the single-member company, if the investment was made through one
• Portuguese tax number (NIF)

Common mistakes

• Relying on pre-2023 information. Property does not qualify. Guides that say otherwise are out of date.
• Confusing the fund's marketing with the legal test. The law asks for a non-real-estate fund with five-year maturity and 60% in Portuguese companies. Return projections are not part of the test and are not guaranteed.
• Treating the donation route as an investment. The €250,000 cultural route is a gift. Its advantage is certainty and a lower cash outlay, not a return.
• Planning around a five-year passport. For applications from 19 May 2026 the naturalisation period is ten years for most applicants, counted from the grant of the permit.
• Letting the tax or Social Security certificate lapse. It is valid for 45 days. Applicants often obtain it too early in the process.
• Underestimating the family fee stack. Each dependant pays the same government fees as the main applicant.

Which route fits

The choice usually turns on two questions: does the applicant want capital back, and do they want to run anything in Portugal.

• Capital back, nothing to run: the investment fund route. The work is in choosing a manager and reading the fund documents.
• Lowest outlay, nothing to run, no return expected: thecultural heritage route.
• A business to build or relocate: the company and jobs route if capital is being invested, or the job creation route if the headcount is the point.
• An existing relationship with a Portuguese university or research centre: thescientific research route.

Whatever the route, the decision is made once and held for five years. The fund prospectus, the donation agreement or the business plan deserves more reading time than the residence application form.