On October 29, the Council of Ministers approved a decree-law setting out how the revised Citizenship Law will be implemented in practice, ECO reports. The law has been in force since May 19, but applications for naturalisation based on length of residence were effectively not being processed without these rules, DN Brasil reports.
The decree establishes the framework for an exam covering Portugal’s language, history, culture and institutions, sets requirements for financial means, and outlines the procedure for a formal declaration of loyalty to the principles of the rule of law. Biometric data will also be collected. However, some documents will be requested directly by public authorities from one another, rather than from applicants.
Key details are still missing: the minimum income threshold, the exam format and processing times. These will become clear once the rules are published in Diário da República, Portugal’s official gazette. No publication date has been announced.
The residence requirements remain unchanged. Naturalisation requires seven years of legal residence for EU citizens and nationals of Portuguese-speaking countries, and 10 years for everyone else. The clock starts on the date of the first residence permit. Applications submitted before May 19 will be processed under the previous rules, which required five years of residence.
On the same day, the government appointed lawyer César Teixeira as the new head of AIMA, Portugal’s Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum. He has been a member of the agency’s board since 2024. The staff union points out that over the past three years, AIMA’s workforce has grown from 714 to 840, while the number of foreign residents in Portugal has risen from 1 million to nearly 1.6 million. As of September 18, 89,000 lawsuits against AIMA were awaiting decisions in the courts, The Portugal News reports.
Those who have already submitted an application should not withdraw it: it will be processed under the new timelines. Everyone else may be better off waiting for the rules to be published and gathering proof of income in advance.
