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Portugal’s Parliament Votes to Approve Extending Citizenship Timeline to 7-10 Years

Counting begins at residence permit issuance, potentially adding a further 2-3 years to the naturalization timeline.

Moustafa Daly

IMI
• Cairo

Portugal’s Assembly of the Republic voted today to approve a substitution text that resets the citizenship timeline for new applicants: Seven years for citizens of European Union Member States and Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), and 10 years for all other nationalities.

The law shields pending citizenship applications from retroactive changes, but not residency holders that haven’t yet initiated citizenship applications.

The bill formalizes that the citizenship clock starts only when authorities grant a residence permit, not at the initiation of residency applications. Legal experts say authorities typically take two to three years to issue residence permits for foreigners, and so the naturalization timeline effectively becomes about 9-13 years for most foreigners and golden visa investors, unless residence processing speeds up.

The bill introduces a new residence‑counting rule: officials will total all periods of legal residence, continuous or interrupted, so long as they fall within a ten‑year window.

Possible Constitutional Court Review

Article 5 places applications filed before entry into force under the previous Nationality Law, assessed against the rules in place on the filing date. The bill appears to deny that protection to current residence holders who still haven’t applied for citizenship, but were planning to do so at the conclusion of the five years under the old rules.

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Parliament is set to hold the final global vote on Tuesday, October 28, 2025. Given today’s vote, the bill seems likely to pass in its current wording. If it does, the Assembly will send the bill to the President for promulgation; at which points he can sign it into law, or send it for for a Constitutional Court review. It becomes legally binding when the official gazette, Diário da República, publishes it.

Within 90 days of publication, the Government must update the Nationality Regulation and set the content and tests for the new civics and state-knowledge requirements.

IMI Pros who can help with the Portugal Golden Visa

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