Portugal Golden Visa Citizenship Now Takes Ten Years, Not Five

Portugal did not close its golden visa in 2026. It changed what the visa eventually leads to, and that is a different kind of news. For most applicants, Portugal golden visa citizenship now takes ten years rather than five.

The instrument is Lei Orgânica 1/2026, published on 18 May 2026. Article 8 says the law enters into force the day after publication, which puts the switch on 19 May 2026. It rewrote the nationality law. It did not touch the immigration law that governs the visa.

A programme whose price went up is one thing. A programme whose end point moved is another, and this is the second kind.

What changed on 19 May 2026

Until 18 May the nationality law asked the same thing of everyone. The version republished in 2024 required applicants to have "resided legally in Portuguese territory for at least five years".

The republished text now sets two periods instead of one. Seven years applies "in the case of nationals of countries with Portuguese as an official language and citizens of European Union member states". Ten years applies "in the case of nationals of other countries".

• Naturalisation, EU and Portuguese-official-language nationals. Until 18 May 2026: five years. From 19 May 2026: seven years.
• Naturalisation, all other nationals. Until 18 May 2026: five years. From 19 May 2026: ten years.
• Qualifying investment routes. Until 18 May 2026: five routes. From 19 May 2026: the same five routes.
• Lowest qualifying amount. Until 18 May 2026: EUR 200,000 in a low-density territory. From 19 May 2026: EUR 200,000 in a low-density territory.
• Permanent residence. Until 18 May 2026: five years. From 19 May 2026: five years.

Naturalisation periods from Lei Orgânica 1/2026, published 18 May 2026. Investment amounts and permanent residence from the immigration law as it stands on 27 September 2026.

For a British, Turkish, Emirati or American applicant, the wait doubled. For a Brazilian applicant, and for anyone holding the passport of an EU member state, it grew by two years instead of five.

The years are not the only change. The same article now asks for a test or certificate covering Portuguese language, culture, history and national symbols rather than language alone. It also asks for knowledge of the rights and duties attached to Portuguese nationality. Beyond that it requires a solemn declaration of adherence to the principles of the democratic rule of law, and proof that the applicant can support themselves.

Who this affects, and who it does not

The transitional rule runs to two short paragraphs, and it does more work than anything else in the law.

If your citizenship application was already filed

Article 7(2) of the amending law says that administrative proceedings pending on the date the law entered into force are governed by the nationality law in its earlier wording. An application sitting in the queue on 19 May 2026 is therefore judged on the five-year rule.

If you hold a golden visa but have not applied yet

This is the group the text does not answer. Article 7(2) protects proceedings that were already open. It says nothing about residence time accumulated by someone who has not yet filed. The law gives no formula for counting that time, and the article stops there. Anyone in this position needs advice on their own file rather than a general reading, because the answer is not in the statute.

If you are deciding now

Assume the new numbers. Seven years if you hold an EU passport or the passport of a country with Portuguese as an official language, ten years otherwise, counted from legal residence rather than from the day you invest.

Portugal golden visa requirements in 2026: what did not change

The nationality law left the visa itself alone. The qualifying activities in the immigration law are unchanged by it, and the law lists them in five forms.

• EUR 500,000 into Portuguese collective investment undertakings that are not real estate funds. At the time of the investment the fund must have at least five years left to maturity, and at least 60 per cent of the fund's investments must be in commercial companies headquartered in Portugal
• EUR 500,000 transferred into research activity
• EUR 250,000 into artistic production or the upkeep of national cultural heritage
• EUR 500,000 to form a company with five permanent jobs, or to reinforce the capital of an existing one on the employment conditions the same article sets out
• At least ten jobs created, with no minimum capital attached

In low-density territories the thresholds for the jobs, research and cultural routes fall by 20 per cent. That puts the cultural route at EUR 200,000, the research route at EUR 400,000 and the jobs route at eight. The law defines those territories by population density and by regional output per head.

Whichever route you take, the investment has to be maintained for at least five years. The regulation counts that period from the date the residence permit is granted, not from the date the money moves.

Three further routes appear in the law only as the word "revoked". Two of them were the property routes. The current text also states that qualifying investment "cannot be aimed, directly or indirectly, at real estate investment". That closes the question properly. You cannot reach this visa by buying a flat in Lisbon, and you cannot reach it through a fund that buys flats in Lisbon either. Our Portugal golden visa page sets out the routes that do qualify.

The residence permit is renewed in two-year cycles. The stay requirement is still light. The regulation asks for seven days in national territory in the first year and fourteen days in each subsequent two-year period, consecutive or not.

The five-year clock did not disappear

It now ends somewhere else. Permanent residence still requires five years as a holder of a temporary residence permit, no sentence of more than one year in the previous five, means of subsistence, accommodation and basic Portuguese. That article of the immigration law has not been amended since 2012.

So the timeline has two markers instead of one. At five years you can hold the right to stay indefinitely. At seven or ten years you can ask for the passport. The first of those is a residence outcome and the second is a mobility outcome. Anyone who came to this programme for the second one should check which of the two they were actually buying. Programmes that run off a property set their own clocks, and our comparison of the Dubai golden visa and the investor visa shows how different those can be.

One more change deserves a mention. A separate law published on 10 September 2026 also amends the immigration law, implementing the European Union's migration and asylum package. It does amend the article that defines qualifying investment, but only by adding definitions for screening and border-return procedures. The investment routes and the real estate exclusion are reproduced unchanged, and the article that grants the investor permit is not touched at all.

What to check before you commit

1. 1.Your own passport decides the number. Seven years and ten years are not two readings of the same rule. They are two categories, and the law sorts by nationality.
2. 2.Count from residence, not from the transfer. The period in the nationality law runs on legal residence. The date your money moved is not the date anything starts.
3. 3.Ask what the file is for. If the goal is a European base, permanent residence at five years may already be the answer. If the goal is an asset that carries residence with it, that is a different search, and our guide to buying in Dubai starts from the property rather than the programme.
4. 4.The fund conditions in the law are eligibility conditions. The five-year maturity and the 60 per cent domestic allocation are what the immigration law requires of a qualifying fund. The law says nothing about how any particular fund is run.
5. 5.Get the transitional question answered in writing. If you already hold the permit, the treatment of your accumulated time is the single largest variable in your plan, and the statute does not resolve it.

Where this leaves a property buyer

Portugal places no residency condition on a purchase, and a purchase does not lead to this visa. Where a purchase does carry residency, the rule says so in the statute rather than by implication, and our pages on the Dubai and Greek programmes set out what each one currently asks for. SmartDecision Properties treats the programme and the property as two separate questions, because in Portugal they are.

This article is general information. It is not legal, immigration, tax or investment advice. Immigration and nationality rules change, and the consequences of getting them wrong fall on the applicant. Verify your own position with a lawyer licensed in Portugal before you commit money or file anything.