The sole purpose of this article is to detail every non-citizen of Portugal on the process on how to acquire Portugal permanent residence, revealing the eligible criteria and documents required.
Portugal as known is a southern European country on the Iberian Peninsula, bordering Spain. It’s also known to be one of the oldest countries in Europe and its language, Portuguese, is one of the most spoken language in the world.
In recent times, many foreigners do come to Portugal for tourism purpose or maybe for other purpose that requires temporal stay and at the end of the day, these foreigners strikes out plan to permanently reside in Portugal because of some great reasons.
Benefits of living in Portugal
- They’ve great fluency of speaking foreign languages especially English. This is unlike most European countries. Portuguese don’t just have fluency on their own language but other foreign language, so I you planning on living in Portugal, you won’t have a bad experience on communication.
- They’ve one of the best modern technology and infrastructure. In fact, one of the biggest technology and web events is hosted in Lisbon, Portugal. You can go make enquiry about the web summit event hosted yearly in Lisbon with hundreds of thousand attendants.
- They definitely got one of the greatest cultures full of history, traditions and also lot of entertainment.
- Standard of living in Portugal is not costly accompanied with healthy and affordable living.
- Portugal is a great country for tourism. They own one of the largest artificial underwater parks in the world.
- People in Portugal are very friendly people and you would never find a hard time communicating with them as stated earlier.
- It’s easy to acquire a property in Portugal.
- They’ve one of the best climate conditions in the world with an outstanding quality of life.
There are many other benefits of living in Portugal that you can uncover yourself after maybe you’ve obtained your Portugal permanent residence. However, in regards to that, I’ll briefly explain the process to obtaining permanent residency in Portugal.
Quick Guide: Portugal Permanent Residence
There are different paths to gain residency in Portugal. However, whichever path you follow, you need to first gain temporal residency before you can proceed to applying for Portugal permanent residence.
- You can gain residency in Portugal through marriage. If you choose to fall in love with a Portuguese and then proceed to marriage, then you’ll be entitled or rather eligible for Portuguese residency. However, this would entitle you to live and work in Portugal indefinitely.
- Another path to achieve residency is through work. Maybe you’ve gotten a job opportunity in Portugal and of course you’ll need to reside in Portugal while working. So with your work residence visa in Portugal, you’re eligible to gain residency in Portugal.
- You can also gain residency by investment. In fact, many foreigners quickly obtain Portugal citizenship by investment. It’s also an easy medium to gaining permanent residency in Portugal.
- You can also gain residency in Portugal by study. Maybe you’ve gotten admitted into a higher institution or University in Portugal, as long as the study period is longer than 6 months. This makes you eligible to apply for residency in Portugal and students are also allowed to take part-time jobs depending on the approval of SEF. However, after study period, you’re also given search permit for a period of one year, which gives you time to seek for employment opportunity so you can finally live and work in Portugal.
Once you’re a holder of the temporary residence permit for a period of at least 5 years, then you can apply for Portugal permanent residence. However, within that period, you must not be convicted of a major crime in Portugal; you must have a place of abode in Portugal and also a financial means sustaining you. Also, in most cases, it’s required you know the basic Portuguese language.
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Benefits of being a Permanent Residency in Portugal
- You won’t need to apply for a residential visa to enter Portugal.
- Applicant get to live and work in Portugal and also get lot of other opportunities.
- Immigrant can easily travel to other Schengen area without the need of visa.
- You can easily request for Portuguese nationality or citizenship.
- You also get benefits of family regrouping.
Document Requirements
- Application form signed by you to be submitted by you.
- Two recent passport styled photograph
- Original photocopy of passport and other valid travel documents
- Evidence of income and other sufficient funding.
- Evidence of adequate accommodation
- Clean criminal record verified by SEF except you’re less than 16 years old.
- Evidence that you know the basic command of Portuguese language.
- Original photocopy of birth certificate if applicable
- Original photocopy of marriage certificate if applicable.
Once the above documents are presented, you can then proceed to permanent residence card application. If you’ve any difficulty on application, you can refer to the official Portugal immigration platform or let us know what the issue is via comment section.
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