Amendment to the Nationality Law - Sephardic Ancestry and Deadline Counting

Diário da República - March 5th 2024

Today, March 5th, the tenth amendment to the Nationality Law (Organic Law No. 1/2024) was published in the Diário de República, introducing several changes that will come into force on April 1st.

 

Contrary to what was initially expected, the possibility of obtaining Portuguese nationality through Sephardic ancestry will remain in force, as long as the following criteria are cumulatively met:

 

1. Producing evidence of belonging to a Sephardic community of Portuguese origin.

2. Having legally resided in Portuguese territory for a minimum period of three years, consecutive or interspersed, before submitting the nationality application.

 

To certify the demonstration of tradition of belonging to a Sephardic community of Portuguese origin, an evaluation committee will be created, appointed by the member of the government responsible for the justice department, which will include several other stakeholders, and whose main function will be the final approval of that certification.

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Obtaining Nationality | Deadline Counting

 

Today, March 5th, the tenth amendment to the Nationality Law (Organic Law No. 1/2024) was published in the Diário de República, introducing several changes that will come into force on April 1st.

 

In the context of counting the period for the purposes of request to obtain Portuguese nationality (whether via golden visa, D2, D7, or another type of visa), it is important to mention that, with the entry into force of this law, the period of time from the moment when the temporary residence permit was requested will be included in that count.

 

In practical terms, this change will be put in force as follows:

 

The calculation of the period of residence required to submit the nationality application – 5 years – now counts not from the date of issuance of the first residence permit but from the date on which the residence permit was requested.

 

However, this law has yet to be regulated, which, among other things, hopefully will clarifiy what is meant by “the moment at which the temporary residence permit was requested”: if the moment of entry of the application for the authorization process of residence or, on the contrary, the moment of payment of the respective process submission fee.

 

In any case, this new Law represents an important step taken by the Portuguese State towards correcting the enormous delays to which interested parties have been subject, and to a certain extent “compensating” them, allowing them to request the attribution of Portuguese nationality “almost” two years in advance.