There’s lots of information online about getting a visa to live in Portugal. We relied on Facebook groups and YouTube channels to fill in the gaps in the official information. We applied for the D7 visa, for people with retirement income.
We started collecting our information in November 2022. Here’s the list:
- Portuguese fiscal ID number (NIF) and a bank account at a Portuguese bank. We used Bordr.io since you need an in-country person to facilitate it.
- Copies of our passports notarized at our local bank.
- Two passport-sized photos each.
- FBI background check. We got our fingerprints done at a local post office, which sent them to the FBI.
- Three months of financial statements from our banks and investments. You do have to reveal a lot of your financial life. They want to know you can afford to live on your current income, not income from Portugal work.
- 2021 tax return.
- Social Security proof-of-income letters, available online in our SS accounts.
- Travel insurance to cover the period before we’re finally registered as a resident
- Contract for an apartment rental. This was the hardest step. We used Savvy Cat Realty relocation services. Our local buyer’s agent Graciosa and we searched Idealista.pt and she visited the candidate apartments and dealt with the rental agents.
- Notarized copies of birth and marriage certificates, not required but seemed useful since we have different names.
- Personal statements about why we are coming to Portugal and how we have the means to do it.
It’s a long list!!
Our timeline
First we submitted everything as a collection of PDF documents in the consulate’s online portal. Later when we got our appointment at the Boston consulate to review our submission, we brought everything on paper.
We submitted our application online in early December 2022. Our appointment at the Boston consulate was February 14. We didn’t expect it would be a two-month wait. We had to rejuggle all our intended dates when submitting in December because we couldn’t have our travel planned for before the appointment in February. In December, it was satisfactory to say we were working on the apartment rental.
At our February in-person appointment at the consulate, we drove to downtown Boston and went through the security checks at the consulate. We brought an packet of papers that contained printed copies of all the documents that were in our online submission. Plus, we could add our apartment rental contract. To make things as digestible as possible, we included a table of contents page that listed everything. The appointment was quick and easy. The gracious consulate person checked through our packets and was satisfied. We paid the fee, in cash, and our submission was ready for them to send to Lisbon. He thought it would be about 8 weeks before we got an approval.
Update:
In mid-March, we got word from the Boston consulate that our D7 resident visa has been approved. That was only four weeks. Very fast! We were already in Portugal on a tourist visa getting our apartment ready. We’ll wait until the goods we shipped arrive before we go back for our visa stamp.
There are more steps to finalize our resident status. After we return with our passports stamped with the D7 visa, we’ll have an interview with the Portuguese immigration service. Then we can register as an official resident and sign up for the public health care system.