POSTERN

Portugal

Golden visa — investment fund route. Residence by investing €500,000 in a qualifying Portuguese venture-capital or private-equity fund; the real-estate route closed in October 2023.

Free · The law behind every answer · Checked Sep 27, 2026

Golden visa — investment fund route

A residence permit valid 2 years, renewable for two further 2-year periods, without requiring you to live in Portugal full time.

Who qualifies

You keep your U.S. citizenship.

1

Does it fit your family?

One question, from the program’s own rules.

Savings you could move or invest?

Not legal advice.

2

What it takes.

Investment
About $550,000.
Time
12–24 months given AIMA's investment-visa backlog.
Cost
About $10,000–20,000 beyond the investment itself: legal fees, fund subscription costs, government fees and translations.
The hard part
Choosing a CMVM-registered fund that actually meets the 60%-in-Portugal test and will still exist in 5 years.

Dollar figures are converted from the local currency at the rate the program’s research used; the official figure is in the local currency.

3

Citizens by 2038.

If your first permit is issued in 2027 and you keep living there, this is the road.

  1. 2027
    First residence permit

    2 years, renewable for 2 years at a time.

  2. 2029
    Renew the permit

    Filed before the old one lapses; renews for 2 years.

  3. 2031
    Renew the permit

    Filed before the old one lapses; renews for 2 years.

  4. 2032
    Permanent residence

    Five years on temporary residence permits, basic Portuguese (A2: a CAPLE test such as CIPLE, a Portuguese school certificate or a Português Língua de Acolhimento course), and no prison sentence over one year in those five years.

  5. 2037
    Apply for citizenship

    With a language test and a civics test.

  6. 2038
    Citizenship
Language
Proof by test or certificate of enough Portuguese. Nationals of Portuguese-speaking countries are presumed to know the language unless they plainly do not. The law sets no level; the old rules asked for A2 (CIPLE), and the new regulation is still awaited.
Civics
New in 2026: a test or certificate showing knowledge of Portuguese culture, history and national symbols, plus the rights and duties of citizens and how the state is organised, and a solemn declaration of adherence to the rule of law. Nationals of Portuguese-speaking countries still have to show the culture and civics part.
Time away
Years of legal residence under any permit are added up, whether continuous or broken, as long as they all fall within a 12-year window (9 years for EU and Portuguese-speaking nationals). The clock now starts when the first residence permit is issued, not when it was applied for. Separately, a temporary permit can be cancelled after more than 6 months away in a row or 8 months in total during its validity.
Two passports
Yes. You keep your U.S. citizenship.
  • Only 7 days in Portugal in the first year and 14 in each later period keep the permit, and golden-visa years have counted toward citizenship; whether that survives the 2026 law's new regulation is not yet confirmed. After five years it converts to a permanent investor permit.
  • The government had 90 days from 18 May 2026 to update the Nationality Regulation with the new test; I did not find the published regulation, so the language level and the form of the culture and civics test are not confirmed.
  • No official decision-time figure found; the registry (IRN) backlog has run to years, but I could not source a range.
  • Whether 'Portuguese-speaking countries' includes Equatorial Guinea (a CPLP member with Portuguese as one official language) is not settled in the text; it is left off the 7-year list.
  • The 6-months-in-a-row / 8-months-total absence rule for keeping a temporary permit comes from the earlier research pass (Lei 23/2007 art. 85), not re-read today.
  • Applications pending on 19 May 2026 stay under the old 5-year law; how years already built up by people who had not filed will be treated awaits AIMA and IRN guidance.
  • How long the decision takes isn’t published; we allow a year.
The law behind these dates
4

Living there.

Time you must spend there
7 days in year one; 14 days in each following 2-year period — much lower than ordinary residence permits.
Tax
Golden-visa holders are not automatically Portuguese tax residents unless they exceed 183 days/year or keep a habitual home there; many hold the permit without becoming tax resident at all.

We never file a tax return. We tell you what applies and brief the professional who does.

5

Start today.

  1. Engage a Portuguese immigration lawyer and CMVM-registered fund manager before filing.Open aima.gov.pt ↗
  2. Round up the papers.
    • Proof of the funds to invest: about $550,000, and where they came from
    • Request your FBI Identity History Summary
    • Health cover for the move
    • Get the NIF (Portuguese tax number)
6

Or let us run it.

$900for your first year as a founding member. Then $399 a year, automatically.Standard first year: $1,200. Everyone renews at $399.One membership, the whole family. Accounts and activation included.

20 steps, from the first paper to the passport. You do 4 of them: send what we ask for, sign, and show up. We run the rest, and keep every permit renewed on time. Accounts and activation are included, whether you move now or keep the plan ready. Accounts depend on provider availability. Government, record and approved third-party charges are extra.

Run it for my family →
7
ISSUED TO

YOUR FAMILY

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