Portugal golden visa delays spark legal fight over trapped capital

Around 12,000 foreign investors are preparing legal action against Portugal over years-long delays in processing golden visa residence permits. A petition signed by 1,200 affected applicants has been submitted to the Justice Ombudsperson, and a class action lawsuit before the administrative court is expected to follow.

The dispute highlights a stark regulatory risk for participants in EU residency-by-investment programmes. Applicants must commit a minimum of €250,000, but are legally barred from repatriating that capital until they secure permanent residency. Because initial permits are severely delayed, that capital remains locked in Portuguese assets far longer than anticipated.

Portuguese law mandates that residence permits be issued within 90 days. Immigration lawyer Madalena Monteiro notes that processing currently averages nearly five years. "Many people feel they've been cheated by the change in the law," she says. "They want to take legal action against the state."

The administrative bottleneck is compounded by a recent legislative change backed by the center-right government and the far-right Chega party. The waiting period for naturalization for most non-EU citizens has doubled from five to ten years, pushing back eligibility for permanent residency and trapping funds even longer.

Servet Tasman, a telecommunications worker who invested €350,000 in southern Portugal in 2021, illustrates the financial impact. "According to my calculation, now it is going to be 2037. In one night I lost nine years," he says. Under the old rules, he would have been eligible for citizenship in 2028, but his capital is now trapped until at least 2030.

Rui Armindo de Freitas, the secretary of state responsible for the issue, attributes the delays to an inherited backlog of over one million unprocessed visa applications, 98% of which he claims have now been cleared. He argues the government simply lacks the resources to meet the 90-day legal deadline and must prioritize.

Agencies dispute the government's assertion that investors misunderstood the citizenship timeline. Gilda Pereira, an agency head, notes that Portuguese consulates previously used their own promotional posters advertising citizenship prospects. "And now the government is trying to pin the blame on us," she says.

Any legal resolution is likely to be slow. Portugal's court system is notoriously sluggish, meaning a verdict may not arrive until after the new, extended citizenship waiting periods have already expired for the current cohort of applicants.