Golden visa to Portuguese citizenship: now 10 years

Yes, your golden visa years count. Portugal’s investment residence permit (the ARI) is an ordinary residence permit in the eyes of the nationality law, and that law counts time spent in Portugal under any permit issued under the immigration act as legal residence. There is no special golden visa track to citizenship, and no penalty either.

What changed is the number. For applications filed since 19 May 2026, most investors need 10 years of legal residence, not the 5 that golden visa brochures promised. Citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries and of the EU need 7. And the clock now starts when the permit is granted, not when you applied for it — which, if your golden visa took two or three years to be approved, is worth that much again. The general rules are in our guide to the new 7- and 10-year residence periods; this page applies them to the golden visa.

Why the golden visa counts at all

Many investors assume the golden visa is a separate animal — a permit for people who don’t really live in Portugal — and that citizenship would treat it differently. It doesn’t. The nationality law does not list permits one by one. It defines legal residence by reference to the whole immigration act: anyone who is in Portugal with their status regularised under any of the permits, visas or authorisations that act provides for is a legal resident.

The investment residence permit is one of those authorisations. So the years count. The advisers who sold it as a “path to citizenship” were not wrong about the path. They were wrong, as of May 2026, about its length.

Five years then, ten years now

Before the reform, naturalisation by residence required five years for everyone, whatever their nationality. And one counting rule was particularly generous to investors: the time between applying for a residence permit and getting it counted too, as long as the application was eventually approved. For an investor whose golden visa decision took a couple of years, the five-year mark arrived not long after the second card.

Organic Law 1/2026, in force since 19 May 2026, changed both things at once: it raised the period, and it repealed the rule that counted the waiting time.

Take an American investor who applied for a golden visa in March 2022 and was approved in March 2025. Under the old rules, the count started in March 2022 and a citizenship application became possible in March 2027. Under the new rules, the count starts in March 2025 and needs ten years: March 2035. Same investment, same person, eight extra years.

One group escapes this entirely: anyone who had already filed their citizenship application by 18 May 2026. Pending applications are decided under the old law, however long the registry takes. If that is you, read our page on applications filed before the reform.

Is 7 days a year enough?

This is the question the golden visa makes unavoidable, because the permit was designed for people who do not live in Portugal. The immigration regulation sets minimum stays of 7 days, consecutive or not, in the first year, and 14 days in each following two-year period. But it opens by saying what those minimums are for: renewing the residence permit. They keep your card alive. They were never written as a citizenship rule.

The nationality law, for its part, sets no day count at all. It counts years of legal residence, and it defines a legal resident as someone who holds a permit and “is here”. How the Portuguese registry will read that second half for someone who spent 14 days in the country every two years is not written anywhere — not as a yes, not as a no. If an adviser promises you either answer, ask which provision says so.

Two other requirements lean the same way. On the day you apply you must show you can support yourself, and you must prove Portuguese at A2 level. Both are easier to show from a life that actually runs in Portugal than from one week a year.

Keeping ten years unbroken

Ten years is longer than the investment itself has to last. The immigration rules require you to keep the investment for five years, counted from the day the permit is granted, and the permit is renewed every two years as long as you do. Here is how the decade usually fits together:

1. Years 0–5: temporary investment permit. Renew every two years, keep the investment, meet the minimum stays.
2. Year 5: permanent residence. After five years on a temporary permit you can apply for permanent residence. It requires, among other things, basic Portuguese, means of support and a place to live. For golden visa holders it is issued as a permanent investment residence permit.
3. Years 5–10: permanent investment permit. This one matters: the permanent investment permit is expressly carved out of the rule that lets the authorities cancel permanent residence after a long absence. For someone who still needs five more years of legal residence, it is the permit least likely to lapse along the way.

What if there is a gap — a card that expired before the renewal came through? The law adds up periods of legal residence, continuous or not, as long as they fall inside a window: 12 years for people who need 10, 9 years for people who need 7. That is two years of slack, not unlimited slack. Our full timeline from arrival to passport walks through that window step by step.

What the golden visa itself lost in 2023

If you are still deciding whether to invest, there is a second change to know about, and it predates the nationality reform. Since 7 October 2023, under the “Mais Habitação” housing law, Portugal no longer accepts new golden visa applications based on buying property, on renovating property, or on a plain capital transfer. People who already held a golden visa through one of those routes can keep renewing it, and applications already pending on that date stayed valid.

The routes still open to new applicants:

In low-density regions, the job, research and culture thresholds can be 20% lower. None of this changes the citizenship maths: every route produces the same permit, and the permit counts the same way.

1. 7 Oct 2023

   Housing law takes effect: no new golden visas through property or capital transfer. Existing ones can still be renewed.
2. 18 May 2026

   Last day to file for citizenship with 5 years and with the waiting time counted.
3. 19 May 2026

   Organic Law 1/2026 in force: 10 years (7 for EU and Portuguese-speaking countries), counted from the permit, plus a civic knowledge requirement.

What you will need on the day you apply

Naturalisation checks every requirement at the moment you file, not during the process. For a golden visa holder, the practical list is:

• The years of legal residence, inside the window, with the permits to prove them.
• Portuguese at A2 level. The CIPLE exam is one way to prove it, not the only one — see five other ways to prove A2.
• Knowledge of Portuguese culture, history, symbols, rights and duties, and how the state is organised. This is the new part. The regulation that says how it will be tested has not been published yet; the law already says what it covers.
• Criminal record certificates from Portugal and from the countries you lived in after turning 16, and proof you can support yourself.

One practical point: the citizenship application goes to the civil registry (IRN), under the Ministry of Justice. Not to AIMA. AIMA handles your residence permit; it has no role in deciding nationality.

Where to start if you are years away

Redo your count from the date your first golden visa was granted, not the date you applied — that is the starting point now. Then check that each renewal will land before the previous card expires, and plan the switch to permanent residence at year five.

And use the years for the part no investment can buy. The five subjects the law names — language and culture, history, national symbols, rights and duties, the organisation of the state — are the same for every applicant, investor or not. To see where you stand today, try the free practice test: 20 questions, no sign-up.