Portugal Golden Visa processing time in 2026: two real cases, month by month

Ask how long the Portugal Golden Visa takes and you’ll hear anything from six months to three years.

That’s no use to you when you’re deciding when to wire the money, when to fly in for biometrics and when your family can travel with you.

The honest answer is a dated one. So we’ve taken two recent Golden Visa files of ours and walked through them month by month, next to the government’s own figures on the queue behind them.

The routes, the costs and the fees are on our Golden Visa page. This post is only about the wait, and what it does to your plans.

In this guide8 sections

1. How long does the Portugal Golden Visa take in 2026?
2. What happened to an investor who filed in March 2025?
3. What happened to a family of five who filed in November 2025?
4. What do these two cases mean for your own plans?
5. How big is AIMA's Golden Visa backlog?
6. What does the law say about the deadline, and what are investors doing about it?
7. Does the wait cost you time on the road to citizenship?
8. Can you speed up a Portugal Golden Visa?

How long does the Portugal Golden Visa take in 2026?

Plan for well over a year to your first residence card. The two recent files we analysed for this post took about seventeen months from filing to a card in hand (filed March 2025), and about eighteen months from filing to a booked biometrics date, with the card still to come (filed November 2025).

We picked these two because they show every stage, from filing to a card in hand, with dates we can stand behind. We don’t publish an average. Every file moves at AIMA’s pace, and a dated case tells you more than a number blended from old files.

The averages you’ll see elsewhere measure something else:

• 50.4 months was the average wait for files completed in the second quarter of 2026, in IMI Daily’s survey reported in October 2026. The quickest of those took 36.3 months.
• Most of those were 2021 to 2023 files that AIMA, Portugal’s immigration agency, has only just finished. So the average rises as the old backlog clears, and tells you little about a file you open this month.
• 14 to 18 months to a first card is what practitioners in the same report were telling new clients to plan for.

What happened to an investor who filed in March 2025?

He had biometrics in January 2026, about ten months after filing, and his card at the end of August 2026, about seventeen months after filing.

He’s from the US and invested through the fund route. Here’s his file, month by month.

Biometrics wasn’t the end. By April 2026 his card was approved, and then it sat unprinted for four months until our partner lawyer escalated it.

The card runs for two years from the day it’s issued, so the delay didn’t shorten it. It was four more months of waiting.

His spouse was booked much later. She filed in April 2025, one month after him. In May 2026 AIMA gave her a biometrics date of March 2027: about twenty-three months after she filed, and fourteen months after his appointment.

What happened to a family of five who filed in November 2025?

All five are booked for biometrics in May 2027, about eighteen months after the investor filed and about fifteen months after his spouse, two children and a parent did.

They’re from the US too, also on the fund route.

Two things in that file matter for your own plans:

• Your family may file later than you. This family filed three months after the investor, because the spouse needed a new passport and a fresh apostilled criminal record first. AIMA happened to book all five for the same month, but the first case shows you can’t count on that.
• Read every notice against every name. The first set of appointments left the investor out, and our partner lawyer had to get it corrected between July and August 2026.

What do these two cases mean for your own plans?

AIMA controls the long part, and it has got longer. Our March 2025 filer waited about ten months for biometrics. Our November 2025 filer is waiting about eighteen.

Six lessons from these files:

• Your part is short by comparison. Package to submission took about six weeks in the first file and about two weeks in the second, where the NIFs (Portuguese tax numbers) and the lawyer consultation were already done.
• Plan for your family not travelling together. You can only file your family once your fee has been validated, and AIMA can book them later than you, as it did for the spouse in the first case.
• Biometrics isn’t the finish line. After the appointment AIMA still has to decide your file, then produce and send the card. In the first case that took seven months, four of them with an approved card waiting to be printed.
• Your document expiry sets your timetable. Criminal record certificates last about 90 days and you need current ones again at biometrics. Start every family member’s criminal checks, passports and powers of attorney on the same day as yours.
• You can’t add anything after you submit. Check the apostilles on passport copies and other public documents before you file, because AIMA has got stricter. You also have to complete the investment before you apply. If the money is coming out of a US retirement account, read our note on funding the Golden Visa from a 401(k) or IRA before you set a filing date.
• Whether you need a Portuguese bank account depends on your fund. Some funds take your money without one. Even then, you may want one to pay the government fees, and that account can be the slowest step of all.

How big is AIMA’s Golden Visa backlog?

About 40,000 Golden Visa applications were still waiting in early October 2026, on the government’s own figures. The Minister of the Presidency told Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs committee that AIMA had processed 6,000 of the 46,000 pending applications and scheduled biometrics for around 30,000, as IMI Daily reported on 8 October 2026.

That’s 13% processed. The count is of applications, and AIMA’s earlier counts of this queue included family members alongside investors, so don’t read it as 46,000 investors. If you file now, you join thousands of investor files already waiting.

The promise came a year earlier. On 29 October 2025, in the budget debate, the same minister, António Leitão Amaro, said the remaining Golden Visa files would be resolved in 2026. He added that investor files had deliberately been left for the end of the queue.

In February 2026 an official source at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers told Jornal Económico that AIMA kept its goal of clearing all pending requests during 2026, as Essential Business reported.

So the scorecard reads: promised in October 2025, reaffirmed in February 2026, 13% processed by early October 2026. Whether the rest is done by December is for AIMA to show.

What does the law say about the deadline, and what are investors doing about it?

The law gives AIMA 90 days to decide your residence permit application. Portugal’s immigration law says “the application for a residence permit must be decided within 90 days”,^[4] and AIMA’s own Golden Visa FAQ tells you to wait out “the legal decision period of 90 days” after your appointment.

Our March 2025 file took seventeen months. That gap is what the court cases and the complaint below are about.

If AIMA misses the deadline, am I approved?

No. A missed deadline doesn’t approve your first application. The Tribunal Central Administrativo Sul held in October 2024 that silent approval after a missed deadline applies only to renewals.

What some investors have done instead:

• Urgent court actions. Lawyers have been filing urgent actions (an intimação to protect rights, freedoms and guarantees) asking the administrative courts to order AIMA to decide files that have sat for years, as Executive Digest reported in April 2026. The same report counted 133,000 cases already pending in those courts, so the court route has a queue of its own. Whether it’s right for your file is a question for your lawyer.
• A complaint to the Ombudsman. On 24 June 2026, 1,260 people, most of them Golden Visa holders, filed a formal complaint with Portugal’s Ombudsman (the Provedor de Justiça) against the Portuguese State over the new nationality law, ECO reported.
• A call for a task force. In a follow-up on 20 July 2026 the group asked the Ombudsman to refer the law to the Constitutional Court and to press for a task force on residence decisions. One of their lawyers said some applicants had waited three and four years without a residence card.

Does the wait cost you time on the road to citizenship?

Yes. Since 19 May 2026 you need ten years of legal residence for citizenship (seven if you’re a national of an EU or CPLP, Portuguese-speaking, country), counted from your first residence permit. Every month AIMA takes before issuing that permit is a month added to your passport road.

For our March 2025 filer, the ten years run from his first permit in 2026. His filing date in 2025 doesn’t count towards them.

Your five-year investment hold also runs from the permit’s grant, so a slow AIMA stretches that too. Whether the new rule applies to you, or you keep the old five-year one, is in our post on Portugal’s 10-year citizenship rule for Golden Visa investors.

Can you speed up a Portugal Golden Visa?

Only at the edges. AIMA’s Golden Visa FAQ says it books appointments in strict date order and that you may not get to choose the office. Once your file is in, its place among the roughly 40,000 waiting applications isn’t something you, we or a lawyer can move.

What you can do is make sure your file never waits on you.

If you haven’t filed yet:

• File complete, because you can’t add anything afterwards.
• Pay the government fee the moment it’s issued. You can only file your family once your fee has been validated.
• Start every family member’s documents on the same day as yours.

If you’re waiting for the appointment:

• Keep your documents live. Criminal checks expire after about 90 days and you need current ones on the day.
• Expect less notice than the FAQ says. AIMA’s FAQ says you should get 60 to 90 days’ notice where you need a visa to travel, and 90 to 180 days where your documents need consular certification. In the two files above, you’d have got about two months and about nine.
• Don’t miss the date. AIMA’s FAQ says a missed appointment is rescheduled once.

If your file has gone quiet after biometrics, that’s where escalation matters. In our March 2025 file, an approved card sat unprinted from April to August 2026 and moved only when our partner lawyer raised it.

AIMA assigns the date and the office. Our side keeps your file moving and escalates through our partner lawyer when it stalls, which is what AIMA appointment support is for if your file is already in. Someone from our side at the appointment itself is an add-on we quote once AIMA assigns your office.

And be careful with anyone who promises you a fast track. AIMA hasn’t kept the dates it set itself, from the 30 to 90 days it promised in early 2025 to the backlog it said it would clear in 2026. Anyone outside AIMA who gives you a date is guessing.

If you’d actually live in Portugal, a D7, D8 or D2 visa may fit you better than a Golden Visa. The D7 vs D8 vs D2 comparison is one page.

Frequently asked questions

Does my family get biometrics on the same day as me?

Not necessarily. Plan for separate trips. In the first file above the spouse filed one month after the investor and was booked fourteen months after his appointment. In the second, all five were booked for May 2027, but only after a booking that had left the investor out was corrected.

Do I have to live in Portugal while I wait?

No. You file online on AIMA’s ARI portal, and biometrics is the in-person step. Once you hold the permit, you need to spend 7 days in Portugal in the first year and 14 days in each later two-year period.

Does biometrics mean I’m approved?

No. AIMA decides after the appointment. Its FAQ says to wait out the 90-day legal decision period, and you may be asked to fix gaps in your file or respond to a prior hearing. In our March 2025 file the card was approved within about three months of biometrics, then sat unprinted for four more.

What if my criminal record expires before biometrics?

Order a fresh one timed to your appointment. Criminal record certificates last about 90 days and AIMA needs a current one at biometrics, so with nine months’ notice you’ll be ordering a second set. In our November 2025 file the family’s filing slipped by about three months because the spouse needed a fresh apostilled criminal check and a new passport first.

If AIMA misses the 90-day deadline, is my application approved?

No. Silent approval applies to renewals only, as the Tribunal Central Administrativo Sul held in October 2024. AIMA still has to decide your first application.

How much notice will I get for my biometrics appointment?

Expect less than AIMA’s FAQ says. The FAQ says 60 to 90 days where you need a visa to travel, and 90 to 180 days where your documents need consular certification. In the two files above, you’d have got about two months and about nine.

Can I choose which AIMA office I go to?

You may not get to choose. AIMA’s FAQ says it books appointments in date order and assigns the office. Plan your travel once the notice arrives.

What happens if I miss my biometrics appointment?

AIMA’s FAQ says a missed appointment is rescheduled once. So treat the date as fixed, and check that every person on your file can make it as soon as the notice arrives.

How long is the Golden Visa card valid once it’s issued?

Two years from the day it’s issued. In our March 2025 file the four months the approved card waited to be printed didn’t shorten it.

Can I add documents after I file?

No. You can’t add anything after you submit. Check the apostilles on passport copies and other public documents before you file, and complete the investment before you apply.

When does my citizenship clock start?

At your first residence permit. Since 19 May 2026 you need ten years of legal residence (seven for EU and CPLP nationals), counted from that permit, so the time AIMA takes to issue it doesn’t count towards them.

Do I need a Portuguese bank account for the Golden Visa?

It depends on your fund. Some funds take your money from abroad without one. Even then, you may want one to pay the government fees, and that account can be the slowest step, so start it early.

Sources and how we checked

The two cases are recent Golden Visa files of ours that we analysed in full for this post, with month-level dates only. We’ve left out names, funds, banks, AIMA offices and cities, and we give no average. Everything else comes from the public record below, read on 3 November 2026.

1. The October 2026 figures (6,000 of 46,000 processed, around 30,000 appointments), the 50.4-month survey average, the 14 to 18 month estimates and AIMA’s early-2025 promise of 30 to 90 days: IMI Daily, “Portugal says it has processed 13% of its golden visa backlog”, 8 October 2026.
2. The 29 October 2025 promise and the “end of the queue” remark: RTP (Lusa), 29 October 2025.
3. The February 2026 reaffirmation: Essential Business, 13 February 2026, citing Jornal Económico.
4. The 90-day deadline: Lei 23/2007, article 82, as quoted by the Tribunal Central Administrativo Sul in its ruling of 31 October 2024 (process 2997/24.6BELSB), which also holds that silent approval applies to renewals only. See also the consolidated text of Lei 23/2007.
5. AIMA’s 90-day instruction, date-order booking, office allocation, notice periods and one-time rescheduling: AIMA, FAQs on the ARI pendency recovery plan (2025), in Portuguese and English.
6. Card validity of two years from issue: AIMA’s page on the residence permit for investment.
7. Urgent court actions and the 133,000 pending cases: Executive Digest, 21 April 2026.
8. The Ombudsman complaint: ECO, 24 June 2026, and the 20 July 2026 follow-up.
9. Citizenship at ten years, counted from the first residence permit: Lei Orgânica 1/2026 (nationality law), in force 19 May 2026.
10. The five-year hold from the permit’s grant: Decreto Regulamentar 84/2007, article 65-B, confirmed by our partner lawyer on 30 October 2026.