From Istanbul to Lisbon: Ersel and Kübra’s D7 Visa Story

“It’s the same story for a lot of Turkish people. Whenever something happens politically, people say, okay, that’s it, I’m moving. It comes up again and again. At some point it stopped being a dream for us and became a plan.

So we started travelling to see where we could actually live. We looked at Spain and Portugal as tourists, and we’d been to Lisbon and Porto before.”

“Most Turkish people who leave go to Germany or the Netherlands, because there’s already a big Turkish community there. For us, Portugal felt closer to home. It’s a Mediterranean culture even though it’s on the Atlantic. The climate is similar, and the people are similar. We didn’t want to move somewhere with a long, dark winter.

The process also looked easier than in most other countries. The rules have changed a bit lately, but it’s still more realistic than most of Europe.”

“At first, yes. Then we looked into it properly and realised some parts are almost impossible to handle from Turkey.

As Turkish citizens, we need a Schengen tourist visa just to visit. So if something goes wrong with the bank account and you have to go to Lisbon to fix it, you need a visa for that trip first. That’s the downside of doing it on your own with a Turkish passport.”

“We searched online and compared Novomove with some bigger agencies. There are also Turkish people who do this freelance. They’re not a company, they just handle things for you, and we couldn’t trust that at all.

The bigger agencies were slow to reply. Our thinking was, if they’re slow to answer now, what happens when something actually goes wrong? Novomove answered quickly from the first call, so we went with them.”

“We had a lot of moving pieces. We got married in the middle of it, so Kübra’s passport changed, and my old passport expired, so I had a new number too. We started out with two separate applications and then switched to one joint application with Kübra as my dependent. That way one lease and one income could cover both of us. Changing it meant the consulate pushed our appointment back.

Then there was the income. Mine is interest from a term deposit in Turkey. It’s taxed at source, so there’s no tax return that shows it, and the statements are in Turkish lira. Mariana showed us how to present it: highlight the income lines, get them translated, add the exchange rate, and write a short letter that explains all of it. After that call we were much calmer, because the income was our biggest worry.”

“That was the most stressful part of the whole process.

The bank kept asking for documents again and again, and the consulate appointment was getting closer. Some Turkish forums say you can open the bank account later. In our experience, Ankara really pushed on having it.

When it was delayed, we panicked. Mariana got on a call with us that same day. She said she’d certify our documents the day they arrived and send them straight to the bank. She also wrote letters for us to take to the appointment, one for if the account wasn’t open yet and one for if it was open but not funded. She told us, ‘I don’t want you to feel alone, we’re here for you.’ I honestly don’t know what we would have done without that.”

“We went anyway. Getting a new appointment in Turkey can take five or six months, so we weren’t going to give ours up.

The consulate took our file and told us the account had to be active by a certain date, and they’d hold our application until then. Once the account was funded, we sent the statement and they moved forward. We had expected to wait two more months after that. It was much faster.”

“Housing was actually our biggest worry at the very beginning. The D7 needs proof of accommodation, and we have cats, so a lot of places were ruled out straight away.

Novomove introduced us to a real estate agency they work with in Lisbon. Our agent, Alexandra, went to see flats every week and sent us photos and videos, and did video calls with us from inside them. You can’t find a place you’ve never seen on your own. There were also things about renting here that we didn’t know, and she warned us about them before we signed.

The biggest difference from Turkey: at home, the agent works for the owner. They’re trying to sell you something, so they hide things. Here, Alexandra was our agent.

“Honestly, most of the surprises were about the move itself, not Portugal. Our furniture is still on its way from Turkey, so right now we’re living in an empty flat. The cats miss having things to climb on. And Lisbon windows are different from ours, so we had to order cat nets from a company in Spain before we arrived.

The good surprise was the language. I studied Spanish literature at university, and I understand much more Portuguese than I expected. Speaking is another story. We live in Lumiar, which isn’t a tourist area, so a lot of cafés and shops don’t speak English. That pushes us to learn faster.”

“Our AIMA appointments are in December. Kübra’s is in Santarém and mine is in Sintra, half an hour apart, so we’re already working out how to be in two places at once.”

“A few years ago, maybe. There was more information online from Turkish people who’d done it, and the consulate asked for less. That has changed a lot.

If anything goes wrong, you start again, and in Turkey that means waiting months for a new appointment. That’s a year of your life. You might be fine on your own, but I don’t think it’s a good risk to take.”