D7 vs D8 vs D2: Which Portugal Visa Actually Fits You? (2026)
A client of ours earned £5,000 a month from his own company and settled on the D7 because a blog called it “the income visa”. Comfortable income, months of preparation — and a file that would have been refused. A salary is active income, even from your own company, and no amount of it passes a passive-income test.
He’s not the exception. Most people pick the visa that sounds right — D7 for “income”, D8 for “digital nomad”, D2 for “entrepreneur” — instead of the one that fits how their money actually arrives. The consulate reads the income type first and the amount second, and most applicants find that out after months in the appointment queue.
We run visa cases through these three routes every week with our partner immigration lawyer, so this comparison is built on what consulates actually accept, not on what the visa names suggest.
The short version first, then the part that decides most cases: how you get paid.
The three routes at a glance
| D7 | D8 (Digital Nomad) | D2 (Entrepreneur) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | People living on passive income | Remote employees and freelancers with foreign income | People starting or running a business connected to Portugal |
| Income test | Passive income of at least the minimum wage, €920/month (after taxes) | Active remote income of at least 4x the minimum wage, €3,680/month | No fixed monthly income floor |
| Savings expected | The same on all three: around 12 months of minimum wage, roughly €11,040 per adult, in a Portuguese account (on the D8, alongside the income test) | ||
| What proves the case | Pension statements, dividends, rental contracts, interest | Employment contract or client contracts with non-Portuguese payers, income history | Company documents, a business plan, a 1-year+ service contract, or incubator acceptance |
| Documentation weight | Light to moderate | Moderate | Heaviest of the three |
| After the residence card | Full flexibility from day one | Keep the remote-work activity until your first renewal (about 2 years), then free to switch | Run the business you proposed |
| Typical fit | Retirees, landlords, investors | Employed remote workers, established freelancers | Founders, freelancers below the D8 threshold, anyone building something in Portugal |
Figures are for the main applicant; dependants add a percentage on top (typically 50% of the reference amount for an adult, 30% per child).
Consulates apply these tests with some variation, so treat the numbers as the floor, not the target. Showing more than the minimum strengthens every application.
What the numbers look like for a family
Since the dependant percentages confuse everyone, here is the D7 income test and the savings expectation scaled by household, using the 2026 minimum wage:
| Household | D7 monthly passive income (after taxes) | Savings to show (€11,040 per adult) |
|---|---|---|
| Single applicant | €920 | €11,040 |
| Couple | €1,380 (main + 50%) | €22,080 |
| Couple + 1 child | €1,656 (+ 30%) | €22,080 |
| Couple + 2 children | €1,932 (+ 30% each) | €22,080 |
For the D8, the €3,680 applies to the main applicant, and household sufficiency for families is assessed case by case, so more buffer is better.
For the D2, the savings figure scales the same way, and note one detail from real files: two business partners applying off the same company are each a principal applicant, so each meets the full €11,040 on their own, not split between them.
The real test: how you get paid
This is the point most guides miss, and it is where applications go wrong. The consulate is not just counting your money. It is looking at the source, and the source has to match the visa.
Passive income means money that arrives whether or not you work: pensions, dividends, rental income, interest. That is D7 territory. A salary is not passive income, no matter how stable it is.
Active foreign income means you work for it, and the payer is outside Portugal: a remote employment contract, or freelance clients abroad. That is the D8.
Business income connected to Portugal means you are building or running something here. That is the D2.
Here is where it gets interesting for business owners: the right visa can depend on how you pay yourself. The same person who owns a company abroad could look like a D7 case (if they live on dividends from it), a D8 case (if they draw a salary for remote work), or a D2 case (if they are moving the business activity to Portugal). Nothing about their life changed, only the label on the money.
This is exactly the kind of situation to run past a professional before choosing, because restructuring how you pay yourself is far easier before the application than after a refusal.
The most common misfit we see is a remote employee applying for the D7 because a blog described it as “the income visa”. A salary is active income, so the file fails the passive-income test regardless of the amount, and the applicant finds out after months of waiting for the appointment. The second most common is the reverse: a freelancer earning below the D8’s €3,680 threshold who assumes Portugal is closed to them, when the D2’s freelance route has no fixed income floor at all.
D7: the passive income route
The D7 is the simplest of the three when your income genuinely is passive. You show at least €920 a month arriving from pensions, dividends, rentals, or similar, plus savings of around a year’s minimum wage sitting in a Portuguese bank account.
The savings are not decoration: the account exists to show the lump sum, not to receive your income, and applications regularly stumble on that misunderstanding.
What the D7 file needs to show
| Requirement | What to provide |
|---|---|
| Income | At least €920/month (after taxes) in passive income for the main applicant; +€460/month per adult dependant, +€276/month per child |
| Bank statement | Savings of at least €11,040 per adult, in a Portuguese account |
| Income records | Documentation of your income from the past 6 months |
| Tax payments | Proof of taxes paid on your declared income |
| Accommodation | A one-year rental contract in Portugal — many consulates require it for D7 applications |
| Criminal record | A clean criminal background check |
| Where to apply | From your home country, or the country where you hold a residence permit |
Who it fits: retirees, property investors, anyone whose money works without them. Who it does not fit: anyone whose main income is a salary or client invoices, however comfortable. If that is you, keep reading.
D8: the remote work route
The D8 is built for people who work remotely for employers or clients outside Portugal. The bar is higher: active income of at least four times the minimum wage, €3,680 a month in 2026, proven through your contract or client agreements and income history.
The payer being non-Portuguese is not a technicality, it is the point of the visa, so the paperwork has to show it clearly.
Who it fits: employed remote workers with a solid contract, and established freelancers comfortably above the threshold. Who it does not fit: freelancers earning less than €3,680 a month, or anyone whose clients are mainly Portuguese. Both of those profiles usually belong in the next section.
D2: the entrepreneur route, and the one people underestimate
The D2 has a reputation for being the hard one, and it is true that the documentation is the heaviest. But it is also the most flexible, because there are three distinct paths in, and none of them carries a fixed monthly income requirement:
| Path | How it works |
|---|---|
| The company path | You form or invest in a Portuguese company. For the bank and the consulate, this means showing your business plan and the company’s commercial registry documents together, so the company gets formed before the visa application, not after arrival. |
| The service contract path | A contract of a year or more with a Portuguese entity carries the file instead of a company. This is the route for freelancers, including those below the D8 threshold. |
| The incubator path | Acceptance into a certified incubator under the startup framework. |
Two things decide D2 outcomes in practice. The first is the credibility of the business case: AIMA wants to see how the business benefits Portugal. Some businesses contribute directly, a consultancy or shop serving Portuguese clients. Others contribute indirectly: the customers are foreign, but the activity brings money or people into Portugal. Indirect is fine, but it has to be spelled out.
One of our clients built their case around a podcast aimed at Western audiences about moving to Portugal, an entirely indirect contribution, and it was confirmed as an eligible D2 activity because the plan named the channel (tourism and inbound relocation) instead of leaving it implied. Vague contribution is what gets questioned, not indirect contribution itself. Where it fits, stating an intent to hire Portuguese staff as the business grows strengthens the case further.
The second is accommodation: at the consular stage, D2 applicants need a long-term registered lease, and short-term bookings get refused as proof. Plan for that earlier than feels necessary.
Two business partners can also apply off the same Portuguese company, each holding a share. The company must be an Lda rather than a single-owner Unipessoal, each partner files a separate dossier as a principal applicant, and the business plan has to justify two active founders with real roles, not one founder and a passenger.
What you do not need at the consular stage: registering your activity with Finanças. That step belongs after arrival, at the residence permit stage, and doing it early creates tax problems we have written about separately.
Three real cases, and what they teach
A UK-based client owned his own company and paid himself a salary of around £5,000 a month. Comfortable income, and he had settled on the D7 after reading that it was “the income visa”. But a salary is active income, even from your own company, so his file belonged on the D8. Nothing about his money was insufficient; only the label was wrong, and catching it before the application saved him a refusal. The lesson: the consulate reads the income type first and the amount second.
A UK business owner wanted his wife to qualify for the D7. Her problem was not money, it was history: she had no passive income trail of her own. The plan that worked was making her a partner in the business and paying her dividends for several months before applying, so her file showed genuine, documented passive income by the time it reached the consulate. This is the “how you pay yourself” point in action, and it is also why these restructurings need a lawyer’s input months before the application, not weeks.
A freelancer earning around $4,500 a month through Upwork, applying with a family of four, cleared the D8 income bar comfortably. The hard parts were everything else: whether a platform earnings certificate counts as proof of contract or whether underlying client agreements were needed, how the family’s income requirement scaled, and whether to apply solo first or together. Platform freelancers usually pass the money test and stumble on the paperwork test, which is a preparation problem, and a solvable one.
What surprisingly does not differ
People agonise over the choice as if it locks in their entire Portuguese future. Several things they worry about do not actually depend on it.
Tax treatment. The visa category does not change how Portugal taxes you. D7, D8, or D2, your tax position is decided by residency, income types, and any regime you qualify for, such as IFICI, not by the letter on the visa.
Life after the card, with one exception. Once your residence card is issued, you can pursue lawful activity in Portugal. A D7 holder can start working the day the card arrives; the visa’s income test is about qualifying, not about what you do afterwards.
The exception is the D8: you are expected to maintain the remote-work activity that got you the visa until your first renewal, roughly the first two years, after which you are free to switch. The D7 and D2 carry no equivalent restriction. If flexibility from day one matters to you and you could plausibly qualify for more than one route, that difference is worth weighing.
The preparation sequence. All three routes need the same foundation: a NIF, a Portuguese bank account showing the savings, and clean documents timed so nothing expires while you wait for an appointment. That is why we run every case in two phases: foundation first while the appointment hunt happens, visa package once the appointment is secured.
Applying as a family. On any route, couples apply individually rather than on one joint application, and each dependant adds documents and fees. Budget for it on all three.
So which one is yours?
Run yourself through this. It settles most cases in a minute:
| Your situation | Route | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Living on a pension, rentals, or dividends of €920+/month | D7 | Passive income is exactly what the D7 tests |
| Employed remotely by a foreign company at €3,680+/month | D8 | Active foreign income, clean contract proof |
| Freelancing for foreign clients at €3,680+/month | D8 | Client contracts and income history carry the file |
| Freelancing below €3,680, or with Portuguese clients | D2 | The service-contract path has no fixed income floor |
| Building a business in Portugal from day one | D2 | Company path: business plan + registry documents |
| Own a company abroad, pay yourself a salary | Usually D8 | A salary is active income, even from your own company |
| Own a company abroad, live on its dividends | Usually D7 | Dividends are passive income with the right history |
| Own a company abroad, flexible on how you pay yourself | Consultation | Restructuring can open more than one door; get it right before applying |
And if your appointment is months away, do not wait to choose before starting. The NIF, the bank account, and the savings are the same on every route, and they are the slow parts.
How long does it take?
Here are the timeline components we see on real cases:
| Timeline component | Typical duration |
|---|---|
| NIF | 5 to 7 business days |
| Bank account | 3 to 4 weeks |
| Company formation (D2 company path) | 3 to 5 weeks in normal times; currently longer due to registry disruption |
| Document gathering (criminal records, apostilles) | 4 to 8 weeks |
| Visa appointment wait | 1 to 4 months, depending on the consulate |
| Processing after submission | 60 to 90 days |
| Start to visa, all in | Typically 6 to 8 months; faster with parallel work |
Notice what the timeline table implies: the appointment wait dominates on every route, and most of the other components can run in parallel with it.
That is the entire argument for the two-phase approach, foundation now, visa package once the appointment is secured, and it is why documents get timed carefully so nothing expires while you wait.
That is normal, and it is cheaper to settle now than at the consulate. Book a free 15-minute call and we will tell you which route your income actually supports, or go straight to a paid consultation with our partner immigration lawyer for the complex cases.
When you are ready, our visa packages cover the dossier, the lawyer review, and a dedicated case manager on any of the three routes.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between D7, D8, and D2 visas in Portugal?
The income source. D7 is for passive income (pensions, dividends, rentals) of at least €920 a month. D8 is for active remote income from outside Portugal of at least €3,680 a month. D2 is for business activity connected to Portugal, with no fixed monthly income floor but heavier documentation.
What income do I need for the D8 visa in 2026?
Active remote income of at least four times Portugal’s minimum wage, which is €3,680 a month in 2026, from employers or clients outside Portugal, plus savings in a Portuguese bank account. Showing more than the minimum strengthens the application.
Can a freelancer who earns less than the D8 threshold still move to Portugal?
Often yes, through the D2. Its freelance path runs on a service contract of a year or more with a Portuguese entity rather than a fixed income test, and its company path works for those building a business. Documentation is heavier, but the route exists precisely for cases the D8 threshold excludes.
Does the visa type affect my taxes in Portugal?
No. Tax treatment is decided by residency, income types, and any special regime you qualify for, not by whether you entered on a D7, D8, or D2. The visa category matters for how you present your case to the consulate.
Can I change what I do after getting residency?
On the D7 and D2, yes: once the residence card is issued, you can pursue lawful activity regardless of the original basis. On the D8, you are expected to maintain the remote-work activity until your first renewal, roughly the first two years, after which you are free to switch.
Can I work remotely on a D7 visa?
Once you have the residence card, yes. But your remote salary does not count towards the D7 income requirement: to qualify in the first place, you still need €920 a month in passive income from pensions, dividends, or rentals. If your only income is the salary, the D8 is your route, not the D7.
Which Portugal visa is cheapest to qualify for?
The D2 has the lowest financial barrier: no fixed monthly income requirement, savings of around €11,040, plus the cost of the route you take (a company formation or a service contract). The D7 requires ongoing passive income of €920 a month, and the D8 requires €3,680 a month, so for people with savings but modest current income, the D2 is often the only open door.
Can two business partners apply for D2 visas with one company?
Yes, off the same Portuguese company, each holding a share. The company must be an Lda rather than a single-owner Unipessoal, each partner files a separate dossier as a principal applicant meeting the full savings requirement individually, and the business plan has to justify two active founders with real roles.
Can my partner and I apply together on one application?
No. Applications are individual on all three routes, which means two sets of documents, two fees, and coordinated timing. Dependants also raise the income and savings amounts the file needs to show.
Which visa is fastest to get?
The processing queues are broadly similar; the real timing differences come from preparation. D7 files are usually the lightest to assemble, D2 files the heaviest because a company or contract has to exist first. On every route, the appointment wait dominates, which is why the NIF, bank account, and savings should be sorted while you wait rather than after.
This article is general information about Portuguese visa routes, not legal advice, and no outcome is guaranteed: decisions rest with the consulates and AIMA, and requirements vary by consulate and change over time. Income figures follow the 2026 national minimum wage and should be re-checked each year. Assess your specific case with a qualified professional before applying. Novomove is a technology platform that coordinates licensed Portuguese lawyers and accountants; immigration consultations are delivered by our partner immigration lawyer.
