Key figures — as of 2026-09-09: Default wait before family reunification: 2 years of legal residence — down to 15 months if the couple lived together at least 18 months before the sponsor moved to Portugal — waived entirely for couples with minor or dependent children, and for holders of residence permits for highly qualified activity — AIMA must decide within 9 months (extendable, but no extension allowed for cases involving minors or dependents) — law is Lei n.º 61/2025, in force since 23 October 2025.
The headline number, and the catch
Portugal's overhauled immigration law has been running for close to a year now, and the practical effect on family reunification is starting to show up in real casework rather than legal commentary. The default rule under Lei n.º 61/2025 still requires a residence permit holder to complete two years of legal residence before requesting to bring a spouse or children over — but for a defined group of applicants, that wait drops to 15 months, and for others it disappears altogether.
The law, which amends the long-standing Foreigners' Law (Lei n.º 23/2007), entered into force on 23 October 2025, one day after publication, bringing substantial changes to the legal regime governing entry, residence, exit and removal of foreigners. Family reunification was one of the areas most reshaped by the reform.
Who actually gets the shorter wait
The reduced 15-month period isn't automatic. It applies specifically to spouses or partners who have lived with the legal resident in Portugal for at least 18 months before entering the country — in other words, couples who can document a shared household history predating the move, not newly formed relationships.
A separate, more generous carve-out removes the wait entirely. The 2-year period does not apply when the resident's family member is a minor or dependent, a spouse or equivalent who is the parent of that minor together with the holder, or family members of holders of residence permits obtained by highly qualified activity. That last category — permits tied to highly qualified work, an area the new law expanded through the qualified job-seeker visa — is where confusion tends to concentrate, since eligibility hinges on the sponsor's specific permit type, not simply their income or nationality.
D7 and Digital Nomad (D8) holders, who make up a large share of GrowIN's non-EU readership, generally fall under the standard two-year rule unless they qualify for one of these exceptions. Legal advisers tracking early 2026 cases have noted that the updated family reunification rules apply to most third-country residents, including holders of visas such as the D7 Passive Income Visa or Digital Nomad Visa, unless they qualify for one of the legal exceptions.
GrowIN's read: a 37.5% cut, unevenly distributed
Strip away the legal language and the arithmetic is straightforward: dropping from 24 months to 15 months is a 37.5% reduction in the standard waiting period — roughly nine fewer months of a family living apart, of remote schooling decisions, of one partner shuttling back and forth on tourist stays capped at 90 days in any 180. For a household that qualifies for the 18-month cohabitation exception, that's the difference between two full school years of separation and roughly one.
But the reduction is not universal, and that's the story most coverage has flattened into a single "wait is shorter now" headline. A newly arrived D7 holder whose spouse never lived with them in Portugal before the move gets no benefit from the 15-month rule at all — they face the full two years unless children are involved.
"The 2026 reform didn't shorten one waiting period — it created three, and most applicants won't know which one applies to them until AIMA rules on their file," says GrowIN Portugal Editorial.
Processing timelines and the transitional deadline
Once an application is filed, AIMA has a standard decision timeline of 9 months for family reunification cases, with limited extensions and none available for couples with minors or dependents. Applicants already inside Portugal on a valid visa can, in some circumstances, apply directly at AIMA rather than routing family members through a consulate abroad, which shortens the practical process considerably compared with the two-step consular route.
A transitional window has also mattered for anyone caught mid-process when the law changed: residence permit holders had until 20 April 2026 to apply for family reunification under the previous, more flexible rules. That door has now closed, so every new application is assessed exclusively under the 2025 framework.
On the judicial side, the reform also restored full access to the courts for appeals against AIMA decisions, reversing rules the Constitutional Court had previously struck down — a meaningful backstop for families who receive a refusal, though appeals still take time and don't guarantee a different outcome.
What to check before applying
Anyone weighing a family reunification application should confirm, before filing, which category their sponsor's permit falls into, whether 18 months of prior cohabitation can be documented with dated evidence (leases, joint bills, official registrations), and whether children or other dependents are part of the household — since that alone can eliminate the wait. AIMA's own guidance and portal remain the authoritative reference, and given how permit-specific the exceptions are, this is a case where a wrong assumption costs months, not days.
Our visas hub tracks the practical side of Portugal's residence-permit categories, including how they interact with family reunification eligibility.
None of this changes the advisory basics: outcomes depend on AIMA's assessment of each file, and family members should not book flights, leases or school places against an assumed timeline until a decision is actually in hand.