More than 500 Golden Visa holders are organising to sue the Portuguese state, arguing that a state agency’s own backlog is now being used to extend how long they must wait for citizenship. The group, mobilised largely through WhatsApp and drawn predominantly from American investors, is the sharpest sign yet that Portugal’s May 2026 nationality reform has moved from policy controversy to formal legal confrontation.
What changed, and when
Portugal’s revised Nationality Law — Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 — was approved by Parliament on April 1, 2026, with a two-thirds majority, signed by President António José Seguro on May 3, 2026, and entered into force on May 19, 2026. The headline change is well known by now: the law doubles the standard residency requirement for naturalization, so most foreign nationals now need ten years of legal residence, while citizens of EU member states and CPLP nations face a seven-year requirement — up from five.
The detail causing the current uproar is subtler. Under the framework that applied until this year, the residency clock could begin from the date a temporary residence application was submitted to AIMA, provided the permit was eventually granted. The new law removes that cushion. As several immigration lawyers describe it, the law contains no formal transitional regime, and the residency clock now starts when AIMA issues a residence permit, not when an application is submitted.
That distinction matters enormously in a system where processing has been anything but fast. Golden Visa applications are legally required to be decided within 90 days, yet in practice a significant number of investors have waited three to five years for their residence permits to be issued, with some applications dating back to 2021. Under the old counting method, that wait didn’t cost investors years off their citizenship eligibility. Under the new one, it does.
Who gets protected — and who doesn’t
The law does include one safeguard, but it’s narrow. A rule under Article 7.2 protects nationality applications filed on or before May 18, 2026, but investors who had not yet reached the filing stage, often because AIMA had not issued their residence permits in time, receive no such shelter. In other words: if your paperwork happened to clear AIMA’s queue before the cutoff, you keep the old five-year path. If it didn’t — through no fault of your own — you’re now on the seven- or ten-year clock, with the AIMA wait itself no longer counting.
Before the collective lawsuit, a consortium of law firms tried the administrative route. A consortium of nine Portuguese law firms filed a formal complaint with the Portuguese Ombudsman, the Provedoria de Justiça, acting on behalf of 1,260 golden visa clients affected by the nationality law overhaul and the AIMA processing backlog. The consortium’s position is that had AIMA processed applications within its required 90-day window, many of these 1,260 investors would have qualified under the old five-year naturalization framework.
The Ombudsman route has real but limited power. The Provedor de Justiça can investigate government agencies, request documents, and carry out unannounced inspections, but cannot issue binding decisions or override legislation — though it can refer matters to the Constitutional Court to assess a law’s constitutionality.
The legal argument taking shape
Lawyers representing the investors are leaning on a specific Portuguese legal doctrine rather than a broad fairness claim. As one lawyer close to the consortium put it, the legal strategy rests on the principle of legitimate expectations — investors who began the process under a five- or six-year horizon formed a qualified expectation that deserves legal protection.
A related brief filed with the Constitutional Court in December 2025 went further, pointing to comments from a government minister acknowledging that Golden Visa cases were “left for the end” during processing, with authorities deciding to attend first to “the poorest, the most vulnerable” before the wealthier investor caseload. Investors’ lawyers argue this undercuts the government’s framing of delays as purely a resourcing problem.
The government, for its part, disputes that anyone was owed a fast passport. A Secretary of State involved in the file has said the citizenship changes do not affect the golden visa program itself, that the longer wait aligns Portugal with other European countries, and that any false expectations about fast citizenship stemmed from agencies marketing the visas rather than government promises.
Practical fallout already visible
The dispute isn’t purely theoretical for the market. Fund redemptions tied to the investment-fund Golden Visa route have accelerated sharply since the reform took effect, with lawyers reporting that thousands more investors are weighing legal action beyond the initial 500. Separately, more than 20,000 investors are still understood to be waiting on AIMA appointments, some dating back years, for decisions the law says should take 90 days.
It’s worth being precise about what hasn’t changed. The Golden Visa programme itself remains open, and permanent residency after five years is unaffected by the nationality reform — the dispute is specifically about the path from residence to a Portuguese passport. For background on how the investment routes work today, see our /visas/ hub.
What to watch next
The government has 90 days from the law’s May 19 publication to issue implementing regulations clarifying how AIMA delays will actually be treated case by case — guidance that, as of this writing, has not been published. Investors and their lawyers say the plan is to exhaust Portuguese courts first, with a European-level challenge held in reserve if domestic remedies fail. Anyone currently in the Golden Visa pipeline, or weighing whether to apply, should treat the citizenship timeline as unsettled and get current, case-specific advice from a Portuguese immigration lawyer before assuming any particular naturalisation date — outcomes here depend entirely on AIMA’s processing and on how courts eventually rule.
For readers tracking how this affects tax planning, residency strategy or company setup timelines tied to Portuguese residence, our /tax-and-nif/ and /company-setup/ guides are updated as the implementing regulations emerge.
This article was produced with AI assistance and editorial oversight in line with our editorial policy. It is general information, not legal or tax advice.