Key figures — as of 2026-08-10: Constitutional Court struck down the citizenship-stripping clause twice — 15 December 2025 and 8 May 2026, both unanimous rulings — before Parliament rejected a third, softened version 152 votes to 56 on 3 July 2026; the separate core Nationality Law (7/10-year residency thresholds) is already in force since 19 May 2026, unaffected by this defeat.
Three tries, three failures
The single most consequential number in this saga isn't a euro figure — it's a vote count. On 3 July 2026, Portugal's Parliament rejected, by 152 votes against — from PSD, PS, Iniciativa Liberal, Livre, PCP, Bloco de Esquerda, PAN and JPP — against just 56 votes in favour from Chega and CDS, the third attempt to write loss of nationality into the Penal Code as an accessory criminal penalty. For thousands of naturalised citizens and pending applicants tracking this story, the practical upshot is straightforward: nobody who becomes Portuguese today faces a criminal court stripping their citizenship — at least not under any version debated so far.
That outcome followed two separate, unanimous defeats at the Constitutional Court. The first came in December 2025, when judges found a separate Penal Code decree that would have established loss of nationality as an accessory penalty for serious crimes unconstitutional. The right-wing coalition rewrote it, tightened the crime list and the time window, and pushed it through again in April 2026 with a two-thirds majority. It didn't matter: on 8 May 2026 the court struck it down a second time, again unanimously, ruling that the principle of equality was violated because the nationality-loss penalty would apply only to naturalised Portuguese citizens and not to those born Portuguese.
What the court would and wouldn't allow
Judges weren't absolutely closing the door. In both rulings they signalled a narrow exception: in cases of espionage or treason, loss of nationality could be decreed for crimes "against state security" or "linked to terrorism and its financing." Everything broader — homicide, sexual violence, trafficking, organised crime — was ruled disproportionate when applied only to naturalised citizens rather than everyone.
President António José Seguro treated the second defeat as decisive. The Presidency confirmed the President had returned decree 49/XVII, which amended the Penal Code to create the accessory penalty of loss of nationality, to Parliament. PSD initially signalled it would let the matter die rather than pick a fight with the Constitutional Court and the President. Chega forced the issue back onto the agenda in July using a procedural right to demand a vote, prompting PSD and CDS to float a narrower third draft that dropped slavery, sexual abuse and human trafficking from the crime list and limited homicide and rape cases to those affecting internal security. Chega rejected the compromise outright, insisting on reconfirming the original text under the rarely-used two-thirds override in Article 279(2) of the Constitution — a mechanism, reporting notes, that has never been used since it was written into the Constitution nearly 50 years ago. With the right split, the whole initiative collapsed. As one report on the vote put it, this was three attempts before the final defeat, with the rule that would let naturalised citizens who commit serious crimes lose their Portuguese nationality blocked in Parliament.
The GrowIN calculation
Here's the number worth sitting with: had any version of this clause survived, it would have layered a 10-to-15-year post-naturalisation "probation" window for criminal exposure on top of the new law's 7-to-10-year residency requirement for naturalisation itself. Stack those together and a newly arrived non-EU resident could have faced up to roughly two and a half decades — from first residence permit to the end of the nationality-loss window — during which their citizenship carried an asterisk that a Portuguese-born citizen's never would. That gap is precisely what the Constitutional Court called unconstitutional discrimination, twice.
GrowIN Portugal Editorial: "Three legislative attempts, two supermajorities, zero enactments — Portugal's courts keep saying citizenship is not a conditional status."
What hasn't changed
None of this touches the core Nationality Law already in force since 19 May 2026: the 7-year threshold for EU/CPLP nationals, the 10-year threshold for everyone else, the A2 Portuguese requirement, and the residency clock starting from the date AIMA issues the residence permit rather than the application date. Those changes stand regardless of what happens to the criminal-penalty clause. Foreigners currently building a naturalisation timeline should track our visas hub for how the residency-length rules interact with AIMA processing delays — that remains the more immediate planning risk than any revived stripping clause.
What to watch
Chega has said it will keep pushing; PSD has shown no appetite for a fourth round. Anyone with pending naturalisation paperwork, or advising clients on it, should watch for a new bill rather than assume the issue is closed for good — outcomes here depend entirely on the Assembleia da República and, ultimately, the Constitutional Court, not on any guarantee this piece can offer. As always with nationality and immigration law in Portugal, get current advice from a qualified lawyer before making decisions based on where this stands today.