# Portugal Nationality Law Now in Force: Longer Waits, No Birthright

> Portugal's new Nationality Law, in force since 19 May 2026, raises naturalisation to 7-10 years and ends automatic citizenship for PT-born children.

- Source: https://www.growinportugal.com/news/portugal-s-tougher-nationality-law-now-in-force-residency-cl-2026-10-10
- Publisher: GrowIN Portugal (https://www.growinportugal.com)
- Published: 2026-10-10
- Last reviewed: 2026-10-10
- Language: en

> **Key figures — as of 2026-10-10:** Naturalisation residency raised from 5 years to **7 years** (EU/CPLP nationals) or **10 years** (all other foreign nationals) — law in force since **19 May 2026**; a child born in Portugal to foreign parents now needs a parent with **5 years** of legal residence (up from 1 year) to get nationality by declaration; the Sephardic-Jewish descent route has been **eliminated**; applications filed **before 19 May 2026** keep the old 5-year rule.

## The headline number: five years just became ten

Five months after it took effect, Portugal's rewritten Nationality Law is now the operating reality for every foreign resident weighing a passport application — not just Golden Visa investors. For standard naturalisation by legal residence, the new law requires 7 years of legal residence for EU citizens and nationals of Portuguese-speaking countries, and 10 years for most other foreign nationals. That replaces the five-year threshold that had applied, with few changes, for well over a decade.

The law is not a draft or a proposal under review — it applies to all applications submitted on or after May 19, 2026, extending the residence period required for naturalization to seven years for EU and Portuguese-speaking countries (CPLP) nationals and to ten years for all other nationalities. The counting method changed too: residence time is now calculated by counting only periods of lawful residence supported by valid work/residence permits, with the clock starting on the date the residence permit is issued rather than the date of application. That detail matters for anyone whose AIMA permit took months to physically arrive after their application was lodged — those waiting months no longer count toward citizenship.

Alongside the longer wait, naturalisation now carries a formal civic test. As of 19 May 2026, foreign nationals may become citizens by naturalisation after living in Portugal legally for a minimum of 10 years, showing proficiency in the Portuguese language, undergoing a civic knowledge test, and having no conviction of more than three years' imprisonment for certain crimes. Citizens of CPLP countries and other EU member states can apply after a minimum of 7 years instead.

One legacy pathway disappears entirely. The citizenship programme for descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews, introduced in 2015, has been eliminated under the new law.

## What changes for children born in Portugal

This is the part catching families off guard. Portugal's old rule let a child born on Portuguese soil acquire nationality of origin as long as one parent had lived here legally for just a year. That threshold has quintupled. Under the amended law, children born in Portuguese territory to foreign parents are given Portuguese nationality of origin by declaration only if, at the time of birth, at least one parent had been legally residing in Portugal for a minimum of five years — up from the previous one-year requirement.

Crucially, "by declaration" is not the same as automatic. Nationality is no longer granted automatically to children of foreign nationals born in Portugal — at least one parent must have been legally resident for five years and an express declaration must be made, and regular attendance at compulsory schooling may also be required. Parents also lose a route they used to rely on: foreign parents of children born in Portugal lose the right to naturalise on the basis of parenthood of a child registered as Portuguese. Couples who moved to Lisbon or the Algarve expecting a baby born locally to fast-track the family's papers no longer have that option.

Anyone with a case already in the pipeline gets some breathing room. Applications already submitted remain protected under the previous rules. But arriving at five years of residence without having filed offers no shelter — under the new regime, that window has simply moved to seven or ten.

## GrowIN's analysis: the extra years have a real euro cost

Here's the practical bite for a typical D7 or D8 holder. Picture a non-EU family that landed a residence permit in 2023 expecting to apply for citizenship around 2028. They now face 2033 at the earliest — five extra years inside Portugal's visa system. Over that stretch they'll likely go through two to three additional permit renewal cycles, each needing refreshed proof of income, updated criminal record certificates, translations and — commonly — legal fees that run into the low hundreds of euros per renewal. For a D7 applicant, those five extra years also mean continuing to document qualifying passive income at least at minimum-wage level (€920/month, or roughly €11,040 a year) for half a decade longer than originally planned — not a one-off cost, but a prolonged compliance burden most applicants hadn't budgeted for.

**"For non-EU foreigners, a Portuguese passport is no longer a five-year plan — it's a decade-long commitment,"** says GrowIN Portugal Editorial.

## What to watch next

The government still owes implementing regulation detailing the civic-knowledge test format and fee, and how exactly the new "effective ties" criteria for marriage-based applications will be assessed in practice — details practitioners are still waiting on months after the law's entry into force. Anyone close to the old five-year mark who hasn't filed should get a NIF, residence history and A2 certificate in order and talk to a specialist about whether submitting immediately still matters, or whether permanent residency (still a five-year, separate track) is now the more realistic near-term goal. Our [visas](/visas/) hub tracks AIMA processing patterns and renewal timelines as they evolve under the new framework.

None of this is retroactive punishment for people already settled — it's a structural reset of how long "long-term resident" has to mean before Lisbon hands over a passport. For families weighing Portugal for the next decade, not just the next five years, that distinction is now the whole ballgame.

## Sources

- [Manuela António Advogados](https://mantonio.net/portuguese-nationality-law-overview-of-the-2026-amendments/)
- [Clark Hill](https://www.clarkhill.com/news-events/news/portugal-nationality-law-changes-2026-residency-rules/)
- [Rosário Duarte Advogados](https://www.rosarioduarte.pt/en/lei-da-nacionalidade-portuguesa-o-que-muda-em-2026/)
- [Lexidy](https://www.lexidy.com/blog/portuguese-citizenship-law/)

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© GrowIN Portugal. Cite as: GrowIN Portugal, "Portugal Nationality Law Now in Force: Longer Waits, No Birthright", https://www.growinportugal.com/news/portugal-s-tougher-nationality-law-now-in-force-residency-cl-2026-10-10