President of Portugal signs Nationality Law extending the path to 10 years

President of Portugal António José Seguro signed into law on 03/05/2026 the Parliament’s Decreto 48/XVII — the document amending Law No. 37/81 of 03/10/1981 on nationality. According to a statement from the President’s Office, this amendment increases the minimum legal residence period for citizenship applications from 5 years to 10 years for most foreigners, and 7 years for citizens of EU and CPLP countries.

Key contents of the new law

According to major Portuguese newspapers including Público, Renascença, and Observador, Decreto 48/XVII was passed by Parliament with a 152-64 vote on 01/04/2026, following an agreement between the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the Chega party. The law was supported by the coalition of PSD, Chega, IL, and CDS-PP.

Another significant change: the residence clock will start from the date the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA) grants the residence permit, not from the date the applicant submits the file. This provision reverses a 2024 amendment designed to protect applicants from administrative delays.

The law also tightens regulations on citizenship by birth: children born in Portugal to immigrant parents will only be recognised as Portuguese citizens when a parent has been a legal resident in the country for at least 5 years, instead of 1 year under the previous regulation. According to Observador, the law also introduces a provision for revocation Portuguese citizenship for cases of serious crimes with a sentence of 5 years or more, applicable to offences committed within 15 years after naturalisation.

President signs with explicit reservations

In a statement on the President’s Office website, Mr. Seguro noted reservations regarding the implementation of the law. He emphasised the importance of ensuring that “pending files are not effectively affected by the change in law, as that would create an undesirable breach of trust in the State, both domestically and internationally”.

The President also requested that the legal deadline for citizenship applications not be affected by State delays. According to IMI Daily, this remark has significant practical implications because AIMA currently often takes 2-3 years to issue residence permits. Lawyers estimate the actual naturalisation path under the new law could extend to 9-13 years. The newspaper Observador, in an article on 04/05/2026, speculated that “there could be people waiting 12 or 15 years” in its commentary headlines.

Mr. Seguro also clarified that amending a law with such enhancing value as the Nationality Law should have been based on “a broader consensus around core principles”, rather than the “ideological imprints of the moment”.

Decreto 49/XVII still awaiting Constitutional Court review

The President only signed one of the two documents sent from the 01/04/2026 voting session. The other document — Decreto 49/XVII, which amends the Penal Code to create the accessory penalty of citizenship revocation — is pending. A group of MPs has filed a request for the Constitutional Court to conduct a prior review of the constitutionality of this decreto, and the Court has not yet issued a ruling.

According to the President’s Office statement, the Constitutional Court in ruling No. 1133/2025 declared several provisions of Decreto 17/XVII (the first version of the law) unconstitutional. The new version, Decreto 48/XVII, has been comprehensively revised to address the issues raised by the Court in that ruling.

Impact on the Golden Visa programme

Theo IMI Daily, Portugal Golden Visa programme is not the subject of this legislative debate. Permanent resident (PR) rights after 5 years remain unchanged. The new path only applies to citizenship applications.

In an article released on 04/05/2026, Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro told the Lusa news agency that the new law was enacted with “great consensus”, with a two-thirds majority in Parliament and “the support of the Portuguese people” — a topic discussed during the most recent legislative election. Mr. Leitão Amaro described the new law as a piece in a series of immigration and nationality policy reforms, following the amendment of the foreign nationals law, and Parliament will soon consider the repatriation law.

Effectiveness and next steps

The law only takes effect after being published in the Diário da República (Portuguese Official Gazette). As of now, the publication date has not been determined. Once published, the new regulations will apply to future applications; according to President Seguro’s statement, previously submitted files will not be affected by the legal change.

According to legal analysis in the Portuguese press, Madalena Monteiro — the lawyer who filed the petition amicus curiae on behalf of a group of Golden Visa investors when the case was brought to the Constitutional Court in December 2025 — assessed the President’s signing as a “foregone conclusion”, as the two-thirds majority in Parliament ensured the ability to override any veto.