Portugal D7 Visa Application Process

This piece is about my own experience applying for Portugal’s D7 visa, a.k.a passive-income visa, at the Portugal consulate in London.

Official Site

Link to Portugal’s Ministry of Foreign Affair’s page on residency visa requirements:

https://www.vistos.mne.pt/en/national-visas/necessary-documentation/residency

Of course, it is completely possible that individual consulates have additional requirements that are not listed here, but I used the list as a guidance when liaising with the consulate.

ahhhh… Lisbon

Process

The Portugal consulate in London receives their visa applications through the company VFS, which means that all my interactions related to submitting the applications and collecting my passport were all done through the company’s site, and I did not once set foot in the consulate for the entire application process.

My initial plan had been to apply for a residence permit after having arrived in Portugal, using the path for people who are self-employed but do not have a residency visa (https://imigrante.sef.pt/en/solicitar/trabalhar/art89-2/), however I was advised to apply for a residency beforehand, as I was told the appointments could be months in advance, and I would be disqualified should I leave Portugal before the appointment date. So I began the process of collecting the necessary documents for the residency visa.

All the residency visa have the following requirements from the first link:

• Official form;
• Passport or additional travel document valid for 3 months after the duration of the stay;
• Two passport photos, up-to-date and with enough quality to identify the applicant;
• Valid travel insurance, allowing medical coverage, including medical emergencies and repatriation;
• Proof of being in a regular situation when from a different nationality than that of the country where the visa is being applied for;
• Request for criminal record enquiry by the Immigration and Border Services (SEF);
• Criminal record certificate from the country of origin or the country where the applicant is residing for over a year (children under the age of 16 are exempt from producing a criminal record);
• Proof of means of subsistence as stipulated by law;
• Proof of subsistence means can be made through a statement of responsibility, signed by a Portuguese national or by a foreign national legally resident in Portugal.

For self-employed version of the visa though, I had to also supply a work contract, while for the passive-income category I would need to evidence that I have an income stream of approximately of approximately 7000 euros. This amount is taken from the minimum wage of Portugal and is therefore variable year-on-year.

Timeline

I submitted my visa on June 18th through the application centre, and after verifying my passport it was sent back to me on June 21st while they process the application.

I received an email notifying to send back my passport on July 23rd. In total it took four and a half weeks for the decision to arrive back to me. I was then instructed to provide a confirmed flight itinerary, the travel date from which they used as the start date of my visa; while the duration of my visa is 120 days, the expiration date is just a few days short of it.

Now what?

I am just about to embark on my next step on moving to Portugal, so stay tuned for next parts to do with exchanging the visa for residence permit.

I’ve written another piece on the essential bureaucratic items one would encounter in their process of moving to Portugal here