Will Portugal's New Nationality Law Be Overturned?

Añadido: 2026-06-02

[00:00:02]Bon dear Portugal gang to Dubai. Nice to see you. This is uh class action lawsuits against the new nationality law in Portugal. Let's check it out.

[00:00:20]Portuguese good.

[00:00:23]All right. Before we get started, I noticed that many of you who enjoy my content still haven't gotten around to subscribing. It cost you nothing to subscribe, but it really, really helps me out. So, go ahead and smash that subscribe button. Go on, smash it. And if you don't, >> that's ignorant.

[00:00:38]>> All right, let's get into it. Let's get into it. Okay, so uh it's not going to be much news to most people who are fans of the channel, people of good taste, as I keep saying, uh that the new nationality law in Portugal uh is now in place. And uh as we know just very very briefly that means for Brits like me, Americans can basically anyone who's not from the EU and not from any of the Portugueses-speaking countries now has to wait 10 years before being eligible to apply for Portuguese nationality. And I stress that last bit because at the moment it's taken about 3 years for processes to happen. So it's really probably more like 13 years until you can get nationality. just 10 years of legal residency until you can put your application in. People will know that I got my application in uh before the deadline, but unfortunately my 18year-old son's birth certificate managed to actually not turn up until the day the law um went into force, which is just horrible obviously.

[00:01:51]Um, but yeah, anyway, naturally, uh, a lot of people are very, very upset about this. And as I've said on the channel many times before, you know, feel free.

[00:02:00]I know a lot of Portuguese trolls are going to come into the comments, whatever. You know, you can piss us if you want. As far as I'm concerned, uh, you it was dishonest of your government.

[00:02:14]Uh, they should have given us a 5-year transitional period. This what I have said all along. Um, that would have been fair. I don't have a problem with it. I do think that um I do think that increasing the uh wait time from 5 years to 10 years does put you more in line with many many EU countries. I also think the Portuguese people have the right to have what they want if if that's what they want. Um I do think that there is some disingenuity disingenuity is disingenuous to talk about getting the passport in 5 years or getting the passport in 10 years given that um there is a 3ear wait after an application. So, I think a lot of Portuguese people probably didn't realize that it's more realistic to say that people were getting the Portuguese passport or the Portuguese nationality in more like 7 and 1/2 years at minimum and quite often eight or eight years or even longer. Um, so it was a little bit disingenuous to say 5 years, 5 years until the application time. Um but as stated before and as a lot of people uh understand that many of us uh I don't think people were making their decision to move to Portugal purely based on the uh the possibility of applying for nationality after 5 years. But I can say and I've spoken to my sons about it. Um, you know, at the time when we decided to move to Portugal, um, you know, uh, we drew up a pros and cons list, uh, like I I I imagine many people did, drew up a pros and cons list, and one of the, uh, one thing on the pro side was that 5-year, um, weight. Um and um I think I've mentioned on the channel before other countries that were on our list were for example Finland um which also I'm not sure if it does still now. I think they might have increased it to seven years but they had a waiting time of 5 years at that time as well.

[00:04:18]Um and you know there were lots of things you know people people say did you do your research? Yeah we did our research you know there was like obviously the weather the cost of living people said Portuguese people are very friendly. People said it was a foodies paradise. Anyway, you know, I'm not going to rehash a lot of the nonsense now, but um yeah, I I I I admit that the five-year that that was part of the attraction. And so, we uh lifted our family. Uh we came here. Um we went and learned uh as as required for the um for the nationality application. We went and spent many, many months learning Portuguese to get our A2 government certificates. Um, yeah, we bought a house here. So, we invested all of our money uh here. Uh, we put our sons into local schools and they both learned Portuguese up to, uh, I think C1 level and uh, you know, they heavily invested in Portuguese culture. They became Portuguese.

[00:05:25]Um and then you know boom the rugs pulled out from under them and obviously uh what's for me is extremely frustrating is the solution was extremely simple which was a 5-year transition. Yeah. Okay. The people want um the wait time increased to 10 years.

[00:05:43]Although I do think that they should have been informed um that it's not you know that's not the same as getting a passport in 10 years. that's probably now getting passport in 13 years or nationality in 13 years. I think people should have been informed about that and it probably would have resulted in a more reasonable um increase to maybe 7 years for everyone or something like that. But either way, um if if it has to be 10 years, it has to be 10 years.

[00:06:09]There should have been a 5year transitional period. Very simple uh obvious solution, guys. Um anyway, what's happened is uh obviously the Golden Visa people are extremely upset because many of them invested not in significant amounts of money and uh they've already started a class action uh lawsuit that I believe is going to go to the constitutional court. Um but um I don't think that um that's good enough.

[00:06:42]And um there's some other people on some various Facebook groups who are starting some uh petitions and uh getting people to put their names on on on lists u so that if there is a class action started among people who maybe aren't golden visa holders um because I think I think uh like for myself um you know and people people like me um we may we may have made different decisions like if probably I'd have understood uh how you know how much anti-immigrant sentiment um was going to start happening in Portugal. I might have made a different decision. I don't know. But either way, it feels it it's appalling uh the way uh we've been treated and especially for people who got very very close. And I, you know, I spoke about my son missing out by one day by one day. Just awful.

[00:07:43]And and the worst thing about it is of the three of us, he is the most Portuguese, guys. He he is the one who he he is the one who deserved it the most. So it's it's appalling. It's absolutely [ __ ] disgusting. Uh the the rugpool that's happened to to him.

[00:08:01]And um so yeah, the there's a lot of uh on one of the Facebook groups, there's Portuguese nationality and there's the Seth news group and they are uh they've got this um petition and there's a hashtag um that you can also put your put next to your name to express your interest in any u future class action lawsuits that go forward. So, what I'm going to do, I'm going to dig those up and I'm going to put them in the video uh description um below this video. And also, I'm calling out to you guys um subscribers or anyone who watches this video, if you have any other information about any of the class action lawsuits and petitions that are going to go ahead, please uh put them in the comments for me or obviously my email is uh the [email protected], right? same as the channel name. So, if you have any extra information or you'd even like me to do a special video, if you're involved in any of these petitions or class actions and you'd be up for doing a proper interview, maybe over Zoom or over Streamyard or something like that, please let me know cuz I'd really love to push this forward. I think it's I think it is important. I think that um you know, Portugal's really shot itself in the foot with this. Um and uh yeah, I think we need to we need to take some take some action. I do think that it is unconstitutional. I do I do think we should have an expectation of uh laws not being changed and uh you know uh I think anyone who came here uh a 5-year transitional period is the solution.

[00:09:43]That would mean that so for example right now if you wanted to move to Portugal now you would come on the understanding that it's a 10-year wait right but I think anyone who came like up to a month ago uh would have had the understanding that it was a 5year weight right so I think that that should be uh that should be protected so um I think yeah well let's uh let's sign up to these groups and uh or any of these kind of petitions and I think let's see if we can get some momentum them. Um I I do think there's a good chance that if enough people um and maybe some Portuguese lawyers who'd like to make some money, I guess uh can get behind it. I do think there's a good chance that the uh uh constitutional court will say, look, you know, there needs to be a transitional period. As I say, I think it should be five years, but I think even if it was at least two or three years, that would uh go some way to uh you know, doing the right thing. Uh because I do think it was the wrong thing. Uh but let me know in the comments what you think. Do you have any further information? What do you think?

[00:10:48]Have you just resigned yourself to it being 10 years now? Maybe you're not bothered. Maybe for some reason you think that, you know, PR is enough. As I've said, the Portugu Portuguese have already proved that they will move the go the goalpost at will. So, you might think, "Oh, well, I've got, you know, I've got my residence permit. What's the problem?" Well, you know, next year they might decide that uh to continue residence permit. You might need to have 100 grand in the bank and be employing six Portuguese people or something ridiculous like that. Or you might need to know Portuguese to uh a C2 level and you might have to have, you know, whatever. uh they've already proven that they'll move the goalpost at a moment's notice. This is not a complaint against Portuguese people. Obviously, it's a complaint against the Portuguese uh government. And I hope that, you know, Portuguese people also recognize, you know, the place is a bureaucratic mess. Um yeah, I want things to improve for everybody. But anyway, I think I'm going to wrap the video up here. If you enjoy this type of content and you're new around here, please consider subscribing. It really, really helps me out. Uh, if you like the video, please give it a thumbs up. If you like what we do, please consider buying me a coffee in the show notes down below the video.

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