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If you are in the process of obtaining Portuguese citizenship and your application is delayed far beyond the times you have been told, it is important that you know that you are not the only ones.
In light of the significant increase in applications for Portuguese citizenship, the Portuguese Ministry of Justice admits that the processing times for cases of citizenship applicants are much longer than those stipulated by law. Although the Ministry of Justice stated on the official website the average times for examining each application, in practice these times were ten times longer in some cases.
This is reported by the news site Diario De Noticias that brings the explanation of the Ministry of Justice and the average times it takes to examine each application. The Ministry of Justice promises to implement new plans in order to shorten the process times for each application.
We present to you the main points of the article:
The Ministry of Justice estimates that the process of issuing citizenship can take ten times longer than the times defined by law due to the exponential increase in the number of citizenship applications submitted to the Registry and Notaries in recent years. According to the Justice Department, the annual average of applications rose from 100,000 in 2016 to 160,000 in 2017.
In 2021, despite the coronavirus, the average number of new applications was 11,000 a month. These are the data that the Ministry of Justice sent to the Assembly of the Republic in response to a question from MP from the Communist Party Antonio Felipe regarding the delay in the times for approval of citizenship applications.
According to the dates published on the website of the Registry and Notaries (IRN), the application for Portuguese citizenship of adult people must be answered within 24-29 months since it was submitted, including registration of the applicant as a citizen. This is on the assumption that the application was submitted in accordance with the requirements and all the necessary documents were attached to it. It also takes between 9-11 months to receive the application and process it. Today these official times have increased tenfold.
The Ministry of Justice noted in its response that the analysis of the application and the subsequent steps take between 9-12 months, although by law it is a matter of 60 days and an additional 30 days if the application is denied in which the applicant is allowed to respond. “The decision, final approval, and registration as a Portuguese citizen are made 6-8 months after the processing of the application is completed,” said the Registration and Notaries (IRN), emphasizing that these are deadlines if everything goes well, if the process is incomplete or the application is not submitted correctly in the first place by documents or filling in additional details.
According to the response sent by the Ministry of Justice to the Assembly of the Republic, it recognizes a delay in the deadlines: the bureau of Registration and Notaries (IRN) does not ignore the legal deadlines for processing citizenship applications because it itself has issued them.
According to the services for which the Minister of Justice, Francisca Van Dunem, is responsible, the process of obtaining citizenship by origin takes on average between two weeks and 15 months. The fastest processes are of approval of citizenship for minors under the age of 18 based on the Portuguese citizenship of one of the parents, because the analysis of the application is not complicated.
On the other hand, in cases where the citizenship is inherited from parent to small or adult children and their father or mother who is in the process of obtaining Portuguese citizenship or married to a Portuguese citizen for more than 3 years, there is an average delay of 14-20 months.
As for citizenship application processes for citizens (which imply legal residence in the country for a period of at least five years), their processing takes an average of 19 months. In both cases, there are average times that can be exceeded. The delay in approval in these cases causes a repeat request.
The Ministry of Justice promises a contingency plan
Without pre-emptive deadlines for shortening processes to the deadlines set by law, the Ministry of Justice assures that it is taking steps to overcome the situation. In particular, this involves the implementation in the near future of a new support system for the qualified registration services that will lead to a significant reduction in the time offered for processing and approving the applications.
Claiming that it is particularly sensitive to the need to improve service to the citizen, the ministry also states in its response to the Communist Party that a contingency plan will be implemented aimed at returning pending cases. The issue of “transferring citizenship applications to other registration offices that exist in the national territory” is also on the table.
The number of citizenship applications and their approval has increased significantly in recent years, due to the frequency of immigration and changes in the Citizenship Law. In 2020, 149,157 applications were approved, the highest number ever, at 2% more than last year. As for 2021, there are still partial data. By April, 56,550 applications had been approved. The list of new citizens is led by Brazilians and Israelis (since 2013, Jews descended from deportees from Spain and Portugal can apply for citizenship).
Read here About a third of the citizens of Portugal last year were Israelis
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