At this point, the Portuguese authorities are still recovering from the two-year backlog caused by the worldwide pandemic situation that we’ve all experienced. That, the current situation in Ukraine – which made the authorities turn all efforts and prioritize the asylum and refugee applications – as well as the Portuguese government’s decision to extinguish and replace SEF as the current authority for all migration matters, created a huge delay in the processing time for all residence applications. As such, at this point, the total processing time of a Golden Visa is of almost two years, considering both mandatory stages of the procedure (online and in-person applications – this last one occurring when the applicant provides his / her biometric data at a SEF facility), but it is reducing every day.
