If you want to stay in Portugal for longer than 3 months, you can apply for a long-stay Visa. This post details what this process looks like for the D7 retirement visa as of September 2024.
Start with You
Name & Address. The first thing you need to do is make sure the name on your financial accounts matches the name on your passport. You will also need to show proof of your U.S. address, so hopefully the name on your driver’s license matches the name on your passport. Your U.S. address also needs to match the address on your financial accounts.
Establish Portugal Identity
Once you have verified your name and address are represented correctly, the next important things to do are getting your NIF, opening a bank account, and finding your housing.
- Get your NIF. As soon as your can, apply for your Portuguese Tax ID (NIF). If you work with an agency like Relocate to Portugal, it is part of the package. You can also apply for a NIF using a third-party such as Bordr. Your NIF is needed for basically everything.
- Open a Portuguese Bank Account. Even with your NIF and $$ in hand, you still might not be able to just walk into a branch and open an account. The agency we used, Relocate to Portugal, essentially did an extremely valuable step of vetting us to the bank. We chose Novobanco because there is a branch close to where we will be living. We had this arranged before we arrived in Portugal and only needed to go to the branch to sign papers.
- Obtain Proof of Accomodation. As part of your application for a long stay Visa, you’ll need proof of accommodations. Depending on what type of Visa you apply for and which office you apply at, the details vary. For us, we signed a 12-month lease on an apartment that we found on idealista.pt. Read more: Finding Housing
- Important note: the property you rent should be properly registered with Finanças, the Portuguese tax authorities and government department that handles tax-related matters. You can get the lease registration (modelo contrato) and receipts (recibo de renda) from Portal das Finanças website using your NIF login. Your NIF account is created roughly 1 month after you receive your NIF.
Work on Financial Accounts
Another item that could take a bit of time is establishing proof of passive income, and funding your Portuguese Bank Account. You need to show income being deposited in your U.S. Bank account. You will need show the most recent 3 months of bank statements, and those deposits need to be in those statements. You will need to show the most recent statement of your income source(s).
Proof of Passive Income. For your long-stay D7 Visa application, you will also need to show your financial means. It is really important that you can show passive income hitting your bank account for the most recent 3 months. If you are not yet pulling from retirement sources, you can have money come from an investment account. You will want to set this up as an automatic recurring event, and obtain a letter stating this.
Funding the Portuguese Bank Account. Now that you have a bank account, you will need to fund it using a service such as Wise to transfer money.
Request longer lead-time items
Work on other items that you have to request, these include:
- Apostille FBI Report. An apostilled version of your FBI report is the gold standard and takes about 3 or 4 weeks to arrive. First step is to go to a USPS office to be fingerprinted and request a FBI report. Request both the electronic and mail copy. It is likely you will receive your electronic report within 24 hours, and then you should immediately turn around and request the apostilled version using Monument Visa. You will end up with an electronic copy, a mailed version, and an apostilled version. You should keep the mailed version as a backup and leave it unopened.
- Social Security Statement. If you do not have your social security statement, you can request one at ssa.gov. This could be available electronically within 24 hours or take a week if a confirmation code is sent to you via U.S. mail.
- Marriage Certificate. If married, you will need to request an official copy of your marriage certificate via vitalchek.
Everything else
The rest of your Visa application includes filling the application, writing a personal statement and obtaining:
- Two EU-passport photos
- A notarized copy of your passport
- Travel health insurance policy. You can set up a international schengen visa insurance policy at Swisscare.
Resources
- Relocation agencies can help the process. We used Relocate to Portugal.
- NIF. Apply by hiring an agency, or directly via a third-party such as Bordr. We applied on Aug 3 and received our NIF on Aug 8.
- Finanças Portal. You will need to wait for the Portuguese tax office to create your account before you can login on the Portal das Finanças website. We received our NIF on Aug 8 and received our login info on Sep 4.
- Find rentals on idealista.pt.
- Travel Health Insurance sign up for travel health insurance using Swisscare.
- Apostille FBI Report using Monument Visa
- Transfer money using Wise.
- Apostille vs Notary. An apostille attests to the origin and legality of the document itself. A notary confirms signatures.
