by Citizens of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) will benefit from a simplified regime for accessing a residence permit in Portugal. It will be done through a digital platform, which will be available on the morning of next Monday, March 13, as announced this Friday, in a press conference, held at the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI), Minister José Luís Carneiro, the Minister of Digitization and Administrative of Modernization, Mário Campolargo, the Minister of Equality and Immigration, Isabel Almeida Rodrigues and the director of the Service for Foreigners and Borders (SEF), Fernando Silva.
This platform will be available to immigrant citizens from the CPLP area who have already submitted an expression of interest (an official request to the SEF to obtain a residence permit) in 2021 or 2022 and who are still pending these procedures.
According to the guardianship, they will receive the document confirming their residence permit in Portugal “as a rule” in 72 hours, at a cost of 15 euros — an amount similar to the issuance of a national citizenship card.
This process will be done through the digital platform presented now, which will be available on the sef.pt website and on the eportugal.gov.pt portal, “exclusively online, without the need for physical travel” to the SEF premises, unless minors are involved. , explained the SEF director.
To this end, citizens of CPLP member states (Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe and Timor-Leste) who have submitted an expression of interest by 31 December 2022 and those holding CPLP Visas issued after October 31. In a second phase, it will be available to CPLP citizens with an expression of interest after January 1 and to CPLP citizens in the national territory with regular entry, who have not yet applied for a residence permit at the SEF.
This measure follows the agreement on mobility between CPLP member states, which was approved in July 2021. It entered into force on 1 January 2022 (with the various countries ratifying the agreement throughout the year). In practice, this convention is “another step in the process of promoting mobility between CPLP countries”, stressed Minister José Luís Carneiro.
The idea, the official stressed, is to have a “faster, safer and simpler process”, through an “automatic data verification”, since there will be cross-reference of data with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MNE).
150 thousand procedures
According to the director of the SEF, the measure could cover a “maximum universe” of about 150 thousand citizens, “corresponding to the number of visas and the number of requests submitted to the electronic platform Automatic Pre-Scheduling System (SAPA)”. which expressions of interest are formalized.
However, noted Fernando Silva, “there may be citizens who are no longer here or who do not intend to benefit from this type of visa.”
This residence permit will be valid for one year, “renewable for two consecutive periods of two years”.
In this way, CPLP citizens who want to come to Portugal do not, as a rule, need to establish any contact with the SEF. “People who want to [deslocar-se para Portugal] they have to do it according to the rules, which is to go to a consular office and apply for a CPLP visa or a job seeker visa,” Jose Luis Carneiro stressed. With this information, and through this platform, it will be possible “to go all the way to the digital issue of the residence permit”.
This process takes place at a time when the government is preparing the restructuring of the SEF, whose administrative functions regarding immigration will be transferred to the Portuguese Immigration and Asylum Agency (APMA).
If approximately 150,000 residence permit procedures are pending, corresponding to citizens of CPLP member states, there will be a further 150,000 requests from immigrants from other parts of the world. To speed up the legalization process for these citizens, no measure has yet been officially submitted by the MAI.
Since last November, with the latest amendment to the Aliens Act, any foreigner who wants to work in Portugal can apply for a jobseeker visa. This document is granted for 120 days, with the possibility of extension for another 60 days, and its issuance requires planning for the granting of the residence permit and the presentation of various documents.
