Visa information

Portugal offers three named routes in the 2026 guide: the D7 passive-income visa for retirees and investors, the D8 digital nomad visa for remote workers, and a Golden Visa that now runs through funds and business rather than property. The guide scores Portugal 70/100 for visa and bureaucracy, so the routes are workable — but the paperwork stage is measured in weeks, not days, on every plan tier.

The three routes the guide names

D7 Passive Income visa — described in the guide as the route for retirees and investors, and as the classic retirement route (see the Retirement page for the retiree-specific costs).

D8 Digital Nomad visa — the route for remote workers, tested against income of about four times the minimum wage (see below).

Golden Visa — still listed, but now via funds and business, not property. The guide states this twice, in the visa list and again in its schemes list: the property route is closed.

The guide also lists interior-region incentives and grants for relocating among the schemes that attract expats, without giving amounts or eligibility rules.

The income test — what the sources actually say

For the D8, the guide gives the test in relative terms only: about 4× minimum wage income. It does not print a euro figure for the minimum wage or for the D8 threshold, so this page does not invent one.

For the D7, the guide prints no income threshold at all. The Hub's own site data (the app.js country FAQ, separate from the guide) describes the D7 as requiring proof of regular income around $1,400 per month — treat that as the site's planning figure, not a guide-stated euro threshold, and confirm the current euro amount with the consulate before filing.

At the guide's exchange rate of $1 ≈ €0.86, any dollar figure you are quoted converts at roughly that rate for planning.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not list individual government visa fees. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” budget line in each move plan, and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $850 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,200 — Mid-range and Retirement plans
• $2,850 — Luxury plan (the plan notes the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line: $2,200 for “Retirement visa, lawyer & pension certification”, covering an immigration lawyer, apostilled pension letters, medicals and translations.

Application steps and timelines, by tier

The guide builds the application into each plan's timeline rather than printing a single step list. The common sequence across the plans and checklists is:

• Choose the route first and print its requirements; the Affordable checklist starts with “Visa route chosen and requirements printed.”
• Gather and legalise documents — apostilles and translations are named in every tier; the Retirement paperwork stage adds pension or income letters certified and apostilled, a police certificate, a medical, and birth and marriage certificates translated.
• Check your passport — the Affordable checklist requires a passport valid 18+ months.
• Arrange health insurance before you file (see the Hospitals page for the guide's first-year insurance budgets).
• File — yourself on the Affordable tier, or with a lawyer or agent on the Mid-range, Luxury and Retirement tiers.

Paperwork-stage durations in the guide: ~10 weeks filing yourself (Affordable), ~8 weeks with a lawyer or agent filing (Mid-range), ~6 weeks with a lawyer filing everything (Luxury), and ~14 weeks for the Retirement paperwork stage. After the move, the settle stage includes registering your address and opening a bank account.

Renewals and the path to residency — the honest limit of the guide

The Hub's site FAQ states that the D7 can lead to permanent residency and citizenship. Neither the guide nor the site data gives the number of years, the renewal intervals, or any absence limits, so this page does not state them. Treat the pathway as confirmed in principle by the site data, and the timetable as something to confirm with an immigration lawyer or the consulate before you rely on it — the Retirement plan's lawyer line exists for exactly this kind of question.

Frequently asked questions