Sephardic descent naturalisation (former Art 6 n.7) — CLOSED by LO 1/2026

PT-HIS-01 documents the Sephardic Jewish descent naturalisation route — the special naturalisation-with-dispensation pathway that Portugal operated between 2013 and 2026 for descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews (the Jewish communities expelled or forcibly converted following the 1496 expulsion decree of D. Manuel I). The route allowed qualifying descendants to acquire Portuguese nationality by naturalisation without the ordinary residence requirement and without the ordinary language requirement, on the strength of a heritage certificate issued by a recognised Portuguese Jewish community.

The single most important fact about this route as of the operative law is that it is CLOSED. Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 (EIF 19 May 2026) revoked Art 6 n.7 of Lei 37/81 — the statutory basis of the route — together with the related n.5 and n.13. From 19 May 2026 there is no Sephardic naturalisation pathway for new applicants. This corrects the most dangerous inherited fabrication trap on this route ( PT-VC-002, FATAL): any source describing the Sephardic route as currently "open," or stating it requires "3 years' residence," is describing a regime that no longer exists for new entrants.

The route nonetheless remains documented as closed_transitional rather than deleted, because three things continue to matter:

1. Pending applications survive. Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 Art 7 (transitional regime) protects applications already submitted to the IRN as procedimentos pendentes: these continue to be analysed under the prior redaction of the law. The operative anchor distinguishing a "pending" from a "closed" file is the date of electronic submission to the IRN.

2. It is a signature route for the country. The Sephardic route was, for a decade, the most internationally visible feature of Portuguese nationality law and the policy whose abolition was the headline of the 2026 reform.

The route was, throughout its life, a naturalisation (concessão) with dispensation, never an attribution of nationality of origin (originária). A Sephardic grantee therefore acquired acquired nationality with effects from the date of registration (Art 12), not from birth (Art 11). This distinction governs onward transmission to children and is treated under Eligibility Criteria below.

---

An applicant can have a Sephardic file analysed only if the file was a procedimento pendente at entry into force of LO 1/2026 — i.e. submitted to the IRN on or before 18 May 2026. From 19 May 2026 the IRN cannot accept a new Sephardic naturalisation application because the statutory ground (Art 6 n.7) no longer exists.

A second, practical layer applies at the certification stage: the heritage certificate from a recognised Jewish community was an indispensable prerequisite, and the certifying bodies wound down ahead of the statutory closure:

• CIP Porto ceased issuing Sephardic certificates in March 2022.
• CIL Lisboa announced it would no longer accept new certification submissions from 4 May 2026 (fifteen days before the LO 1/2026 EIF); files received before that date continue to be analysed.

In practice, therefore, a person without an already-issued (or already-submitted) CIP/CIL certificate had no realistic route into the transitional cohort even before the 19 May statutory cut-off.

(b) Substantive eligibility by phase (for pending / historical assessment)

The eligibility test that applies to a surviving file is the test of the phase in which the file was lodged (the transitional rule keeps the file under the prior redaction). The phases:

• Phase 1 (2013, LO 1/2013 enacted, not yet operational). Substantive ground existed on paper; no applications processed.
• Phase 2 (2013–2015, DL 43/2013). First operational regime via the Regulamento amendment.
• Phase 3 (01-03-2015 to 31-08-2022, DL 30-A/2015). The classic regime: heritage certificate from CIP/CIL demonstrating tradição de pertença a comunidade sefardita de origem portuguesa; no residence requirement; no language requirement. This is the phase that produced the route's international reputation.
• Phase 4 (01-09-2022 to 31-03-2024, DL 26/2022 Art 24-A). Added the ligação efetiva e duradoura (effective and lasting connection to Portugal) requirement, demonstrated through objective criteria beyond ancestry. The Tribunal Constitucional upheld this transitional regime (Ac. 128/2024).
• Phase 5 (01-04-2024 to 18-05-2026, LO 1/2024). Added a 3-year residency requirement and a Ministry-of-Justice Evaluation Committee whose approval is required in addition to the CIP/CIL certificate; reduced 1-year transitional residency for files lodged before 01-04-2024.
• Phase 6 (from 19-05-2026, LO 1/2026). CLOSED.

Core eligibility elements common to all open phases

• Sephardic descent of Portuguese origin, evidenced and certified by CIP Porto or CIL Lisboa. The certificate (and, where applicable, the community's expert genealogical committee) is the gatekeeping element — the IRN does not independently adjudicate Sephardic ancestry.
• Naturalisation-with-dispensation character. The route always dispensed with Art 6 n.1 b) (the residence threshold) and c) (the language requirement) in its classic form; it was never an attribution of nationality of origin. From Phase 5 the dispensation was narrowed by the added 3-year residence requirement.
• General naturalisation bars still applied (the criminal/security framework of the era), assessed at the moment of the decision.

Onward-transmission consequence (origin vs acquired)

Because a Sephardic grant is acquired nationality (concessão, effects from registration under Art 12) and not nationality of origin (originária, effects ex tunc from birth under Art 11), a Sephardic grantee is not a "português originário." The grantee's children can claim Portuguese nationality only as the children of a Portuguese national (Art 1 n.1 jus sanguinis), not as descendants of an original Portuguese national; the grantee cannot seed an originária descent chain. This is the same structural point that governs the bisneto route (PT-DSC-03) and is decisive for families planning multi-generational transmission.

---

The following is the requirement set in the classic Phase 3 form (DL 30-A/2015) — the regime under which most surviving files were generated — with the Phase 4 and Phase 5 additions flagged. For a pending file, apply the requirements of its phase.

1. Sephardic heritage certificate from CIP Porto or CIL Lisboa attesting tradição de pertença a comunidade sefardita de origem portuguesa. Mandatory and gatekeeping.
2. Genealogical / documentary support for the certificate (the community's expert committee evaluates evidence: surnames of Portuguese-Sephardic origin, family tradition, ladino/Portuguese liturgical usage, synagogue or cemetery records, and lineage documentation). This is the evidentiary base assembled for the community, not for the IRN.
3. No ordinary residence requirement (Phases 2–4). [Phase 5 addition: 3 years' residence required, LO 1/2024.]
4. No language requirement (dispensation of Art 6 n.1 c). The route never required CIPLE / A2 Portuguese.
5. Effective and lasting connection to Portugal ("ligação efetiva e duradoura") — [Phase 4 addition, DL 26/2022 Art 24-A]: objective criteria evidencing a real, current connection beyond ancestry.
6. Evaluation Committee approval — [Phase 5 addition, LO 1/2024]: Ministry-of-Justice committee approval beyond the CIP/CIL certificate.
7. General naturalisation suitability bars of the era (criminal/security), assessed at decision.
8. Application to the IRN / Conservatória dos Registos Centrais within the validity of the regime — and, decisively for the surviving cohort, electronic submission on or before 18 May 2026.

---

• Comunidade Israelita do Porto (CIP) and Comunidade Israelita de Lisboa (CIL) — the two recognised Portuguese Jewish communities that were the exclusive certifying bodies for Sephardic heritage (designated by DL 30-A/2015). CIP ceased certification March 2022; CIL ceased accepting new submissions 4 May 2026.

• IRN — Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado / Conservatória dos Registos Centrais (CRC) — receives and decides the naturalisation application; maintains the single national civil-registry record (there is one national registry; the Azores and Madeira confer no separate nationality and apply no different rules — CRP Art 225 n.3).

• Ministério da Justiça — the naturalisation grant is a concessão; from Phase 5 a Ministry Evaluation Committee approval was added.

• Administrative courts / Supremo Tribunal Administrativo (STA) — the appeal route for nationality decisions since the 2006 modernisation (LO 2/2006). Appeals do not go to the civil courts / Supremo Tribunal de Justiça (that was the pre-2006 route).

Process (historical, classic regime)

1. Assemble genealogical and community-connection evidence; obtain a heritage certificate from CIP or CIL.

2. (Phase 4+) Demonstrate the ligação efetiva e duradoura to Portugal.

3. (Phase 5+) Satisfy the 3-year residence requirement and obtain Evaluation Committee approval.

4. Submit the naturalisation application electronically to the IRN/CRC; the electronic submission date fixes which redaction of the law governs the file.

5. IRN decision; registration confers acquired nationality (Art 12, effects from registration).

6. Appeal: to the administrative courts / STA.

Live process for a surviving file

For a file lodged on or before 18 May 2026: it continues under the redaction in force at lodgement (the transitional rule of LO 1/2026 Art 7), through to IRN decision and any administrative-court appeal. No new Sephardic application can be initiated.

---

• Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026, de 18 de maio (Diário da República n.º 95/2026, Série I; entry into force 19 May 2026 — the day after publication), as rectified by Declaração de Retificação n.º 17/2026/1. Article 2 of LO 1/2026 amends a list of articles of Lei 37/81 and carries a republicação anexo; the accompanying revocation list expressly repeals n.os 5, 7 and 13 of Art 6 of Lei 37/81. The repeal of n.7 is the abolition of the Sephardic route. The Sephardic repeal was part of the underlying Decreto AR (the constitutional precursor) and — critically — was NOT among the four norms struck by the Tribunal Constitucional in the preventive review (see below); it survived constitutional scrutiny and entered into force.

Constitutional and competence frame

• Nationality is the exclusive, non-delegable competence of the Assembleia da República (CRP Art 164 f), exercisable only by organic law (CRP Art 166 n.2). The Sephardic route could therefore only be created, and only abolished, by organic law — which is why both its 2013 creation (LO 1/2013) and its 2026 abolition (LO 1/2026) took the organic-law form, while the operational detail lived in the Regulamento (a decree-law).
• The split between organic law and Regulamento is itself load-bearing on this route: the Tribunal Constitucional and the courts have repeatedly held that the Regulamento cannot override the organic law (the regulation-cannot-supplement-statute line), which is why some Sephardic-adjacent litigation turned on whether a regulatory provision (e.g. an opposition deadline) was ultra vires.

Statutory genealogy of the route (the chain)

---