ARI / Golden Visa (RESIDENCE, not citizenship)

PT-INV-01 documents the Autorização de Residência para Atividade de Investimento (ARI) — popularly the "Golden Visa." The single most important framing point, carried as a FATAL (PT-VC-009), is that the ARI is a RESIDENCE permit, not a citizenship route. Investment in Portugal does not buy a passport. What an ARI does is grant the investor (and, by family reunification, qualifying dependants) a renewable Portuguese/Schengen residence title with low minimum-stay obligations. Portuguese nationality is acquired only later, and only by completing ordinary naturalisation under Lei 37/81 Art 6.º — the same legal test that applies to every other long-term resident, with no investment-specific shortcut.

This route therefore sits at the intersection of two distinct legal regimes that must never be conflated:

1. The residence layer — Lei 23/2007 (as reshaped by Lei 56/2023). This defines which investment activities qualify, the minimum thresholds, the minimum physical-stay days, renewal cycles, and the competent authority (AIMA, formerly SEF). This layer confers no nationality whatsoever.
2. The naturalisation horizon — Lei 37/81 Art 6.º n.º 1 b) as republished by LO 1/2026. An ARI holder who wishes to become Portuguese must accrue the requisite period of legal residence (now 7 years for CPLP/EU nationals, 10 years for all others) and satisfy the full battery of Art 6.º n.º 1 integration conditions (language, culture/history/symbols, civic knowledge, solemn declaration, criminal/security/UN-EU clearances, subsistence). The clock runs from the date of issuance of the residence title, not the date of application (PT-ASSERT-NAT-014).

Two macro-events frame the route as of 2026:

• Lei 56/2023 ("Mais Habitação", EIF 07-10-2023) abolished the headline real-estate routes (€500k / €400k / €350k acquisition) and the €1.5M passive capital-transfer route, and prohibited the surviving fund route from being directed at real-estate investment. The ARI survives only as a productive-investment instrument (funds, jobs, research, cultural heritage, company incorporation).
• CJEU (Grand Chamber), Commission v Malta, C-181/23 (29-04-2025; ECLI:EU:C:2025:283) held that an EU Member State cannot grant nationality (and thus EU citizenship) in exchange for predetermined payments/investments. Portugal's ARI is structurally outside that prohibition precisely because it confers residence, not nationality (PT-ASSERT-INV-005).

The route is documented here as active at the residence layer, with an explicit redirection of the citizenship question to PT-NAT-01 (7y CPLP/EU) and PT-NAT-02 (10y others).

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A third-country national (EU/EEA/Swiss nationals do not need an ARI — they have free-movement residence rights) may obtain an ARI by undertaking and maintaining one of the surviving qualifying investment activities (PT-ASSERT-INV-002; S-D-08-c, S-D-08-b, S-D-08-e):

• Investment funds — subscription of ≥ €500,000 in units of a CMVM-regulated collective-investment vehicle, with maturity ≥ 5 years and at least 60% of the portfolio invested in Portuguese commercial companies, where the fund is NOT directed at real-estate (the Lei 56/2023 prohibition);
• Job creation — creation of ≥ 10 permanent jobs (8 in low-density / interior areas);
• Scientific research — capital transfer ≥ €500,000 to public/private research institutions integrated in the national scientific-technological system;
• Cultural heritage / artistic production — investment ≥ €250,000 (€200,000 in low-density areas, including Azores and Madeira) in support of artistic production / recovery or maintenance of national cultural heritage;
• Company incorporation / capital increase — investment ≥ €500,000 in incorporating or reinforcing a Portuguese commercial company combined with creation of ≥ 5 permanent jobs.

General ARI conditions also apply: clean criminal record, valid Schengen entry, regularised tax/social-security position, and (critically) maintenance of the investment for the statutory minimum period (generally five years). Minimum physical-stay obligations are low (the long-standing rule has been on the order of 7 days in year 1 and 14 days across each subsequent two-year period) — but low physical presence is itself a constraint on the naturalisation horizon, because legal residence must be genuine (see Caveats).

(B) Naturalisation eligibility (Lei 37/81 Art 6.º n.º 1, LO 1/2026)

An ARI holder seeking nationality must, at the moment of the naturalisation request:

• be of legal age / emancipated (Art 6.º n.º 1 a));
• hold legal residence ≥ 7 years (CPLP/EU) or ≥ 10 years (others) counted from residence-title issuance (Art 6.º n.º 1 b); PT-ASSERT-NAT-001, PT-ASSERT-NAT-014);
• demonstrate knowledge of Portuguese language (A2 CEFR, CIPLE) and Portuguese culture / national history / national symbols (Art 6.º n.º 1 c)) — note the CPLP language presumption in Art 6.º n.º 10 covers the language component only, not culture/history/symbols;
• demonstrate knowledge of fundamental rights/duties and the political organisation of the State (Art 6.º n.º 1 d), new);
• make a solemn declaration of adherence to democratic rule-of-law principles (Art 6.º n.º 1 e), new);
• have no final conviction to effective imprisonment exceeding 3 years for enumerated crimes (Art 6.º n.º 1 f), as rectified by Decl. Retif. 17/2026; rebuttable presumption assessed by the MP under Art 6.º n.º 14);
• pose no threat to national security/defence (Art 6.º n.º 1 g));
• not be subject to UN/EU restrictive measures under Lei 97/2017 (Art 6.º n.º 1 h));
• demonstrate capacity to ensure own subsistence (Art 6.º n.º 1 i), new).

The ARI grants no waiver of any of these. The only investment-relevant feature is that the years spent holding the ARI count as legal residence toward the b) threshold — exactly as years on any other residence title would. (For the complete naturalisation analysis see PT-NAT-01 and PT-NAT-02.)

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| Residence | Competent authority | DL 41/2023 (creates AIMA) | AIMA, I.P. (residence); MNE consular network (visas) | | Citizenship | Legal residence period | Lei 37/81 Art 6.º n.º 1 b) (LO 1/2026) | 7y CPLP/EU · 10y others (PT-ASSERT-NAT-001) | | Citizenship | Clock start | LO 1/2026 (reverses LO 1/2024) | Date of issuance of residence title (PT-ASSERT-NAT-014) | | Citizenship | Integration battery | Lei 37/81 Art 6.º n.º 1 c)-i) (LO 1/2026) | Language A2 + culture/history/symbols + civics + solemn declaration + criminal/security/UN-EU + subsistence | | Citizenship | Investment shortcut | — | NONE. No investment-based exemption from any Art 6.º condition | | Citizenship | Transitional 5y | LO 1/2026 Art 7 | Only for naturalisation apps with IRN e-submission ≤ 2026-05-18 (PT-NAT-01-TRANS) |

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Step 1 — Investment + ARI application (residence layer). The investor executes a qualifying investment (fund subscription, job creation, research transfer, cultural-heritage contribution, or company incorporation + jobs) and applies for the ARI. Coordination runs through the MNE consular network for entry/visa and through AIMA, I.P. for the residence authorisation (vistos.mne.gov.pt, S-D-08-c; AIMA, S-D-08-b). AIMA succeeded SEF under DL 41/2023; significant pendency backlogs exist and are addressed by AIMA's ARI Pendency Recovery Plan.

Step 2 — ARI renewals (residence layer). The ARI is renewable provided the qualifying investment is maintained and minimum physical-stay days are met. Each renewal continues the accrual of legal-residence time toward the naturalisation threshold.

Step 3 — Naturalisation request (citizenship layer). Once the investor has accrued 7 years (CPLP/EU) or 10 years (others) of legal residence counted from title issuance and can satisfy the full Art 6.º n.º 1 battery, they file an ordinary naturalisation request with the IRN / Conservatória dos Registos Centrais (CRC) — the same procedure as PT-NAT-01 / PT-NAT-02. The Ministério da Justiça decides; naturalisation is a concessão (discretionary grant) and confers acquired (not originária) nationality with effects from registration (Art 12.º).

Step 4 — Opposition / appeals. The Ministério Público may oppose acquisition-by-will in adjacent regimes (Art 9.º); naturalisation itself is a Government grant. Adverse nationality decisions are challenged before the administrative courts, with final appeal to the Supremo Tribunal Administrativo (STA) — NOT the civil courts/STJ (the administrative-jurisdiction route has applied since LO 2/2006). This is confirmed by STA Proc. 0219/10.6BEPRT and the constitutional reserva-de-lei line (TC Ac. 1133/2025).

Authorities map: AIMA, I.P. (ARI residence); MNE consular network (entry/visa); IRN / Conservatória dos Registos Centrais (naturalisation); Ministério da Justiça (decision); administrative courts → STA (appeals); Tribunal Constitucional (constitutional review of the underlying statute). Azores and Madeira confer no separate nationality and apply no different rules (CRP Art 225.º n.º 3).

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Residence layer (Lei 23/2007 + Lei 56/2023). The ARI is created and governed by the Portuguese Aliens Law (Lei n.º 23/2007, de 4 de julho), under which the "atividade de investimento" residence authorisation was introduced and progressively reshaped by regulation and by amending statutes. The decisive amendment for the current state of the regime is Lei n.º 56/2023, de 6 de outubro (the "Mais Habitação" housing package), which entered into force on 2023-10-07 (S-D-08-a; S-D-17-b). Lei 56/2023:

• removed the direct real-estate acquisition routes (the €500k standard, €400k low-density, and €350k rehabilitation tiers) and the €1.5M passive capital-transfer route;
• prohibited the surviving investment-fund route from being directed (directly or indirectly) at real-estate investment;
• preserved the productive-economy routes (funds, job creation, scientific research, cultural/artistic heritage, company incorporation + jobs).

The competent residence authority is AIMA, I.P. (Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo), created by Decreto-Lei n.º 41/2023, de 2 de junho (which took over SEF's functions; AIMA operative from 29-10-2023). Visa/entry coordination runs through the Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros consular network (vistos.mne.gov.pt, S-D-08-c). AIMA has published an ARI Pendency Recovery Plan addressing the substantial application backlog (S-D-08-b).

Naturalisation horizon (Lei 37/81 Art 6.º n.º 1 b), LO 1/2026). The path from ARI residence to Portuguese nationality is ordinary naturalisation — there is no "investment naturalisation." Under LO 1/2026 (EIF 2026-05-19) the residence threshold in Art 6.º n.º 1 b) is "sete anos... ou 10 anos": 7 years of legal residence for nationals of CPLP Member States and of EU Member States, 10 years for all others (PT-ASSERT-NAT-001; S-PGDL-CONS). A typical non-CPLP/non-EU investor therefore faces the 10-year horizon (PT-ASSERT-INV-003; S-D-09-a, S-D-09-b). The full set of nine cumulative Art 6.º n.º 1 alíneas applies (see PT-NAT-01 / PT-NAT-02 for the complete battery); the ARI confers no exemption from any of them.

Clock-start rule (PT-ASSERT-NAT-014). Under LO 1/2026 the residence clock runs from the date of issuance of the residence title, reversing the application-date counting of LO 1/2024. Given AIMA processing backlogs reported at 12-18 months, the effective time-to-naturalisation for an ARI holder may run materially beyond the 7/10-year statutory minimum.

Transitional 5-year survival. The former 5-year uniform naturalisation threshold (LO 2/2018 era) survives only for naturalisation applications whose IRN electronic submission predates 2026-05-19 (PT-NAT-01-TRANS; LO 1/2026 Art 7 transitional). It is not available to an investor commencing the naturalisation process after that date.

Constitutional/competence anchor. Nationality is the exclusive non-delegable competence of the Assembleia da República (CRP Art 164.º f)), exercisable only by organic law (Art 166.º n.º 2). The executive (AIMA / Ministério da Justiça) administers but cannot supplement the statutory conditions — confirmed by STA Proc. 0219/10.6BEPRT (14-02-2019) and TC Ac. 1133/2025. This bars any administrative "investment shortcut" to nationality.

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