Portugal tightens its citizenship rules: what changes for residents

Portugal's new nationality law entered into force on 19 May 2026. Organic Law No. 1/2026 was published in the Diário da República, the official gazette, on 18 May 2026, and it changes the most important condition for naturalisation: how long you must have lived in the country legally.

The new residence periods

Under the amended law, the government grants Portuguese nationality to adults who have resided legally in Portugal for at least:

• 7 years, for citizens of Portuguese speaking countries (the CPLP) and of European Union member states;
• 10 years, for citizens of all other countries.

Before the reform, the requirement was 5 years for any nationality.

Who keeps the old rules

The law has a single transition rule. Applications that were already pending on 19 May 2026 continue to be decided under the previous version of the law. Everyone else falls under the new rules, including people who were already living in Portugal but had not yet applied.

How time is now counted

Two changes matter for people already living in Portugal.

The waiting time for a permit no longer counts. The previous version of the law allowed the time elapsed since you applied for a temporary residence permit to count towards naturalisation, as long as the permit was eventually granted. That rule has been repealed.

Periods can be added up, within a limit. The law counts the sum of all periods of legal residence, continuous or not, as long as they fall within a maximum window of 9 years for citizens of Portuguese speaking and EU countries, and 12 years for citizens of other countries.

The law defines legal residence as being in Portugal with your situation regularised under any of the permits, visas or authorisations provided for in the foreigners and asylum laws. How the authorities apply the new counting rules in practice may still be clarified: the Ministry of Justice said the implementing regulations would be updated within 90 days of the law entering into force.

Other new requirements

Besides residence, applicants must now:

• prove, by test or certificate, sufficient knowledge of the Portuguese language and of Portuguese culture, history and national symbols;
• know the fundamental rights and duties of citizenship and how the Portuguese state is organised;
• make a solemn declaration of adherence to the principles of the democratic rule of law;
• not have been sentenced to more than 3 years of effective imprisonment for terrorism, violent or organised crime, crimes against state security or assisting illegal immigration;
• not be subject to restrictive measures adopted by the United Nations or the European Union;
• be able to support themselves.

A correction published in the same issue of the gazette fixed the paragraph on how applicants prove this. As first published, it referred to sentences of 2 years or more; it now matches the rule above, more than 3 years of effective imprisonment.

For children born in Portugal to foreign parents, the law requires that one parent has lived there legally for at least 5 years. The ministry also highlighted that the special route for descendants of Sephardic Jews has ended and that great grandchildren of Portuguese citizens can now qualify.

How the law got here

• 15 December 2025. The Constitutional Court, asked by 50 members of parliament, found four norms of the first version unconstitutional. Among them were the version of the criminal record condition then proposed and a rule on how pending applications would be assessed, which the court found incompatible with the protection of legitimate expectations. The court did not find the other contested norms unconstitutional.
• 1 April 2026. Parliament approved the revised law, according to the Lusa news agency, with votes from PSD, Chega, IL and CDS PP, and opposition from PS, Livre, PCP, BE and PAN.
• 3 May 2026. President António José Seguro signed it into law.
• 18 and 19 May 2026. Publication in the official gazette and entry into force.

A separate bill that would have made loss of Portuguese nationality an additional criminal penalty was found unconstitutional again by the Constitutional Court on 8 May 2026, and the President vetoed it on 12 May 2026. That bill amended the Criminal Code. It does not change the naturalisation rules described above.

What this means if you live in Portugal

• If you had applied before 19 May 2026, your application is decided under the old law.
• If you had not applied yet, you now need 7 or 10 years of legal residence, counted under the new rules, plus the new knowledge and declaration requirements.
• If you are planning a move, plan around the new periods, and be careful with material published before May 2026, which describes the old 5 year rule.

This article reports the law as published in May 2026. If the rules change again, that will be a new article.

Next steps

The Portugal country profile covers visas, residence, salaries and cost of living. The Portugal guide, available from the country guides page, has a full chapter on residence permits and the path to citizenship after the 2026 reform.