{"id":7638,"date":"2026-11-03T12:45:54","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T12:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/03\/portugal-raises-citizenship-wait-to-10-years-for-nigerians-indians-pakistanis\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T12:45:54","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T12:45:54","slug":"portugal-raises-citizenship-wait-to-10-years-for-nigerians-indians-pakistanis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/03\/portugal-raises-citizenship-wait-to-10-years-for-nigerians-indians-pakistanis\/","title":{"rendered":"Portugal raises citizenship wait to 10 years for Nigerians, Indians, Pakistanis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Portugal<\/p>\n

By Nkiruka Nnorom<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nigerians seeking Portuguese citizenship will now wait 10 years as Portugal doubles its residency requirement.<\/p>\n

The new regime, under Organic Law No. 1\/2026, raised the qualifying period from five years to 10 years for nationals of Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and other non-EU, non-Portuguese-speaking countries.<\/p>\n

Citizens of European Union countries and Portuguese-speaking nations, including Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe and Equatorial Guinea, will qualify after seven years.<\/p>\n

The government also scrapped a 2024 rule that allowed waiting time for residence permits to count toward citizenship.<\/p>\n

The law, passed by parliament on April 1 and signed by President Ant\u00f3nio Jos\u00e9 Seguro on May 3, took effect on May 19, 2026. Its implementing regulations were approved by the Council of Ministers on October 29, 2026.<\/p>\n

The shift comes amid a huge backlog with the Ministry of Justice data showing that 690,480 citizenship applications were pending as of June 30, 2026, a 38 per cent increase from last year. About 26 per cent of the pending cases are residence-based applications.<\/p>\n

Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum, AIMA, figures also show over 242,000 residents from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh and more than 263,000 from Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and S\u00e3o Tom\u00e9 and Pr\u00edncipe at the end of 2025.<\/p>\n

Under the new rules, applicants must prove Portuguese language proficiency, knowledge of the country\u2019s culture, history and democratic institutions, financial self-sufficiency and allegiance to democratic principles.<\/p>\n

Minister of the Presidency, Ant\u00f3nio Leit\u00e3o Amaro, said the regulations would ensure full implementation of the law while simplifying procedures through digitalisation.<\/p>\n

According to AIMA, applicants who filed before May 19, 2026 would still be assessed under the old five-year rule.<\/p>\n

The post Portugal raises citizenship wait to 10 years for Nigerians, Indians, Pakistanis<\/a> appeared first on Vanguard News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: <\/p>\n

Vanguard News<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nkiruka Nnorom Nigerians seeking Portuguese citizenship will now wait 10 years as Portugal doubles its residency requirement. The new regime, under Organic Law No. 1\/2026, raised the qualifying period… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}