Compared to the rest of my moves abroad, moving to Portugal was a little different.
Thanks to Brexit, I was no longer an EU citizen with freedom of movement and automatic rights to reside in other EU countries. I had joined many other third country citizens (including North Americans) with the need for a new way to obtain the right to reside in a country other than my own.
Fortunately, being married to an EU citizen, I skipped the need for a visa. However, I did still need to make an application—not as fast as my Irish husband’s seven-minute trip to City Hall.
Most of the information available online assumes that you're applying solely as your own personal citizenship, without any information about the partners of EU citizens. So, there was lots of information about Brexit withdrawal agreements, visas for all levels of third-country nationals, but very little relating to the all-important Lisbon Treaty (Article 15). In a nutshell, this basically gives the recognized partner of an EU citizen the right to reside in the same country as you.
Once my initial 90 days in Portugal were up, I began the process of applying for residency. What I didn’t know was that appointments are released fairly randomly by SEF (immigration) every few months and can only be booked by phone. Cue the use of redial apps, multiple phones and many long weeks of waiting. I almost dropped the phone when I got through to a real person!
I had to wait three months for the first available appointment, and it was a two-hour journey outside of Lisbon itself, as the more local appointments are apparently like gold dust.
Then, I began to prepare my documents. These are easy enough, but it’s easy to overlook some of the finer details. For example, our marriage certificate had to be re-ordered to have a date within six months of the appointment (to ensure we are, in fact, still married). And I had to send everything to the UK to be apostilled or authenticated to show it was all genuine. Combine the time limit on documents (meaning I couldn’t have them ready in advance of knowing my appointment date) with some UK postal strikes, and you’re set for a rollercoaster ride.
Other than our marriage certificate, I filled in some simple forms, provided photocopies of my passport pages, my husband’s residency certificate (he also had to be there with me) and proof of address in Portugal. I had my photos (although suggested on the SEF website, I didn’t need to provide these) and finger rints taken in a quick and painless process, and it was all done.
My card dropped through the post two months later and—almost one year to the date of moving here—I was all signed up to five years of residency in sunny Portugal.
Some major tips if you are applying for residency under Article 15:
1) Allow lots of time and expect not to travel abroad while waiting for your residency to come through.
2) Have your documents in order and make sure they are within the required dates.
3) Ensure that your partner’s EU status is noted on all forms, everywhere. So many times, I had to point out errors when he was recorded as British, simply due to the assumption I was married to a fellow Brit.
It’s definitely an exercise in patience, but when you move to a new country, everything is new and different, and you have to embrace it and enjoy the final result with a good cup of coffee.
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