A typical timeline for the D7 from preparation to permit

Everyone's D7 visa story is different, but he's the most common timeline

Key concepts:

• This is a two- step process; step 1 is the D7 visa, and step 2 is to convert that visa into a temporary residence permit good for 2 years and renewable.
• The D7 visa allows you to legally reside in Portugal for 120 days while awaiting your appointment with SEF to get your temporary residence permit, though your appointment may happen after those 120 days.
• This period between arriving on your D7 visa and getting your residency permit card places many restrictions on your travel outside of Portugal. I’ve written a separate article to address those issues.
• You do not apply directly with the Portuguese government but instead use a private company called VFS Global to process your application.
• Once VFS processes your application, they send it to the Portuguese embassy or consulate that serves your part of the US for review and a final decision from the Portuguese border services agency, SEF. Once VFS passes your application to SEF, you will only deal with SEF and the Portuguese consulate or embassy.
• Once you have your residence permit, the D7 no longer applies to you and you are now bound by the rules and obligations of your residency permit.

Key dates:

• Intended move date - knowing that this will likely change during the process. Still important to set this milestone
• Appointment with VFS to submit your visa application - your appointment must be within 90 days of your intended move date. Set an intended date for your VFS appointment and be prepared for that date to vary wildly due to appointment availability
  • secondary consideration: how soon to start the process of scheduling an appointment with VFS
• SEF appointment date - typically, but not always set up on your behalf as part of the D7 visa process. When you receive your passport with the D7 visa stamp, you will likely find a URL linking to the SEF website with your appointment details. If you do not get this URL, you will need to visit the SEF website to set this up. Keep checking back as SEF sometimes needs to change an appointment.

Steps

1. Decide on your intended move date
2. Using the visa tracker database as a rough guide, find the average and median number of days it has been taking to get approval from the VFS office you use. Use this to estimate how long to wait from appointment to approval.
3. subtract the median number of days for your VFS location from the intended move date to arrive at your ideal VFS appointment date (side note: make sure that’s on a weekday)
4. At the beginning of the month prior, create a login on the VFS website, then keep trying to book an appointment until you get one confirmed. This could take a LOT of tries
5. Once you have your VFS appointment, re-calculate your VFS appointment date and your estimated arrival date.
6. From the time you get your visa approved, you have 90 days to use that visa to move to Portugal. The VFS office in San Francisco may tell you 60 days.
7. When your D7 visa has been approved you can change your intended move date to your actual move date.
8. Most of the time, the actual visa stamp in your passport will have a unique URL for you to use to visit the SEF website and confirm your SEF appointment date. Your visa allows for you to reside in Portugal for 120 days to await this appointment. But, due to high demand for SEF services, your actual appointment may be much further out (180 days in some cases).
9. After your SEF appointment, wait for your residency permit card, which can take anywhere from a week to 3+ months depending on which SEF office you had to use for your appointment.
10. Once you have your residency permit card, you can change the address on your NIF, register for your SNS number and apply for the NHR.

Example scenario

Pat and Kelly will be using the D7 visa to move from Medford, Oregon to Lisbon Portugal. They’ve sold their house, and they have an **intended move date of August 1st **. Since they are from Oregon, they will need to use the VFS Global office and Portuguese consulate in San Francisco to handle their application. Pat checks the average and median processing time for San Francisco on the D7 visa tracker, and finds that both are roughly 80 days. Based on that, Pat and Kelly decide to add a few days buffer and target May 3 for their ideal VFS appointment date. Based on these two key dates, they can now work on:

1. Start trying to schedule the VFS Global appointment on April 1st. They could start a bit sooner, but they would have to move up their intended move date to remain within the 90 day window.
2. They will need to get their NIF and open a Portuguese bank account ahead of their VFS appointment. This can be done well in advance, though.
3. Line up accommodations in Portugal. This may be the most difficult part of the process. Most people rent at first, and you will need a signed contract in hand before your appointment. This almost always means paying rent on an empty apartment, unfortunately.
4. Getting their FBI background check. There are some timing considerations for this; the background check report has to be less than 90 days old when they apply at VFS. Because they were able to find a nearby USPS that handles digital fingerprinting services for background checks, Pat and Kelly submitted their fingerprints electronically, got immediate feedback on if they provided valid fingerprints, received an email with the results of their background checks that day, and about a week later, both received the hard copy in the mail (which they did not open).
5. Finish up gathering all the other documents and forms needed for their VFS appointment. Through a bit of persistence, Pat and Kelly were able to book an appointment with VFS Global on May 5th in San Francisco. Knowing the importance of this appointment and the difficulty in scheduling these appointments, they arrive in San Francisco two days early and make a mini vacation out of it. The appointment goes well, and now they enter the “wait and worry” stage of the D7 application process.

The wait

Now, Pat and Kelly wait. the D7 visa tracker shows an average wait time of around 80 days when applying through the VFS office in San Francisco, but it is not uncommon to see people wait 90 or even 100 days. This uncertainty can really add to the stress. But, there’s lots of work to be done, so they spend most of their time winding down things in the US and getting packed and ready to move. One thing Pat and Kelly did to help with the stress was to spend the extra money on fully refundable airline tickets. They booked flights for August 1st, but since the tickets are fully refundable, they have the flexibility to re-book if needed. Fortunately, on July 26, the FedEx truck pulls up in front of their house with two envelops, their passports with the D7 visa. Each visa has a unique URL to the SEF website showing the dates and locations for their appointments; Kelly’s appointment in Braga on December 1, and Pat’s appointment in Coimbra the three days later. Different cities, and a little over 4 months to wait. Unfortunately with the workload SEF currently faces, this is not uncommon.

The move

Pat and Kelly fly over on August 1st to start their new lives in Portugal. Since both of their appointments are slightly after the 120 D7 visa period, they’ll get an automatic extension until the residency permit cards arrive. They also know that there will be restrictions on their ability to travel outside of Portugal during this timeframe. For the next 4 months, their main focus will be on settling into their new home and preparing for their SEF appointments. Pat and Kelly know that the hard part with the D7 approval, so as long as they follow the proper procedures, the SEF appointment should go fine. During this time, they get private health insurance, and start seeing a doctor at the nearby private hospital. Prescriptions are a bit tricky because they can’t yet get the SNS number, but the costs are still pretty reasonable.

After the SEF appointment

After they finish their SEF appointments, Kelly’s residency permit card arrives about two weeks later, and Kelly’s takes nearly 7 weeks to arrive. It was worth the wait, though, and now they can start working on the remaining items to do after their SEF appointments, including these key items:

• Visit their local centro de saude (government run health center) to register with the SNS and get their SNS number
• Update their NIF records with their new address
• Sign up for the NHR tax program

Settling in

Hopefully, you found this information helpful. I see a lot of focus on the individual parts, but sometimes it can be a challenge to see how everything fits into a timeline. A lot of the work in getting a D7 visa and moving to Portugal has to be done in a specific order, and can have some due dates and timelines driven by other items on your to-do list. That’s why I made the Portugal relocation planning kit in Notion. One of my big motivations throughout this process was avoiding unnecessary work and avoiding hassle. Keeping good notes and managing to a good plan helped me greatly, and I hope this planning kit can help you, too.