The demand for portuguese citizenship increased significantly in 2018, with the number of requests for nationality increased by almost 11%, according to the recent immigrant report published by borders authority SEF.
Brazilians grab almost one third of the citizenships granted in Portugal for the year 2018.
In 2018, SEF registered a total of 41,324 requests for acquisition of Portuguese nationality, a significant increase over the homologous period (+ 10.9%).
Among the citizenship applications filed 32,414 positive decisions and 1,425 negative decision were issued, totaling 33,839 decision, with the most representative nationalities coming from the following countries:
Among those requests filed, 70% are naturalization cases, while 16% are through marriage (after three years) and the rest for other reasons. The refusal rate for nationality remained at 4.2%
The number of israelis has also increased after portugal offered citizenship to sephardic jews in 2015. Since 2015, Portugal has granted over 10,000 citizenships to descendants of sephardic jews.
There have been cases where large number of foreigners, who are not resident in Portugal, applied through embassies and consulates. A total of 7,336 applications were received for citizenship (7,248 positive and 88 negative decisions).
Portugal also offers residence permits for investment activity (golden visa) with a path to citizenship later. Although no preferential treatment given for golden visa investors, they have to ordinary naturalization procedures. So far 800 Brazilians have invested in Golden visa scheme becoming the second largest group of investors after chinese.
