Portugal raises citizenship wait to 10 years for Nigerians, Indians, Pakistanis

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 from five years to 10 years for nationals of Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and other non-EU, non-Portuguese-speaking countries. Citizens of European Union countries and Portuguese-speaking nations, including Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and Equatorial Guinea, will qualify after seven years.

The government also scrapped a 2024 rule that allowed waiting time for residence permits to count toward citizenship. The law, passed by parliament on April 1 and signed by President António José Seguro on May 3, took effect on May 19, 2026. Its implementing regulations were approved by the Council of Ministers on October 29, 2026. 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. 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 São Tomé and Príncipe at the end of 2025. Under the new rules, applicants must prove Portuguese language proficiency, knowledge of the country’s culture, history and democratic institutions, financial self-sufficiency and allegiance to democratic principles.

Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, said the regulations would ensure full implementation of the law while simplifying procedures through digitalisation. According to AIMA, applicants who filed before May 19, 2026 would still be assessed under the old five-year rule.