Lou71

I can see what a difficult situation you find yourself in. If your husband has no prospect of getting away before the end of the year then you will have to come here alone to secure residency and hope he can obtain EU residency next year on the back of your status.

My advice would be to rent a property immediately, open a bank account, obtain a NIF number etc and obtain your residency before the transition period ends and the wretched Brexit kicks in.

You are in a difficult situation, why don't you phone a Portuguese lawyer now and get some professional advice? You have a lot depending on making the right decision and you need to get this right.

bons

Thanks for your reply, we are doing everything we can to secure this residency and we are going to look into getting some professional advice.

riv

If you do find the actual REGULATIONS please post them here or a link to them.

The only Regs I can find on the UK legislation website are ones from earlier this year.

At the moment there are still Ryanair flights from Manchester and Edin to Faro for the end of this week. Are they really going to stop people boarding the planes ?

dmu

Hi from the France forum! You yourself have enough evidence to drive through France, but don't forget to download and sign the compulsory Attestation! And bear in mind that cafés/bars/restaurants are closed and you'll have to cater for yourself from one border to the other. The lockdown restrictions in France are hardly likely to be lifted on 1st December... You'd also have to check the travel restrictions in Spain.....
On the other hand, if bons decided to drive down, she wouldn't have any documentation to prove residency in Portugal, and there's no provision on the Attestation to cover travelling through France to seek residency in another EU country.... This option is therefore impossible.
On another subject, in France it isn't sufficient to arrive just before the deadline. When applying for residency in 2021, you need rental receipts/Property Deeds AND Utility bills to prove that you were already resident (actually living) here in 2020 (which implies Electricity bills showing energy consumption during December at least), together with proof of healthcare coverage. Does the same rule apply in Portugal?
These are troubled times and potential expats must decide between rushing to the Continent before the deadline under Covid conditions, and losing Freedom of Movement by waiting until 2021.

Red Eric

This (and related issues) is a subject we have been batting around for some time on here.

The simple answer is "no" and proof of that can be found from the most authoritative sources. Here, for example, is a shot from a video currently featuring on the border authority's website :
https://imigrante.sef.pt/en/brexit/

Healthcare not an issue. However the practicalities of obtaining the certificate possibly depends on the category of free movement one is exercising and the availability of documentary evidence to support it. For a completely "cold" arrival, it seems unlikely to me to realistically expect a certificate to be issued before you've unpacked your suitcase but it shouldn't take too long to assemble enough to satisfy the requirements.

dmu

Thanks for that, interesting!
But the document does say that nationals of the United Kingdom must be legally living in Portugal until the end of the transition period. What proof is needed that you're "legally" living there? Does the mere fact of being physically there at the counter before 31st December 2020, mean that the Câmara will automatically issue a residence document? As I said, you wouldn't be able to arrive in France during the last week of December on that basis and claim to have lived in France in 2020 when applying for residency in 2021. You need "real" proof (utility bills), not just travel documents and Property Deeds or Rental Contract.
Portugal seems to be more zen with respect to future UK expats than France!

Red Eric

I can't say with complete certainty and you're right that the wording varies from one document to another, which hasn't really helped in terms of trying to garner absolute clarity from the receiving end and pass that on to our hordes of enquirers

What I hope is the case is that anyone who gets here prior to the end of the transition period with the intention of making Portugal their home has the blessing of the government and the immigration authorities provided they satisfy those fairly basic requirements which currently apply under the terms of FoM (ie principally having a provable address and means of subsistence).

However, it certainly hasn't historically always been the case that all town halls would instantly stump up with a residence certificate upon request, or that they would do so unquestioningly simply because someone had been in the country already for 90 days. One of the things which bothers me slightly is that the authorities here are about to introduce compulsory new residence documents for which a pre-requisite is that we already hold a EU registration certificate. There is no clear, unequivocal message from the PT authorities that EU registration certificates will continue to be issued to UK nationals post 31st December, which may cause difficulties for anybody arriving late in the piece and not managing to get registered pronto. I viewed a Q & A with the British Embassy on matters of residence in which they explicitly stated that UK nationals arriving before the end of the transition period would have until 30th June 2021 to obtain a registration certificate. That is reassuring, although as I didn't see eye to eye with them on matters tax-wise that I thought they rather unwisely strayed into, having said they wouldn't, I remain mildly sceptical a) that they necessarily got it right and b) that it will, in fact, pan out smoothly that way for everyone who needs it to be true.

We shall see, but if I were a betting man ...

(That was the more complicated answer, by the way )

RichardHenshall

I've noticed that (automatic?) translations of/from Portuguese sources often seem to use the word 'until' where the word 'before' would seem more appropriate. A lot of the time the words mean the same: 'you cannot remarry before you are divorced' means essentially the same as 'you cannot remarry until you are divorced'. In the context of residency prior to 31/12/2020, they mean very different things.

dmu

The "until" also struck me - I haven't read the original Portuguese (and don't know enough vocab anyway), but agree that "before" would seem to be more appropriate.
To avoid ambiguities/misunderstandings, translations, even on official sites, should be compared with the original version of anything official, in any language, which is admittedly tricky if you haven't got it to hand or don't know the language well enough......

wellinever

Do I understand what was written by Red, and of course that what he understood is correct, then providing that one can say (with 3 months of a Portuguese bank statement showing local activity) that the local camaras will continue to allow applications from UK nationals to become residents using the same documents as is the case prior to 31st Dec??
If that is the case would it then not be the case that becoming a resident post 31st Dec that the Residence doc would have a start date of 2021?
And in that case would a change of driving license not be required for 2 years from that date, without taking a test in Portugal?

ZOm

Hi all,
I'm following this thread with interest as we are flying to Faro on the 15th Nov.
We are Australians but have UK passorts as well.
We are stuck in the UK as we cant get home to Australia due to the virus.
Our plan was to move to Portugal (Algarve) to stay until we are allowed back into Australia.
My initial thoughts were that we could stay in Portugal until 31 Dec then have 90 days due to brexit.

Am i right in reading here that we could apply for temporary residency before 31 Dec and stay longer than 90 days?
Thanks...

riv

Is there anything to stop you applying for PERManent residence ?

Assuming you have UK nationality, not just a passport ?

If achieved you could stay as long as you like, as far as I am aware.

But are you, in fact, allowed to actually leave the UK under the new Rules ?

Press say you can travel abroad only for ' work ' ...........But what does that mean ? One needs to see the actual Regulations, but as yet they do not seem to be available on the Legislation website.

ZOm

Thanks Riv,
We've been living in Scotland since March, renting a flat in Glasgow.
We have NHS numbers and EHICs. Does that make us UK nationals? I'm not sure?

We don't plan on staying in Portugal more than around 6 months, unless the world locks down again and we cant get anywhere. So would we apply for temp or permanent residency?
Haven't heard of reasons why we can't travel yet. Will it matter if we have no intention of returning to the UK?

RichardHenshall

For an EU national you are either resident or not. You don't apply for residency (as it is your right), you just register your residency.

See https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality to establish if your passport is the right kind.

ZOm

Yes we are both British Citizens for residency purposes.
Understand now that we dont apply for residency we register our residency.
I assume this must be done before the end of the year?
Is there major differences between permanent and temporary?

Sorry to be a pain...just unsure of the process.

How does healthcare work after 31 Dec? Does the EHIC still cover us or is that why we should declare residency?