starr_ringo

I feel like this is going to be a difficult one so please bare with me.

I (British) moved to Portugal in February of 2019 with my husband (who is Portuguese). I received a residence certificate that is valid until 2024.

We left Portugal August 2019 and before leaving tried to de-register myself as a resident/hand in my residence permit but was told I did not need to do anything. Went to the Finanças and again was told there was nothing I needed to do. Neither of the ladies did anything, didn’t ask for my name etc. I haven’t heard anything regarding this since.

I’m currently 4 months pregnant and we are wanting to move back to Portugal ASAP to move closer to my father-in-law and his side of the family. My husband is a Software Engineer and makes good money so I do not need to work when over there as he can fully support us both.

Would I be able to move back as I still have the residence permit and swap it for the biometric permit? What do I need to do?

Almost forgot - My husband and I have only been married 3 years. And I’ve read that in order to get a independent resident permit you have to be married for 5 years? I’m so confused and don’t know if I need a visa now

thank you

Rambling archer

Surely the simple way of looking at this is that you are accompanying your Portuguese husband who has every right to return to his home country, bringing his spouse with him (not to mention the future addition to his Portuguese family - congratulations by the way on the happy news!) so your previous Residency status becomes irrelevant. He should be making the overtures to bring his wife into the country? You do not need to prove much apart from the marriage certificate. If you had taxation concerns then complications would arise on trying to declare yourself as NHR for taxation purposes, but again that seems irrelevant as you will be a non-working housewife. You will be eligible for full health care under the SNS too as wife of PT citizen resident in PT.

starr_ringo

Thank you! Would we be looking at applying for a visa? I’m just confused as so much as changed with Brexit. Also we were married in the U.K. so would we have to register our marriage with Portugal or will they recognise our marriage as it is with our British marriage certificate?

Loafing Along

The right organisation to clarify all this is the SEF .
See their website on "Reagrupamento"
https://imigrante.sef.pt/solicitar/residir/art98-2/

toots sweet

My OH is PT. Married in UK. Registered our marriage in PT. Easy to do.

GrahamF

We had to have a certified translation of marriage certificate.

liveaboard

After you arrive, go the the SEF and ask them what they want from you; they'll probably give you a list of documents to bring in.

They told me that their primary concern is being sure that it's a real marriage. Once that's established, they're satisfied.

You'll have no trouble I'm sure.