Residence permit under family reunification it is easier and faster for foreigners with Gold Visas.
For immigrants with Gold Visas, it is 15 times easier to bring family members to Portugal than for those who come to work.
According to the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum’s 2024 Migration and Asylum Report, cited by the newspaper the numbers show a marked asymmetry in the right to family.
In every 10 immigrants with title to live and work in Portugal only one was entitled to family reunification. More pfor every 10 residence permits with Gold Visas, 15 family members managed to regularize themselves.
The 2012 regime for Golden Visas allowed the investor ask at the same time family reunification and the granting of residence.
Jfor work visa holders were forced to wait by residence permit and only then could they request family reunification and wait one more time.
The right to reunite the family was precisely one of the questions What more questions did it raise? in the new foreigners law that the President of the Republic sent to the Constitutional Court after after some changes.
The Government maintains, however, the requirement of two years of legal residence in Portugal so that a foreigner can request reunification, but there is no brake for highly qualified workers with Gold Visas.
Immigrant defense associations have already criticized the law who say they defend the rich and close the doors to other immigrants, in a country that needs foreign labor andm sectors such as agriculture and civil construction.
