With the number of foreigners applying for Portuguese nationality – among them Brexit-fleeing Brits – increasing all the time, the government has decided to simplify the process by opening it up to online consultation.
Explain reports, there are currently around 130,000 foreigners seeking Portuguese nationality.
It’s a process that can take as little as six months – for the children and descendants of Portuguese emigrés – but three times as long for Brits who have to go through all kinds of bureaucratic hurdles.
With the number of Venezuelan applicants also now increasing, the IRN (notaries institute) has realised things need speeding up.
Thus case files are to be opened up for online consultation.
Secretary of State for Justice Ana Pedroso tells TSF radio that this should cut down on around 20% of the IRN workload.
Pedroso confirmed that numbers requesting nationality started rising exponentially from the beginning of the year.
As for the way requests can be tracked, this will be free, via justice platform ‘nacionalidade.justica.gov.pt’.
The plan is that all new requests will be issued with a special passcode for people to check on their cases online, while requests currently in the pipeline will get passcodes “as soon as possible”.
The justice ministry expects the move will lighten workloads progressively, with “visible impact” within the next three months, says Jornal Económico.
