Portugal’s Constitutional Court ruling of December 2025: who the nationality reform actually protects

Acórdão n.º 1133/2025 is a preventive constitutional review decision that removed four provisions from Portugal’s nationality reform before it could become law, including the rule that would have governed applications already sitting in the queue. It was delivered by the Plenário of the Tribunal Constitucional on 15 December 2025, and it is the reason the law that finally took effect in May 2026 reads the way it does.

Most English-language coverage of Portugal’s move to a ten-year citizenship timeline was written before the ruling, or has not been revised since. The result is a widely repeated impression that anyone already holding a Portuguese residence permit is protected. That is not what the Court decided, and it is not what the enacted law says.

Key facts at a glance

Figures verified 10 August 2026 against the Diário da República and the Tribunal Constitucional.

What the Constitutional Court decided on 15 December 2025

Fifty members of the Assembly of the Republic asked the Tribunal Constitucional to review Decreto n.º 17/XVII before the President signed it. The Court examined seven separate constitutionality questions and found four norms unconstitutional.

• The criminal bar as drafted (article 6(1)(f) of the Nationality Law in the version proposed), for breach of articles 26(1) read with 18(2), and article 30(4), of the Constitution.
• The second part of article 9(1)(a), which would have made conduct rejecting adherence to the national community a ground of opposition, for breach of article 2 read with article 164(1)(f). In substance, the wording was too indeterminate to sit in a reserved legislative area.
• Article 12.º-B(3), on undoing consolidation of nationality obtained in a manifestly fraudulent manner, on the same grounds.
• The transitional rule drawn from article 7(3) and (4) of the Decree, for breach of article 2 of the Constitution. This is the one that matters commercially, and it is dealt with below.

The President vetoed the decree on 19 December 2025. Parliament reworked the text, approved it on 1 April 2026, and it was promulgated on 3 May 2026 and published as Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 on 18 May 2026. It took effect the following day.

Why the transitional rule was struck down

The vetoed decree said that applications already pending would be decided under the old law, but only if the applicant satisfied the old requirements as at the date the application was filed. Read quickly, that sounds protective. It is the opposite.

Under the regime then in force, the constitutive fact of a naturalisation claim was the decision of the competent authority, not the filing. An applicant who filed while still short of the qualifying period could continue to accrue residence while the file sat in the queue, and be assessed when the decision was eventually made. Applicants could also rely on article 15(4), which counted time from the moment the temporary residence permit was applied for. Testing everything as at the filing date would have quietly defeated a large number of applications that had been made in reliance on both points.

The Court held that this frustrated the protection of legitimate expectations inherent in the rule of law, and therefore that it, in the Court’s words, “viola o princípio da proteção da confiança” (Acórdão n.º 1133/2025). Parliament accepted the point. Article 7 of the enacted law now says only two things: the law takes effect on entry into force, and administrative procedures pending on that date are decided under the previous wording of Lei n.º 37/81. The filing-date test is gone.

What “pending” means, and why it is narrower than most people assume

Article 7(2) protects “procedimentos administrativos pendentes”, administrative procedures pending on 19 May 2026. The natural reading of that phrase, in a statute that amends the Nationality Law, is a nationality procedure: an application for naturalisation or for attribution already lodged with the Instituto dos Registos e do Notariado. It is not, on its face, a residence permit application sitting with AIMA, and it is not the mere fact of holding a residence permit.

This is the single most common misunderstanding we meet. In enquiries since May, the working assumption is almost always that holding a Portuguese residence permit issued before the reform freezes the old five-year rule in place. It does not. The residence permit is what makes the clock run. The transitional rule turns on whether the citizenship application itself had already been made.

It is fair to say that the point is contested rather than settled: a petition on the transitional regime of Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 is open on the Assembly of the Republic’s public participation platform, which tells you that a body of applicants disagrees with the narrow reading. We think the narrow reading is the honest one to plan against, and that anyone told otherwise should ask to see the provision that says so.

The residence clock: the rule that was repealed anyway

Article 15(4) of the Nationality Law was inserted by Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2024 and took effect on 1 April 2024. It provided that, for the purpose of counting legal residence, time elapsed from the moment the temporary residence permit was applied for also counts, provided the permit is subsequently granted. Given how long Portuguese residence files have taken to process, that provision was worth years to some applicants.

Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 repeals it. Article 5 of the new law revokes article 15(4), and the republished text of article 15 contains no equivalent. Two further changes point the same way. Article 15(3) narrows the window inside which separate periods of legal residence can be added together, from a flat 15 years to 6, 9 or 12 years depending on the applicant’s nationality; for a non-EU, non-CPLP applicant that is 12. And the opening words of article 6(1) now require the requirements to be satisfied “no momento do pedido”, at the moment of the application, which closes the practice of filing early and accruing while you wait.

There is an obvious tension here, and we would rather name it than smooth it over. The Court’s reasoning in Acórdão n.º 1133/2025 treated reliance on article 15(4) as precisely the kind of expectation the Constitution protects. Parliament repealed it anyway. The Court’s formal ruling struck the transitional norm, not the repeal, so the repeal stands as enacted law. Whether it can survive a challenge as applied to someone who filed a residence permit application while article 15(4) was in force is an open question that no court has answered. It is a real argument, not a marketing line, and it is also not a plan.

What the ruling did not do

Because preventive review only examines the norms put to the Court, the ruling is narrower than the headlines suggested at the time.

• It did not touch the seven and ten-year periods. The Court declined to rule against the remaining norms in the request, and the increase in the qualifying period was not among the provisions struck down. Seven years for CPLP and EU nationals and ten years for everyone else is now the law.
• It did not preserve the Sephardic descent route. Article 6(7), and the related certification provision in article 6(13), were revoked by the new law.
• It did not stop the narrowing of the counting window or the repeal of article 15(4).
• It is not a ruling on the law now in force. Preventive review tests a decree before promulgation. The enacted law has its own text, and challenges to it would have to be brought separately.

What this means if you hold a Portugal Golden Visa

Start with what has not changed. A Golden Visa is still legal residence for the purposes of the Nationality Law: article 15(1) treats as legally resident anyone regularised under any of the titles, visas or authorisations in the immigration regime, and the investment residence permit is one of them. The permit still carries the same low physical presence obligation, the same family reunification, and the same Schengen travel that it carried in 2025. Those points are set out in our complete guide to the Portugal Golden Visa, and the stage-by-stage timing in our note on Portugal Golden Visa processing times.

What changed is the citizenship timeline, not the residence right. For a client whose plan was residence in Europe, with an EU passport as a distant bonus, the reform is an irritation. For a client who bought a Portuguese residence permit primarily as a route to an EU passport on a five-year horizon, the proposition is materially weaker than it was in 2025, and we say so in first meetings. Doubling a qualifying period is not a detail, and a ten-year commitment is a different decision from a five-year one.

Three practical consequences follow. First, if a nationality application was not already lodged before 19 May 2026, plan on the new periods. Second, evidence matters more than it did: you should be able to prove, from documents, the date from which your legal residence runs, because the statutory helper that counted pre-issue waiting time has gone. Third, if citizenship at a defined date was the load-bearing assumption in your plan, the plan needs rebuilding rather than adjusting. Our overview of the reform itself sits in Portugal’s 2026 nationality law, and the investment decision that sits underneath all of this is covered in how to evaluate a Portugal Golden Visa fund.

Our position, stated plainly: Portugal remains a defensible choice for someone who wants a European base with light presence requirements and a credible long-term citizenship path, and it is a poor choice for someone who needs an EU passport quickly. If you are in the second group, the honest conversation is about a different country or a different instrument, not about a more optimistic reading of article 7.

What is still unsettled

The Regulation. Article 4 of Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 requires the Government to amend the Nationality Regulation, annexed to Decreto-Lei n.º 237-A/2006, within 90 days of publication. That deadline falls on 16 August 2026. As at the date of this article we have not seen the amended Regulation published. It is the document that will show how the registries intend to evidence residence periods in practice, and it is the next thing worth reading.

Residence time already accrued. How the registries treat time that accrued while article 15(4) was in force, for people who have not yet applied for nationality, is not addressed in the statute. It will be answered by administrative practice first and possibly by the courts later.

Further constitutional challenge. Preventive review is exhausted. Abstract successive review of the enacted law remains possible in principle, and the Court’s own reasoning on legitimate expectations gives any such challenge a starting point. Nothing has been decided, and we would not build a client plan on the assumption that anything will be.

Frequently asked questions

Did the Constitutional Court block Portugal’s move to a ten-year citizenship rule?

No. The Court struck down four norms in the draft, and the increase in the qualifying period was not one of them. Seven years for CPLP and EU nationals, and ten for everyone else, is the law in force under article 6(1)(b) of the Nationality Law.

When did the new law take effect?

Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 was published on 18 May 2026 and, under its article 8, entered into force the following day, 19 May 2026.

Does holding a Golden Visa issued before the reform protect me under the old five-year rule?

Not by itself. The transitional rule in article 7(2) applies to administrative procedures pending on 19 May 2026, which on the natural reading means a nationality application already lodged. Holding a residence permit makes your residence clock run; it is not the same as having a pending citizenship application.

Does the time I waited for my residence permit still count?

Article 15(4), which counted time from the date the temporary residence permit was applied for, has been revoked and the new text has no equivalent. How that is applied to time already accrued is not settled, and it is one of the questions the amended Regulation may address.

Does Golden Visa residence count as legal residence at all?

Yes. Article 15(1) defines legal residence by reference to any of the titles, visas or authorisations in the immigration regime, which includes the investment residence permit.

Can the ten-year rule still be challenged?

Preventive review has been completed. A challenge to the law now in force would have to proceed by a different route, and none has succeeded. We would treat the current periods as settled for planning purposes.

What should I be watching next?

The amended Nationality Regulation, due by 16 August 2026, and the practice the registries adopt on evidencing residence periods once it is published.

Sources

• Tribunal Constitucional, Acórdão n.º 1133/2025, 15 December 2025, Processo n.º 1383/2025 (full text, including the operative part). Consulted 10 August 2026.
• Assembleia da República, Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026, de 18 de maio, Diário da República n.º 95/2026, 1.ª série, including the republished text of Lei n.º 37/81 and articles 4, 5, 7 and 8. Consulted 10 August 2026.
• Declaração de Retificação n.º 17/2026/1, 18 May 2026, correcting article 6(11) of the republished Nationality Law. Consulted 10 August 2026.
• Assembleia da República, Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2024, de 5 de março, which inserted article 15(4) and entered into force on 1 April 2024. Consulted 10 August 2026.
• Morais Leitão, Galvão Teles, Soares da Silva, legal alert on the ruling and the presidential veto, 2 January 2026, for the date of the veto of 19 December 2025. Consulted 10 August 2026.

Figures and legal positions verified 10 August 2026.

Disclaimer

This article is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Investment migration rules and tax rules change frequently and depend on your personal circumstances. Figures are correct as at the date shown and should be confirmed before you act. Speak to a qualified adviser, and contact Citizenship360 for guidance specific to your situation.