Portugal's President has signed the new nationality law, and the change doubles the residence period required before applicants can apply for citizenship. Under the signed text, the naturalisation timeline moves from five years of legal residence to ten.

The amendment revises Portugal's Nationality Law, the statute that sets who may become Portuguese and on what conditions. The President's signature completes the legislative process and sets the clock for the new rule to take effect.

What does the new law change?

The core change is arithmetic. A foreign resident who previously qualified to file a citizenship application after five years of legal residence must now wait ten.

That single figure reshapes planning for thousands of applicants:

• Naturalisation residence requirement: 10 years, up from 5 — a 100% increase.
• Affected group: foreign nationals on the standard naturalisation route through legal residence in Portugal.
• Status: the law is signed; it now awaits entry into force on the date the published text specifies.

Who is affected?

Anyone on the ordinary residence-based path to Portuguese citizenship. The doubling of the timeline does not shorten any route; it extends the wait for all standard applicants going forward.

What the announcement does not say matters as much as what it does. The signed text, as reported, specifies the new duration. It does not, in the information available, state:

• the exact effective date of the new ten-year rule;
• whether transitional rules protect applicants who already hold five or more years of residence;
• whether separate, shorter routes — for example those tied to birth in Portugal, descent, or Lusophone ties — shift alongside the standard track.

Applicants currently in the system should treat those gaps as unresolved until the government publishes the implementing detail. A signed law is not yet an applied law; entry into force depends on publication and on any transition provisions the legislature attaches.

Why the change matters

Portugal's five-year rule had made it one of the faster naturalisation routes in Europe. Doubling the wait to ten years places Portugal alongside the lengthier end of European timelines.

The extension follows a period of record pressure on Portuguese nationality procedures, as demand for citizenship and residence grew sharply in recent years. Lawmakers argued the longer period strengthens integration before naturalisation. Supporters of the shorter rule had argued the five-year term attracted skilled residents and investment. The signed text settles that argument in favour of the longer timeline.

What applicants should do now

No applicant should act on this report alone. The operative text is the law as published in Portugal's official gazette, Diário da República, and the guidance issued by the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN), the body that processes nationality applications.

Concrete steps follow from the change:

• Verify the effective date in the official gazette before relying on either timeline.
• Check whether the IRN publishes transition rules for applications already filed or residence already accrued.
• Recalculate any long-term plan built on the five-year assumption; the new baseline is ten years of legal residence.

Passport File will track the implementing regulations and the entry-into-force date as the government publishes them. Until then, the confirmed fact is one number: the wait for Portuguese citizenship through residence is now ten years, not five.