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Citizenship Takes Longer Than the Law Says · IMI Podcasts

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Portugal gives its migration agency 90 days to issue a residence permit, and the agency has taken two to three years.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Only then does the 10-year count to citizenship begin.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Every nationality law prints one number.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: A second one, set by the queue, decides when your passport arrives.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: So where does the time hide?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: We follow eight routes, from Lisbon to the Caribbean, and end on four questions that expose the date nobody prints.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Each route to citizenship has a number written into its nationality law.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Another number measures how many files an agency, a court, or a head of state can decide in a year.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: That second number is where almost all the surprise lives.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Some routes start the clock late, others wait on one signature, a court, or a booking portal.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Brochures quote the first one.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Delivered timelines come from the second, and two people with the same entitlement can land years apart.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Picture each route as a ticket with two figures printed on it, the law and the Q.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: We start where the Q moved the start line itself.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Route number one is Portugal.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Its revised nationality law took effect on May 19, 2026, after a long fight.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Parliament first approved it in October 2025 by 157 votes to 64, and the Constitutional Court then struck down four of the seven contested clauses.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Lawmakers passed a revised text in April 2026 by 152 votes to 64, and Portugal's president signed it on May 3.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Most foreign nationals now need 10 years of legal residence to naturalize.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Citizens of European Union states and of countries where Portuguese is an official language qualify at 7.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger change is when the count begins.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: It now starts on the day AIMA, the migration agency, issues the residence permit.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: A 2024 amendment had started the count at filing to shield applicants from delay.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: This law reverses it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: By law, AIMA has 90 days to decide a permit application.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, it has taken two to three years, and those years land on top of the 10.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Portugal's president flagged the problem in the note he published as he signed the law.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: That note says the slowness of the state should not affect the timelines the law sets for nationality.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Those words have no binding force, and the counting rule the note complains about is unchanged.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: One protection survived.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Procedures already pending on May 19, 2026 fall under the old five-year rule.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So is every investor who filed before May safe?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: The transitional article refers to pending administrative procedures, without saying which ones.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Madalena Monteiro of Liberty Legal argues that applicants with pending residency files retain the old counting method.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: That ambiguity decides the fate of more than 20,000 investors who were waiting for IMAR appointments in April 2026, some since 2021.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Investors are fighting back on three fronts.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: They filed a brief with the Constitutional Court in December 2025.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: More than 500 investors organized a collective action in May 2026.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: In June, a consortium of nine law firms filed an Ombudsman complaint for 1,260 clients.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: The United States sets the opposite trap.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Its law requires five years as a green card holder before naturalizing, or three when married to a citizen.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Almost the whole weight comes before the green card.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Investors on the EB5 route who were born in high-demand countries queue for an immigrant visa number.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Country of birth decides how long.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: In the September 2026 visa bulletin, the final action date for Chinese nationals in the unreserved category was December 1, 2016.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: A Chinese investor with a 2017 priority date is waiting for a number nearly a decade later.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Their five-year residence clock has not begun.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: For Indian nationals, the State Department marked the unreserved category unavailable for the rest of fiscal year 2026.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: The same bulletin warned that it could move backward or close for every country before September 30th.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Reserved categories tell the other half.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Rural, high unemployment, and infrastructure slots were current for every country, China and India included.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Congress wrote the per country limits into the Immigration and Nationality Act.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So this cue is an allocation rule.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: For the investor, the effect is the same.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Two people investing identical capital in the same month can be a decade apart on the road to a U.S.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: passport.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Neither country of birth nor investment category appears anywhere in the naturalization statute.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: The shortest routes show the widest gap in proportion.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Citizenship by Investment, or CBI, once asked for no residence at all.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is no longer accurate for any of the five Caribbean programs.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Antigua and Barbuda put a bill to Parliament in July 2026, raising its post-citizenship requirement from five days to 30.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Grenada wrote a 30-day rule into law, then deferred it on August 21.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: St.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Kitts and Nevis plans to replace donation-only routes with physical presence, with no day count fixed yet.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: In St.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Lucia, draft 30-day regulations are not in force.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Dominica now requires new citizens to collect their passports in person since June 2026.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: A regional agreement from 2025, called ECCIRA, sets at least 30 days over the first five years, once its regulator starts work.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Brochures across the five programs advertise three to six months.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: The IMI Processing Times Tool, which surveys approval times reported by working agents each quarter, recorded roughly 5 to 18 months.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: On data from the last quarter of 2025, St.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Kitts and Nevis averaged about five months, and Grenada 7.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: In Dominica, the average was 9 months.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Antigua and Barbuda averaged 14, and St.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Lucia 18, with reported cases from 12 to 26 months.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: That makes St.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lucia's average six times the brochure's three months.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Half the program's IMI tracks got faster in the first quarter of 2026, Dominica among them.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: No legislature set any of those numbers.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Application volume, due diligence layers added since 2023, and each unit's capacity produced the spread.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Those numbers move every quarter.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: IMI Sovereigns members get the Processing Times tool with live data on how fast programs move, updated by analysts in the field.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: It shows which programs are accelerating and which are grinding to a halt, and a monthly live briefing brings processing time updates.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sovereigns is independent.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It sells no programs and takes no referral fees.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Join at imidaly.com slash IMISovereigns and use the code SOV10 for 10% off your first month.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Route number four is Paraguay.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Its constitution asks for three years of residence and says nothing about permanent residence.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: The rule that the three years start only with permanent residency comes from an internal Supreme Court regulation.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Paraguay has never passed a law to implement the constitutional article.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: A bill before the Chamber of Deputies admits the result in its own memorandum.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Proceedings of three to five years, against a three-year requirement.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: As of September, it had not left committee.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Three years is the published figure.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Applicants who start on temporary residency, outside the investor route, add up to two more years.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Route number five is Panama.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Its constitution requires five consecutive years of residence, or three for those married to a Panamanian.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Each grant arrives by presidential decree.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Panama's then Vice Minister told IMI in December 2025 that the president signs everyone personally.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: He left the post in June 2026, and Panama has published no count of the decrees awaiting signature since.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: That signature cue is nowhere in the statute.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Route number six is Spain, with 10 years in its nationality law for most applicants and two for Ibero-American nationals.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Spain's 2015 Royal Decree gives the Nationality Directorate one year to resolve an application.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: After that year, Spanish law treats silence as a denial, which opens an appeal to the Audiencia Nacional, the National Court.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Practitioners report one to three years, and many appeal just to force movement.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: A well-documented file often ends with the ministry deciding the case instead of defending it in court.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Filing that appeal takes a lawyer.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: You can find a credible investment migration professional at imidaly.com slash IMI Professionals.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Route number seven is Poland, where citizenship by descent is confirmed, never granted.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Poland treats a qualifying descendant as a citizen since birth.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: There is no residence period, no language test, and no investment, so the whole timeline is administrative.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Applicants with no last address in Poland all go to one office in Warsaw.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: By law, it has six months to decide.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: That count excludes suspensions, delays caused by the applicant, and causes beyond the office's control.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Law firms report weights measured in years, and the passport application comes only after that.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Route number eight is Italy.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: There, a consular cue decided who had a legal right.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: A 2025 law restricted citizenship by descent for people born abroad who already have another nationality.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Under it, a grandparent born in Italy who also had Argentine or Brazilian nationality no longer supports a claim.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: The Constitutional Court upheld it in March 2026.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Only the law's own cutoff protected those who had filed, secured an appointment, or gone to court before March 27, 2025.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Consular calendars across South America and the United States had been saturated for years.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: One embassy, in Bogota, said in 2022 that it could not process new dissent applications and set no restart date.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Two people with identical ancestry ended up on opposite sides of a legal line, separated by whether a booking portal had capacity.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: In May 2026, Italy's highest appeals court ruled that an applicant blocked from filing may go straight to court.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: The restriction is now before the Court of Justice of the European Union, and it is in force until Luxembourg decides.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Any provider will quote you the statutory figure.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Four questions move the conversation to the delivered one.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: First, which event starts the clock?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Filing, permit issuance, and permanent residence are three different dates.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Second, who signs the final decision?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: A registrar, a court, and a president clear files at different speeds.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Third, what is the authority's cue today?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Ask for a number with a date attached.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, what happens once the legal deadline passes without a decision?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Spain lets you appeal, and Poland leaves you nothing to appeal against.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: The statutory period is the one figure that does not change as you wait.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everything around it is capacity, and capacity belongs in your decision.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Portugal's law brought more changes than the start line.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: In the video on your screen, we go through four of them.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Subscribe and turn on notifications so the next cue does not catch you out.