Nationality Law in 2025: what has fallen, what remains and how does it affect your application?

The picture of the Nationality Law in 2025 is that of an advanced but still incomplete reform: several structural changes have already been approved, others have been halted due to unconstitutionality and, in the midst of this, immigrants are experiencing a period of great uncertainty, but also of strategic decision-making.

The starting point: what is being reformed

The Nationality Law is still formally Law 37/81, of October 3, which has been successively amended over more than four decades. In recent years, however, migratory pressure, the need to redefine some specific regimes (such as that for descendants of Sephardic Jews) and the political debate on “demand” and “integration” have turned this law into a central area of dispute.

The revision that is at stake in 2025 is the result of a decree approved by the Assembly of the Republic (Decree 17/XVII), sent to the President of the Republic for promulgation, and subject to a preventive review of constitutionality by the Constitutional Court, at the request of 50 MPs. The Court responded with Ruling no. 1133/2025, which did not reject the entire reform, but declared specific rules unconstitutional, obliging the government and Parliament to correct only those points.

What really changes in practice for immigrants

Even after the intervention of the Constitutional Court, the basic direction of the reform remains the same: more years of residence required, fewer routes to nationality and a greater emphasis on a prolonged and formal relationship with Portuguese territory and culture.

Among the changes approved that directly affect the lay public are the following:

• Increased residence time for naturalization:
  • CPLP citizens have a residence permit from 5 to 7 years.
  • The rest of the foreigners are moving from 5 to 10 years of residence with a residence permit.
    This means that access via length of residence is no longer a medium-term goal for many immigrants, but in practice a long-term project.
  • It should be noted that the possibility of applying for a permanent residence permit after 5 years of legal residence (communication skills in Portuguese are required) or continuous renewals of temporary residence permits for successive periods of 3 years remain in force and unchanged.
• Reconfiguration of nationality by birth in Portugal (ius soli):
  • In practice, it is no longer possible to use the birth of a baby in Portugal as grounds for the parents to apply for nationality.
  • In order for the baby to have the right to nationality, it is now required that the parents have, as a rule, five years of continuous and formally recognized residence.
    You need to guarantee a stable and documented residence for several years.
• End of the special regime for descendants of Sephardic Jews:
  • Until now, this regime allowed access to nationality on the basis of proof of Sephardic origin and links to historic Jewish communities.
  • The reform closes this door, removing one of the routes most used by Portuguese descendants in Brazil and other countries.
• I’m backtracking on one of the biggest recent “advantages”:
  • The law in force allowed the waiting time between the application for a residence permit and the actual issue of the permit to be counted towards the years of residence.
  • The reform expressly repeals this rule, counting only the period during which there is already a valid residence permit.
    For those who follow the subject in a technical way, this is a silent but profound change: many immigrants lose months or years that, until now, were decisive for reaching the 5-year threshold earlier.

What won’t change (and why it’s important)

Despite the hardening political rhetoric, some fundamental pillars of the nationality regime remain, and this is crucial for conveying security to the lay public:

• There is still a “right” to nationality for those who meet the legal requirements:
  Naturalization is not just presented as a discretionary favor from the state, but as a structured legal path. The discussion in the Constitutional Court reinforces precisely the idea that access to citizenship is a fundamental right, subject to constitutional guarantees, and not a mere graceful concession.
• The impossibility of arbitrary loss of nationality is maintained:
  The Court has rejected the most aggressive attempts to link certain criminal convictions to the loss of nationality as an accessory penalty. In doing so, it reiterated principles such as the prohibition of automatic effects of sentences, the personal nature of responsibility and protection against statelessness. Thus, naturalized citizens continue to have robust protection against “punitive” withdrawals of their citizenship.
• Classic routes such as filiation, marriage/marital partnership and direct descent persist:
  The reform focuses above all on residence requirements and special regimes, but does not abolish the bases for granting filiation, nor access by marriage or civil partnership with a Portuguese citizen (although, at other legislative moments, these criteria have already been tightened).

What was deemed unconstitutional (and what it reveals)

Ruling 1133/2025 is almost like a lesson in constitutional law applied to nationality. In simplified terms, the Court found unconstitutional rules that:

• They made the loss or refusal of nationality an almost automatic consequence of certain criminal convictions:
  The introduction of a 2-year prison sentence threshold as an automatic block to naturalization, and the provision for loss of nationality as an accessory penalty, were considered excessive and disproportionate. There was a lack of individual consideration of each case, which violated principles such as proportionality and the personal nature of guilt.
• They were based on vague and indeterminate concepts:
  The rule that allowed nationality to be refused on the basis of “behavior that conclusively and ostensibly rejects membership of the national community, its institutions and symbols” was seen as too open, giving the state dangerous subjective power to exclude candidates.
• They weakened legal certainty and the protection of trust:
  The attempt to prevent the consolidation of nationality in situations of “manifest fraud”, without a sufficiently precise framework, and the idea that the application for nationality could only be submitted when all the requirements were fully met, raised problems of restrictive retroactivity of rights and the breach of legitimate expectations of those who trusted in a given legal framework.

By declaring these rules unconstitutional, the Court has sent a clear message: the law can be more demanding, but it cannot be arbitrary, retroactive to the detriment of those who are already integrated, or turn nationality into an instrument of punishment.

The next institutional steps and what this means for everyday life

From a formal point of view, what is happening now is relatively technical, but it has very concrete consequences:

• The government doesn’t have to rewrite the entire law.
  Only the articles or sections declared unconstitutional will have to be redrafted. This reduces the political time needed for a new parliamentary vote and speeds up the timetable for entry into force.
• Parliament will only have to review these points.
  In practical terms, this creates a “time of suspension”: the reform is largely approved, but cannot be enacted as it stands. During this interval, the current rules remain in force, which are more favorable in several respects (shorter deadlines, the possibility of counting the waiting time for the title, etc.).
• Political pauses create a window of opportunity for immigrants.
  Between the end-of-year parliamentary recess, the return in January and the additional interruption linked to the presidential elections, we can expect a delay in the approval of the amended version of the law and, consequently, its entry into force. For those who are about to complete 5 years of residence, or for families whose children will be born in Portugal, this interval could be decisive for submitting applications under the regime still in force.

Portuguese nationality continues to be a legally protected right, but its “gateway” is becoming narrower and more distant in time. The Constitutional Court’s decision has acted as a brake on some excesses, but it hasn’t reversed the general political direction: more requirements, longer residence, fewer shortcuts.

Conclusion:

The year 2025 and the first moments of 2026 are decisive for the application for nationality. The individualized analysis of each case, urgent review of eligibility (by years of residence, birth of children in Portugal, marriage/de facto union with Portuguese, etc.) should be done by a lawyer with expertise in the area in order to plan the submission of applications before the definitive change in the legal regime.

Last updated: December 17, 2025.