Nationality Applications: 2 Years Processing Timeline

The Secretary of State for Justice reports that applications for Portuguese nationality have seen a significant increase, with over 1.4 million submissions in the past six years.

Nationality Applications in Portugal: Rising Numbers

During a hearing in the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms, and Guarantees, Maria José Barros, Secretary of State for Justice, shared her concerns about the increasing number of nationality requests.

“Over 1.4 million applications have been submitted in the past six years. For comparison, in 2022 alone, 300,000 applications were filed, whereas in 2013, the total didn’t even reach 100,000,” she explained.

She also addressed a question from the PSD about the online platform created by the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN) in 2022 to handle nationality requests. While the platform was designed to speed up the process, she acknowledged ongoing challenges:

“The platform isn’t performing as we had hoped, and waiting times remain long.”

Year	Number of Applications Submitted
2013	Less than 100,000
2022	300,000
Last 6 years	Over 1.4 million in total

Despite efforts to improve, the Ministry of Justice is still working to reduce waiting times and enhance the platform’s performance.

Maria José Barros also mentioned that for urgent nationality requests, responses are currently being issued for applications submitted in the second half of October 2024.

However, for non-urgent cases, applications made two years ago are still under processing.

Processing Timeline

Request Type	Processing Status
Urgent Requests	Responding to applications from October 2024
Non-Urgent Requests	Processing applications submitted two years ago

This highlights the significant backlog and the challenges the Ministry of Justice faces in reducing waiting times for nationality applications.