Portugal's new nationality law still has no regulation, and the government's deadline is 16 August
Organic Law 1/2026 gave the government 90 days to update the Portuguese Nationality Regulation. The deadline falls on 16 August 2026 — and the regulation is what defines the forms, proofs and paperwork.
The Portuguese government has until 16 August 2026 to update the Portuguese Nationality Regulation. That is the 90-day deadline written into the very law that changed everything — and until then, anyone with a citizenship application in progress lives in an odd gap: the new rules already apply, but the document explaining how to meet them is still the old one.
What is the deadline to regulate Portugal’s nationality law?
16 August 2026. Organic Law 1/2026 was published on 18 May, came into force the next day, and its closing article orders the government to make “the necessary changes” to the Portuguese Nationality Regulation within 90 days of publication. Count forward from 18 May and you land there. The full text sits in the official gazette.
What is the Portuguese Nationality Regulation?
It is the law’s instruction manual. The law says who is entitled to be Portuguese; the regulation — annexed to Decree-Law 237-A/2006 — says how you prove it in practice: which forms you fill in, which documents you attach, which certificates count, how residence is demonstrated, what it costs, and who decides what at the registry offices.
That is why this deadline matters more than it sounds. A new law with an old regulation means officials interpreting requirements that have no procedural translation yet, and applicants assembling paperwork by analogy with the previous regime. It is not a technicality — it is the difference between a file that moves and a file that waits.
What actually changed in the nationality law?
The headline is the years. The legal residence period required to apply for naturalisation rose from five to seven years for nationals of Portuguese-speaking countries and EU citizens, and to ten years for everyone else. But the law touched a lot more than the clock:
It now requires effective legal residence, not merely a valid permit on paper. It strengthened the integration and knowledge requirements, including language ability and a component on rights and duties. It hardened the exclusions tied to criminal records. And it removed some specific routes to citizenship that existed under the previous regime. Those four fronts are precisely where the regulation has work to do, because each of them needs a concrete procedure before it can leave the page. We covered what changes beyond the waiting years in detail.
What happens to applications already submitted?
They keep the old rules. Administrative procedures already pending when the law came into force remain subject to the previous criteria — that safeguard is written into the law itself. The new rules apply to applications filed from 19 May 2026 onwards.
In practice, the date your file was submitted has become the single most important item in it. Keep the submission receipt as carefully as you would keep the certificate: it is what determines which regime your case runs under. A petition asking for changes to the transitional regime is currently before parliament, a sign that the border between the two worlds did not sit well with everyone.
And children born in Portugal?
They are a chapter of their own, with rules that were also amended and that remain one of the most common questions among families living here — we set them out in the rules for minors after the 2026 law.
Quick questions
Can the regulation be late?
It can. The 90-day deadline is an instruction from parliament to the government, but the law sets no automatic consequence if August passes without publication. If that happens, registry offices will most likely keep applying the 2006 regulation in whatever parts do not clash with the new law.
Is it worth waiting for the regulation before applying?
That depends on your case, and it is a conversation to have with a lawyer — but note that the filing date fixes which regime applies, and that date only works in favour of people who have already filed. Anyone who already meets the requirements rarely gains anything by waiting.
Where do you follow this?
Official nationality updates come from the Institute of Registries and Notaries and are published in the official gazette. When the regulation lands, that is where it appears first — before any summary, ours included.
Image: Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
