Moving to Portugal from the US: D7 Requirements

The D7 is described online as a passive income visa for anyone with savings. In practice it is an income test with a specific documentary trail, a…

Portugal is the country Americans ask about most, and the D7 is the visa most of them end up reading about. It is also the one most often misdescribed. Search for it and you will find it called a "passive income visa," phrased in a way that makes it sound like a formality for anyone with savings. It is not. It is a residency application with a specific income test, a paperwork trail that starts months before you apply, and a waiting period that has become the single biggest complaint among people who have been through it. Here is what the process actually asks of you. The D7 is an income visa, not a savings visa The D7 exists for people who can show regular, ongoing income that arrives whether or not they work . That means pensions, social security, rental income, dividends, royalties, or annuity payments. A large bank balance on its own is not the same thing, and this is where most rejected applications come apart. The distinction matters more than the amount. Consulates want to see money that recurs on a predictable schedule and is documented by a third party — a pension provider, a tenant, a brokerage. Income you pay yourself from your own company is treated far more sceptically. What the numbers look like in 2026 The threshold is pegged to the Portuguese minimum wage, so it rises most years. As of January 2026 , the figures widely reported by immigration practitioners are: Main applicant: around €920 per month, roughly €11,040 a year. Spouse or partner: add 50%, roughly €460 per month. Each dependent child: add 30%, roughly €276 per month. A couple together: therefore around €1,380 per month, or about €16,560 a year. Savings on top: expect to show roughly a year of the minimum wage — about €11,040 per adult — held in a Portuguese account. Treat those as the floor, not the target. Consulates have discretion, and an application clearing the minimum by a comfortable margin is received very differently from one that scrapes it. Check the figures yourself before you rely on them Because the amount is indexed, any number in any blog post — including this one — has a shelf life . The authoritative source is the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs visa portal, which publishes the documentation and means-of-subsistence rules directly: Official visa portal: vistos.mne.gov.pt — means of subsistence Residency visa documentation: vistos.mne.gov.pt — residency Your nearest Portuguese consulate, which applies the rules in practice and can differ in what it asks for. If a page quotes a figure without a date, assume it is stale. What you need in place before you can even apply Several requirements have to be satisfied in a particular order, and each one takes time: A Portuguese tax number (NIF) — needed for almost everything that follows, and usually obtained through a fiscal representative if you are not yet resident. A Portuguese bank account — which generally requires the NIF first. Proof of accommodation — a lease or property deed. Many applicants sign a twelve-month lease on somewhere they have never lived, for a visa they have not yet been granted. Criminal record checks — an FBI background check, apostilled. Health insurance — private cover valid in Portugal for the initial period. Proof of income — typically twelve months of statements plus the documents behind them. None of these is difficult on its own. The difficulty is that they are sequential, they expire, and an apostille that was fresh when you started may be stale by the time your appointment arrives. The waiting is the part people underestimate Portugal replaced its immigration service with AIMA in late 2023, and the transition created a backlog that has shaped the experience of every applicant since. The visa is only the first step. The residency visa itself is valid for a limited window, during which you are expected to complete your residency permit with AIMA — and appointment availability has been the defining frustration of the process. Plan for the possibility that you will be living in Portugal, legally, for a considerable stretch before your residency card is physically in your hand. That has knock-on effects: opening certain accounts, signing certain contracts, and travelling within the Schengen area all become more complicated while you wait. The tax picture changed, and the old advice is still circulating For years the pitch for Portugal was the Non-Habitual Resident regime, which offered favourable treatment of foreign income for a decade. That scheme closed to new arrivals , and what replaced it is far narrower — aimed at specific research, innovation and skilled roles rather than at retirees. This matters because a great deal of online material about Portugal was written while NHR was open and has never been updated. If a page is selling you Portugal primarily on tax, check when it was written. Assume you will be taxed as an ordinary Portuguese resident unless a professional tells you otherwise, and get that advice from someone who handles both US and Portuguese tax — because as an American you keep filing with the IRS regardless of where you live. Lisbon is not Portugal Most cost-of-living comparisons quietly assume Lisbon, and Lisbon has been the sharp end of a housing squeeze that has priced out locals and arrivals alike. The gap between the capital and the rest of the country is now large enough that "the cost of living in Portugal" is close to a meaningless phrase . The practical questions are all local: what a two-bedroom actually rents for in the neighbourhood you are considering, whether the local health centre is accepting new patients, how far the nearest international school is and whether it has space, and whether you can function day to day without Portuguese in that specific place. Those answers differ enormously between Lisbon, Porto, Braga, the Algarve and the interior. Who Portugal suits — and who it does not It works well for people with genuinely passive, well-documented income, patience for bureaucracy, and a willingness to learn the language rather than assume English will carry them. It works badly for people whose income is really active work in disguise, people who need certainty about dates, and people whose budget only survives if the tax regime that closed is still open. None of that makes it a bad choice. It makes it a choice you should make with the specifics in front of you rather than the brochure. Before you commit to a city The decisions that go wrong are rarely about the country. They are about the particular place — the neighbourhood where the rent assumption breaks, the school with a two-year waiting list, the region where the healthcare access you were counting on works differently. Our free assessment asks about your situation, your budget and what actually matters to you, then shows you how well a specific city fits before you spend anything. If you want the detail, the full report researches your chosen city across fourteen areas — visas, real costs, healthcare, schools, safety and the practical steps to get there — with sources and dates rather than reassurance.