Portugal to launch ‘digital-nomad visa’ this month

Remote workers’ newest temptation will soon open for application. 

Portugal — in the last several years a buzzy tourist destination — has become the latest country to try luring in those untethered to an office with a tourism-boosting visa program. 

This week, the republic released requirements for its soon-to-launch “digital-nomad visa,” which will begin accepting applications on Oct. 30. Only remote workers who make approximately $2,750 a month, or four times Portugal’s national minimum wage ($689 a month), will be considered for the cushy visa program, Insider reported. Those who meet the income and work-location flexibility requirements will have the option of applying for a one-year temporary-stay visa or a one-year residency permit. The latter can be renewed for a maximum of five years, the publication noted.  

Interested? You’ll need proof of your past three months’ income, tax-residency documents and proof of either employment or self-employment, all of which will need to be submitted to the Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (Portugal’s immigration bureau) or a Portuguese Consulate. 

Before the new program, those looking to take up temporary residency in the coastal country had to apply for a D7 visa — a much more complex route to remote work, which was aimed at retirees, not still-working expatriates. 

“This visa will simplify procedures for citizens from other countries who want to come to Portugal and the country will benefit from attracting a new labor market and more human resources,” the managing director of investment migration company Global Citizen Solutions, Patricia Casaburi, told Bloomberg. 

In addition to being able to live and work in the Iberian Peninsula, recipients of the new visa will also be able to travel freely throughout the 26 European Union member nations that comprise the Schengen Area. 

Portugal is a relatively late entry to the ongoing pandemic-era trend of countries offering workers the ability to do their job from within foreign borders.