Portugal's D7 and D8, explained with 2026 numbers

This guide is educational — rules change, so rely on the official sources linked below before you act.

Portugal became Europe's default base for one reason: it is one of the few EU countries that will hand you a genuine residence permit — renewable, cumulative, permanent-residence-eligible — without an investment. Two doors lead in. The D7 is for people whose money arrives while they sleep; the D8 is for people whose money arrives while they work, remotely. Pick the wrong door and the application dies on paperwork. Pick the right one and the arithmetic is refreshingly plain.

D7 or D8: which door fits you

D7 — the passive-income visa

The D7 asks the humblest number in European residence: the minimum wage, €920 a month, as long as it arrives passively — a pension, rent from property, dividends, royalties. It was built for retirees, and that is still the cleanest fit. The catch is the word "passive": consular officers want documented, recurring income, not a one-off windfall or the promise of future freelance contracts. If your money only exists while you work, you are a D8 applicant, not a D7 one.

D8 — the remote-work visa

The D8 is Portugal's digital nomad route: you may work, but only for employers or clients outside Portugal. The bar is €3,680 a month — four times the minimum wage — and current guidance applies the same figure whether you are on a payroll or invoicing as a freelancer. Family members add to both thresholds (see below), and you will also need housing in Portugal and, commonly, savings equal to about a year of the minimum wage.

The income requirements, precisely

Family members raise the bar by fixed percentages: a spouse or second adult adds 50% to the main threshold, and each dependent child adds 30%. On 2026 numbers that makes a D7 couple €1,380 a month and a D8 couple €5,520. Remember the anchor: everything multiplies off the minimum wage, and the minimum wage moves each January — the numbers below are this year's, not forever's.

The process, end to end

Both visas start the same way: at the Portuguese consular post covering your place of residence (Hong Kong has a consulate-general; Taiwan has no Portuguese consular post, so applicants apply at the competent post or work through a Portuguese lawyer). You submit the visa application with income proof, criminal-record and other documents — all properly legalised — and wait. Once granted, the visa lets you travel to Portugal, where the second phase begins: an appointment with AIMA, the immigration agency, which converts your visa into the two-year residence permit. How long each phase takes varies enormously with the queue in front of you; plan in months, not weeks, and do not book anything non-refundable against a hoped-for date.

After arrival: AIMA and renewals

Two things dominate life after arrival. First, the AIMA appointment itself — bring every document, original and copy, or you rejoin the queue. Second, staying legal: your first permit runs two years and renews for three, provided you keep meeting the income threshold, keep your Portuguese tax affairs current, and maintain a registered address. Years accumulate quietly; five of them is the number the whole plan points toward.

The five-year horizon

At five years of legal residence you may apply for permanent residence. Citizenship is a separate, harsher test now: Portugal tightened its nationality law in May 2026, and most non-EU applicants will need ten years of residence (seven for EU and Portuguese-speaking nationals), counted from the issue date of the first residence permit. The A2 Portuguese requirement — usually the CIPLE exam — survived the reform. None of this makes Portugal a bad deal; it makes it an honest one: cheap to enter, slow to finish.

The tax reality check

And if your income comfortably clears the D8 bar but you want minimal physical presence rather than a life in Lisbon, the €500,000 qualifying-fund route of the golden visa still exists — with its own honest drawbacks, covered separately.

Related reading

• Digital nomad visas compared — how Portugal's numbers sit against Spain, Greece, Japan and Korea
• Golden visas in 2026: an honest reality check — the investment route, soberly priced
• Apostille and legalization for HK/TW documents — the document stage every D7/D8 application depends on
• How to choose your emigration route — the five-gates framework before committing