• Montenegro
  • Portugal
  • Documents

Author: Egor

Date: 17.06.2025

In the previous article we submitted the documents to AIMA (the Portuguese immigration service) as a whole family. After that, we just had to wait for the cherished residence permit to arrive by mail. Ideally, it should be delivered by a mail carrier directly to your home and handed over personally against signature and ID verification.

The waiting time for the residence permit after submission can range from 10 days to a year. On average, it takes about 3 months. It largely depends on the location where you submit the documents, the specific AIMA branch, the city — basically, on the people involved. There have been cases where people received their residence permit after it had already expired (which is 2 years). There have also been cases where the residence card was handed to the wrong person. So yes, there is reason to worry.

Obtaining a Residence Permit

Based on the above, we were quite skeptical. I was prepared to wait even half a year. The waiting period is difficult because during this time you cannot leave the country, you can't proceed with obtaining certain other important documents, and there's the stress of uncertainty.

We submitted our documents in the city of Viseu on May 26, 2025. It's a small and quiet town in central Portugal. It's known for fast document processing, both for residence permits and, for example, driver’s licenses. I hoped we would receive our residence permits by at least September.

But I was truly surprised when my wife Katya sent me a photo via messenger of a letter she found in our mailbox. The sender — AIMA from Viseu. Inside was something hard. Of course, it was a residence card. Only one — mine. This happened just 10 calendar days after submission, or 7 working days — on June 5, 2025. So fast. It’s such a rare event, almost like winning the lottery. Since I was the main applicant, it wasn't strange that only one card arrived. On the one hand, I was happy, but on the other — we still needed two more cards. Note how such an important document was just lying in the mailbox.

Time passed, but the other residence permits still didn’t arrive. On June 10, through our relocation manager, we learned that the permits for my wife and daughter were already approved and sent for printing on June 6. So it wouldn't be long. And on June 17, 22 days after submission, a mailman knocked on our door and delivered, under signature, two letters from AIMA. Of course, they contained the residence permits for my wife and daughter. The challenge “Get a Portuguese Residence Permit” can be considered completed.

Brief Overview

At the end of June 2024, we began our relocation process. The first step was deciding to legalize our stay in Portugal through a residence permit (residency), not through “asylum.” Through asylum, we could have moved to Portugal almost immediately, without all the paperwork and bureaucracy. But we would have remained in that status for a long time. Since summer 2024, applying for residency from inside the country is only possible through one article, and slots for it have only opened once — in November 2024. Only a few people inside Portugal managed to switch from asylum to residency then. Since then, no new slots have opened. That’s why applying for a visa through the embassy was the right decision. It's a longer and more difficult process, but it was worth it.

So, after deciding on the legalization strategy, in late July 2024 we began preparing the first documents: requesting certificates in Ukraine, birth/marriage documents, translations, apostilles. This took nearly 3.5 months. Even if it had been faster, we still wouldn’t have been able to speed up the process, because appointment slots at the embassy only open a few times a year at set times.

First, you had to send an email to the embassy saying you want to apply for a visa. Only 20 people are accepted for half of the Balkans. After “winning” this lottery, we were allowed to submit our visa documents for online pre-check.

After the documents were approved online, we were told to bring the originals to the Portuguese embassy in Serbia. There, they re-checked everything, accepted the documents, and forwarded them for consideration to Portugal. This stage took around 2 months.

Another 2 months later, we received the visa with an appointment in AIMA for the final application. Four months later, we submitted our documents to AIMA. And roughly a month after that, we received our residence permit.

It took nearly 11 months from the start of document preparation to receiving the residence permit in hand.

We spent about €6,000 on the relocation itself and the related bureaucracy. That includes multiple trips to the Portuguese embassy in Serbia and a trip to AIMA in Viseu.

Comparison of Legalization in Portugal and Montenegro

Montenegro is not part of the EU. The legalization process there is extremely simple.

You can simply arrive in the country and apply for a residence permit at any time in a live queue. In contrast, in Portugal, legalization can only begin from outside the country and only through a strict appointment in an electronic queue.

In Montenegro, the main applicant receives a residence permit within 2 weeks of application, and family members — through the reunification process — in about 1.5 months. In Portugal, I, as the main applicant, received my residence permit 10 days after submission, and family reunification — in 22 days. But it took more than 10 months to even get to the point where we could submit the documents.

It’s important to note that for any EU country, you need apostilled and translated essential documents such as: marriage and children's birth certificates, criminal record certificates, and educational diplomas. These would be required in any developed country. Even in Montenegro, a criminal record certificate is needed, so maybe it would also take 3.5 months to obtain.

On the other hand, Montenegro also had its own odd requirements. For example, in 2019, it was mandatory to have a university degree to get a residence permit. Later, this requirement was lifted, but it used to be the case. You had to obtain a certificate from your alma mater every year confirming your diploma was valid. It was especially tough for those whose university had long been closed.

In Montenegro, a rental contract is mandatory to apply for a residence permit, or you must own property, depending on your situation. To sign a rental contract, you need the agreement itself, a notary, and a translator. Yes, in Montenegro, you can't sign a lease without a translator in your native language. You have to pay the translator too. And the translator signs to confirm that you correctly translated your own contract. You also need to pay the notary, and don’t forget the certificate from the local cadastral office confirming that the property owner matches the one in the contract. Here's the fun part: such a contract is needed for every applicant. For a family of 4, for example, you need to translate and notarize at least 6 copies of the contract: 4 for residence permit applications (they require the original from each applicant, even children), 1 for the landlord, and 1 for yourself. And you must repeat this every 3 years if you are renewing a work-based residence permit.

In Montenegro, residence permits are issued for one year only. If you work under an employment contract, every 3 years you must leave the country to break your stay period and prevent accumulating 5 continuous years required for permanent residency.

There was a period when Montenegro refused to accept criminal record certificates issued in Ukraine, following the initiative of the Ukrainian ambassador. The certificates had to be issued not by the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, but personally by the consul.

The fact that residence permits are only valid for one year imposes many limitations. Without a residence permit, you can't register a car in your name. With a residence permit, you can, but only until the permit’s expiration date, and for no less than 3 months. Even if you register it, every year you must re-register and change license plates. License plates for foreigners are in a special format — so that everyone knows you're an immigrant.

In contrast, in Portugal, the first residence permit is valid for 2 years, the second for 3. After that, you can either renew again or apply for permanent residency or citizenship. You can register a car in your name in Portugal with just a tax number, which anyone can get without much documentation. The car will have standard Portuguese plates, and there’s no need to re-register. With a Portuguese residence permit, you can travel throughout the EU. With a Montenegrin one, you’re not always even guaranteed entry into Montenegro.

A rental contract in Portugal is made only between you and the landlord. No one else is needed — just the signatures of the owner and the tenants. It is a valid legal document accepted everywhere as proof of residence. It is required for a residence permit, but no one takes the contract — they just scan it. Only one contract is needed for the whole family. It must be registered in the tax office (Finanças), but the landlord can do this easily.

Yes, the process of getting a residence permit in Portugal is long. But this is mostly due to the collapse of the immigration system. At some point, the system was neglected, processes weren’t set up properly, and when this led to a backlog, they started fixing it slowly. I can say that getting the first residence permit in Portugal is much harder than in Montenegro, but all subsequent renewals and related processes are much more comfortable in Portugal. We'll find out how renewal goes in 2 years.

Conclusion

If you thought that was all — you were mistaken. After obtaining a residence permit, new levels of bureaucracy await, such as getting a health number, a social security number, exchanging your driver’s license, and more. So don’t exhale just yet.

I hope my “notes from a madman” will be useful to someone.

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