Amendments to the Nationality Law

On the 3rd of November, the new version of the diploma amending the Nationality Law was promulgated, having this version been approved in the Parliament on the 2nd of October, after the veto of the President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa to the first version of the decree, on the 21st of August.

The ninth amendment to the Law no. 37/81, of the 3rd of October, which approves the Nationality Law, welcomes the recommendations made to the previous version submitted and returned, without promulgation, to the Assembly of the Republic on the 21st of August, having obtained green light in the Assembly of the Republic, on the 2nd of October.

The President of the Republic vetoed the first version of the document in August for not being sufficiently inclusive, since, in the view of the Head of State, it discriminated against couples without children or with children already born in Portugal.

The decree promulgated by the President of the Republic provides that a foreigner who has been married or is in a “de facto” union with a Portuguese for more than three years can acquire Portuguese nationality, already without the rule that prevented this from being extended to foreigners with children in common with a Portuguese citizen, that is, already Portuguese, even if they have been together for less than three years.

The new Nationality Law also provides for the attribution of Portuguese nationality at birth to the children of legal immigrants living in Portugal for a year.

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