Finally, about a month ago we received our long stay visas for Portugal and were able to travel to our new home.
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| The Visa that they put into your passport |
Because we were not able to make application in March, some of our documents went out of date. So, in September, when the process opened up in Washington DC (the embassy which covers our location), we had to re-apply for certain documents, notably the FBI report. This report can be obtained overnight, via a $50 fingerprint charge at a capable USPS branch and a nominal fee online at the FBI. This will net you an emailed copy of your report and you can request a mailed copy, at the same time. Currently some of the embassies are accepting the mailed FBI report, unopened. However another method is to get this emailed report printed out and sent into the State Department for apostille. This can take from 6-8 weeks, depending upon their work load. Again - Covid plays a part.
We were able to use the mailed version of the FBI report from our online application and when we mailed off our packet, including all necessary documentation, we received approval from the embassy in about 3 weeks. We were told to expect a 60 day turnaround, so you can see that this was a much better result than expected.
We did use a company who helped us with the application. It would have been possible without that, but the support I received for the money was well worth it. Our contact suggested several things which were not published on the VFS website. VFS is the agency responsible for collecting and forwarding the application to the embassy. So, using our agent's suggestions allowed us to send in an application that was more complete than I would have made using the VFS guidelines. The service, provided by Relocate to Portugal was under $600 for both of us - a fee I was happy to pay.
So, about a month ago, my wife and I travelled to Portugal, to start the next phase of our lives. My wife travelled directly from Miami to Lisbon, via TAP Airlines and I followed a week later, having returned to Macon to sell our last remaining vehicle and flying out on United Airlines to take advantage of a flight I had paid for and cancelled due to Covid restrictions. So here it is the end of November and we have been in our house for several weeks, now.
Our long stay visa will be good until we have our appointment with SEF, the agency responsible for immigration. At that time, if we receive approval, we will get a residency card for either 1 to 2 years, renewable for another period of time. After 5 years of residency, we can apply for permanent resident status.
We hope to be able to share some of our journey to this wonderful new country.
