Moving to portugal: A roller coaster ride
When you begin thinking about moving to a different country, there is SO much research to do. In our case, we started with a long list of countries back in 2016, and over time we landed on Portugal (if you want to know more about how/why it’s here). Since 2020 we have been focusing all our energy on learning the ins and outs of what it takes to move there, and what perks they offer foreigners to make the leap. Just when we thought we had it all figured out, things inevitably changed, as they do.
A sunset scene from Lisbon, on our last night there in 2022.
The first big change came at the beginning of the year, when Portugal announced they were not offering new short term rental permits for Airbnb’s. A decent sized hiccup to our original plan of purchasing a small farm to host artists retreats and residencies. There seems to be some leniency with this if your potential rental is in the country, rather than close to the big cities, but it seems to be decided on a case by case basis. So while we are not completely abandoning this idea, we are no longer prioritizing it for our house hunting and business plan.
The second big hit to our planning came on October 2, 2023, when Antonio Costa, the Prime Minister of Portugal announced they would be doing away with the NHR tax regime. In a nutshell, this tax regime allowed foreigners to not pay tax on money earned outside of Portugal AND allowed for a flat 20% tax rate on income earned in Portugal for the first TEN years of your residency. We were very much relying on this to make our move work, as this whole plan is a very precarious house of cards financially. To the point where, without this tax break, we weren’t certain we could even qualify for a visa, or to live on the passive income generated from renting our home and Airbnb here in Portland. I think it also important to point out that these changes are intended to help lift the portuguese people up. With so much foreign investment and short term rental properties to accommodate tourism, the people of Portugal have suffered with low wages, and skyrocketing living expenses, coupled with a shortage of affordable housing. We understand why they are doing it, and we are very cautious of not becoming a contributor to the problem. (hence the community center and partnering with a Portuguese native as a business partner, but again that’s a whole other story)
Then, in early November, the PM was brought up on corruption charges, and resigned! I couldn’t help but think “oooh I hope this delays the vote on the NHR”! And while they are overhauling the whole cabinet, they are still voting on the 2024 budget today (November 29), and the NHR is still on the chopping block… with an amendment for people who had already been in the process of moving in 2024- in our case, we need to begin the visa process to prove we’re serious about moving next year. Thankfully we had already opened a bank account in Portugal, and obtained NIF numbers (Portuguese tax identification numbers), which are parts of the visa requirements, but we had not officially begun the visa process yet because you need to have a physical address in Portugal to start.
We have been planning to return to Portugal in January 2024 to hopefully find and buy our future home. A question we get a lot: why not just rent, and buy later? This goes back to that precarious house of cards I mentioned. You see, we closed out 2020 by accepting an offer to sell the house my husband had before we got together. Oddly enough the offer came in at 6:00 pm on December 31, 2020. That felt like a good end to an otherwise insane year. (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, as you all lived through 2020 too!) So we have been sitting on this little pile of money, to fuel our escape plan.
But, as foreigners, it’s more difficult to get a mortgage in Portugal. There are so many extra restrictions and hoops to jump through. So, after more research, we determined it would be more feasible to buy a home before we move (our current income counts toward mortgage approval, and the house is purchased as a second home). Whereas, if we wait to buy after we land there, we won’t have the same income to qualify. Which is the long explanation as to why, we hadn’t started the visa process, because we don’t have a Portuguese address.
There have been other changes to immigration process in Portugal as well, mainly SEF, which was the organization that ultimately processed and confirmed/denied new visas, has been dissolved… or rolled up into a larger organization. But the result- nobody can get through to talk to anybody! And there is, as of Thanksgiving morning (when we spoke to our Visa lawyer at 5:00 AM), 370,000 backlogged visa applications. So an already stressful situation has become more stressful and confusing, plus it now has a super fast timeline attached too!
Since our early morning Thanksgiving call with the lawyer, here’s where we’re at:
he confirmed that if the transitional amendment passes, we will be eligible for the NHR regime, if we have a one year lease agreement to rent a home in Portugal AND begin the Visa process before December 31, 2024.
We will be renting our friend Mariana’s, parents home in the country starting December 1st. So once the lease is completed and signed, we are good to go!
We have Visa interview appointments on December 18 in San Francisco. We’ll fly down in the morning and home immediately after the visa interviews.
Once we hear back from our bank about what sort of mortgage they think we can afford, we’ll get our final wishlist to the realtor, and purchase plane tickets to Portugal for January to look for our future home.
Oh and, I’m living in the studio making art for the holidays and a pre-order, so I can ship everything in time to hit all the December and January deadlines. But oh-my-goodness y’all, I think it’s finally happening!!! We are (hopefully) officially moving to Portugal in 2024 (if we are approved)! After the holidays my focus will shift to cleaning out our house, figuring out if/how I can keep my business going here at least part time, figuring out how to start my ceramics business over again in Portugal, and how to collaborate with Mariana to open our Ceramics Community Center, plus how to fund it (more collab raffle fundraisers and maybe some crowd funding coming soon!), oh and still trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with my hip/low back that hurts so damn much all the time.
My husband Nick, and I on our last night of our last trip to Portugal together.
It’s a full plate for sure. It’s exciting and terrifying, but mostly it’s exciting AF! If you’re still here, thank you for following along and thank you for supporting my crazy art dreams through your presence, kind words, purchases, and sharing of my art work/story. I literally could NOT do this without all of you. Wish us luck!
As always, I welcome your questions and comments below. Or if you prefer you can always send me a message.