On February 16, 2023 the Portuguese government unexpectedly announced its intention to end the program. Nevertheless, there is a long process until the promulgation of the law.
Last news and timeline expected:
May 31, 2023 update: During June at the economy and housing committee took place today. Now the political parties can propose amendments until approximately June 16. Then the committee will work on the final proposal which will be voted on in a plenary parliamentary session, most likely on either July 14, 21, or 28.
This process is likely to take at least one to two months, possibly even longer.
Once the bill receives final , it’ll make its way to president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who has already stated that he’ll consider the bill carefully before taking one of the three actions available to him:
- Promulgating (approving) the bill, in which case it’ll take effect the day after being published in Diário da República
- Rejecting the bill on political or constitutional grounds, in which case it gets sent back to the parliament
- Referring the bill to the constitutional court, which will judge whether it’s unconstitutional or not
- If he decides on direct promulgation, that’ll usually still take about 10 days or so. In this case it’s quite likely to take even longer.
- If he sends the bill back to parliament that will understandably add take even more time as the parliament reworks the bill based on the president’s feedback, followed by another round of voting.
- If the bill is deemed unconstitutional by the court it will require significant changes or a two-thirds majority in parliament to override their decision. That will clearly take even longer.
Most experts seem to think it’s unlikely that the law will enter into force before late June or even later, but of course that’s not guaranteed. Still, there’s a considerable likelihood that there will be a transitional period beyond this—especially since the constitutional court previously decided that a sufficient transition period was required in order to give investors time to submit their applications the last time the government made significant changes to the GV rules.