Moving To Portugal

I’ve decided to blog about this! I’m not sure who reads my blog anymore but here it is.

Bri and I have decided to move to Portugal. The plan has been in the works now for a while. Here I will document what steps we’ve done and where we’re at in the process.

Initial

We visited Portugal in December 2021 and decided it would be a place we would like to live. For various reasons, Portugal has been our number one retirement destination. It is cheap to live, has great healthcare, great culture, speaks mostly English (thought we will be learning Portuguese).

Time: 10 days in Portugal.

Choosing A Lawyer

We interviewed a few different lawyers and figured out (roughly) what we need to do. We met with four different immigration lawyers (all in Lisbon) and received quotes.

Time: 4 months (finding and interviewing lawyers). This process might be faster for others.

Signing Up With An Immigration Lawyer

On Tuesday, February 22, 2022 we paid and sent over our information to the immigration lawyer we chose. We sent them over pictures of our drivers licenses and passports as well as some other information they asked for. We paid around $3,000 initially. The remaining is around $1,000.

Time: 1 day.
Cost: around $4,000

Getting NIF Numbers

The migration attorney is in charge of getting us Tax ID (NIF) numbers. We need these numbers to open a bank account (which the attorney will also do). It took them around two weeks to get us these numbers. We received them on Monday, March 7, 2022. The attorney now needs our United States Social Security cards which we will send over today.

Time: 2 weeks.

Getting A Bank Account

We obviously needed to open up a Portuguese bank account there. In order to do this, we need various forms and other information. We had to send them almost everything… copies of our passports, social security cards, proof of income, our last few paychecks, our tax returns for various previous years… it is a lot.

On top of which, they needed INKED documents so we had to print out various documents (bank account information with Millennium) and send it to them… like actually send to Portugal.

We sent these documents (the first time) on Monday, April 4th, 2022. We eagerly awaited their arrival. We sent them through USPS. No tracking info. It cost around $20 to send.

By April 18, 2022, our lawyers were wondering where they were. We decided to print out these documents AGAIN and resign and send them. We did this on Tuesday, April 19, 2022 and sent them out this time through UPS.

This process is finally finished but we still need to fund the account all the way.

Time: 2 months

Putting Money Into The Account

Once we finally got access to the account, we had to put money in it. Unfortunately, this wasn’t cheap. Bri created a Wise account to transfer money from his account to the new Portuguese account. He also couldn’t initially log into the account so he had to call the bank.

We completed this in a week though we need more time to transfer funds as the Wise app takes some money and doesn’t allow large transfers.

We are also playing the market a bit and only transferring money when the Euro is at a better position so we get more Euros for our buck.

Time: 1 month

Finding A Place

Well, we have to find a place to live, right? In order to be accepted, we need a place to stay. We initially started looking on our own but we decided to go with a realtor. We hope to not have to fly over there to look at places. Right now it’s a very busy time. It also costs money and time to go over there to look.

Reading online, it can take a while to find a place. This is why we are hiring a realtor to do the finding for us. We are looking in the Algarve (which is really hot right now because of summer).

Our realtor sent us a listing and we wanted to pick a place from their list but none of the places were available. I don’t know why they would send us stuff that they didn’t first check was available.

We ended up going a different approach through our lawyers. Our lawyers were able to find us a room to rent with a lease. We will be using that address and lease as our housing requirement. As far as a real place to live, we will be staying in an AirBnB somewhere in the Algarve until we buy a place.

Cost: $133 (for realtor to find places)
Time: 3 months

Fingerprinting/Background Check

Us living in the DC area, we kind of have an advantage. It was really easy to make an appointment somewhere close to get the FBI background investigation and fingerprinting scheduled. We did that on Wednesday, May 11th.

Cost: $160
Time: less than a week

Getting Our Pets Over

More time and research needs to go into this (and I have a checklist for them). So far I’ve bought two dog crates and am getting them used to them. Unfortunately, they will need to go in the cargo hold.

Getting the pets over is a very tricky process. Portugal is a rabies-free country so they both need to be up-to-date on their rabies vaccine. However, they also need to be microchipped which needs to take place BEFORE their rabies vaccine.

We needed to do the following:

• Crate train the pets – This was a difficult process with Lando. Wiki was aces. Lando would whine all the time in his crate and would become destructive. He destroyed a plastic bowl that was left in his crate. He also destroyed a blanket we had overtop of the crate.
• Find a USDA approved vet & make an appointment – This process was more difficult than it sounds as there are not a lot of places that still do it. They need to go to this vet within 10 days of travel.
  • The vet did a lot of paperwork and research for us. Lando was an issue as his microchipping occurred AFTER his rabies vaccine. We needed to get him another rabies vaccine which had to happen 21 days prior to his vet appointment.
  • We told the vet about Lando’s anxiety and she gave us eight pills. We tried one and that made him calm down. Before the plane, we gave him a pill which hopefully worked.
• Get the USDA certificate certified – The vet looked up what we needed to do. Once we got the certificate we had to overnight it to a place in Albany, NY that certifies certificates and have a return overnight envelope to send it back to us.
• Properly label the crates – The crates that I bought came with “LIVE ANIMALS” stickers so we put those on the crates. We also put stickers with our phone numbers as well as Bri’s dad’s number. We also put a bag of food duct taped to the top of the cages just in case.
• Pet trackers – For piece of mind, we bought Samsung smart tags for both our pets. We tested them out first and they worked! It just needs to have a Samsung phone around to find the pets.
• Call the airline – We flew out with TAP so we needed to call them AFTER we booked our tickets to tell them we had two dogs. They asked about breeds and sizes and sizes of their crates.
  • We needed to arrive there two hours before our flight. We went to the luggage counter with them and our luggage.
  • We rolled them in then later took off the wheels on the crate. The airport took them on a cart which we followed.
  • The airport/TSA scanned their crates. We had to zip tie the doors closed. TSA/the airport said they could no longer touch the animals once we had them zip tied.
  • We tracked them and after an hour of no activity on their tags, they finally appeared underneath us! We were the last ones on the plane on purpose so we could see them get loaded. They took them out in this van and loaded each one up on the belt. A lady then walked both of them into the cargo of the plane and I assume strapped them down.
  • At the airport in Lisbon, we asked where to pick up our pets. The airport person said to wait by a door (funny story to ask me later). The door eventually opened and we retrieved our dogs, safe and sound. They couldn’t wait to get out of their cages and had to go to the bathroom really bad.

Cost: $263 (for two dog crates) + $618 (USDA vet) + $83 (for certified overnight certificate) + $1,600+ (for the dogs to be in luggage)

Getting A Place To Rent

We contacted a realtor a month and a half before our VFS appointment. She sent us some things but nothing met our requirements or it turned out to be unavailable. She got another realtor involved which had a few places. However, even after making a decision, the properties were unavailable.

How We Eventually Got A Place

Days turned into weeks. The final week we needed a place, we were freaking out. I was reaching other realtors in Portugal to see if they could help.

We finally told our lawyers we didn’t think we were going to make the deadline. She offered us an alternative and we took it. We have a lease for a place in Porto.

The place in Porto isn’t a place that we actually stayed. We ended up getting an AirBnB for two months in Quartiera. We then bought a place in Lagos.

This was a very difficult part of the process! It is NOT easy at all.

Cost: $625
Time: 2 months

Getting Travelers Insurance

It only took a phone call. But we did some research before we decided on a company. We chose Mutuaide and made the call to have our insurance start on October 1, 2022. No deductible. Best part it was only 1,200 euros for two people for a year! If health insurance was that cheap in this country, we would stay.

Cost: $1250 (1,200 euros)
Time: 1 day

Getting Ready For VFS Appointment

This took a long time. We needed to print out many documents. Our list (per person) was:

• Application for National Visa
• Passports
• Two passport sized photos – we only needed one but they said to bring two
• Colored copy of passports  – we needed them notarized; which we didn’t know; but luckily, the person was able to copy ours and notarize them herself
• Personal statement
• Proof of financial means – we brought bank statements, a letter from our property manager, and account statements from accounts we have which generate income
• NIF documents – we got these first thing from the lawyers; this was one of the easiest things as they did the work
• FBI criminal records – see above
• Release/request for Portugal criminal record check
• Proof of travelers insurance – see above
• Proof of accommodation – see above
• Copy of marriage certificate – they did not ask for this but we provided it anyway
• Representation letter – our lawyers provided this for it; they didn’t ask for it but we provided it to them anyway
• Two money orders – one each person; made out to Embassy of Portugal; both for $95.19

Now all that’s left to do was wait.

Time: months (see above steps)
Cost: $95.19 + $95.19 + $150.38

Selling Our Home

Of course we need to sell our current house before we make the move. It might seem a little pointless to put this in here but I feel it’s important. We had to find some realtors and vet them.

We finally decided to go with a local one recommended from a friend. This same friend also will do the photography and video of our home. We listed our house in August.

After a week and a half of being on the market, we finally got a bid! After a lot of negotiating and the home inspector finding a lot of shit, we settled on a price. We closed at the end of September, 2022.

Time: 6 weeks

The Waiting

After our VFS appointment (mentioned above), the long wait happens… We went through DC which is usually faster than other places but that wasn’t the case for us.

We kept checking on our application online but no update. Just kept saying it had been forwarded to the embassy.

Finally on August 2nd (right as we were leaving for GenCon) we got an email requesting our 2021 tax returns. We quickly gathered the information, went over to Brian’s parents, and scanned it to a PDF. Within an hour of their email request, we had sent it back to them.

We waited another long time to get any feedback back. We emailed them and called several times in September as it was going on 90 days since our VFS appointment.

FINALLY on Monday, September 19, 2022, we got an email saying we were approved! The email came in the morning right before my standups. Finally a weight had been lifted and the long wait was over!

Brian mailed our passports a few hours after we got the good news. They stamped with our Visa and we will have the ability to get into Portugal on our six month D7 Visa.

Time: 95 days + 4 days (we sent our passports on September 19 and got them back September 22)

Getting To Portugal

Bri made flights at the beginning of October for the end of October.

We hung out with a lot of people in this month. We went on a kid of “going away tour” and saw a lot of family and friends before we left. It was quite sweet. I loved seeing all my good friends one last time. We saw:

• Uncle George in North Carolina
• Heidi in Virginia
• Bryan S – We hung out with Bryan S who lived close to Bri’s parents a few times since he was so close
• Megan & Matt in New Orleans
• Our local people: Helen, Andrei, Jason & Brittany, Aaron & Sabrina, Shawn & Jen, Eric & Delaura, Joe & Kate

Like I stated earlier, we booked tickets for October 30th. We flew out really late and arrived in Lisbon on October 31st. We rented a car and got down to the Algarve (lots of steps before, see the pets). We checked into our AirBnB on November 1st.