Portugal is a great country to get citizenship from. Its passport is first-class, with visa-free access to 159 countries in 2020, which includes the ability to live, work and travel freely in all 28 member-states of the EU (27, if you discount the UK).

Getting a Portuguese passport is relatively easy. It requires becoming a resident of Portugal, and after five years, applying for citizenship.

Portugal’s Retirement and Online Worker Visa is the best way to obtain residency in Portugal. It requires you to have sufficient means to support yourself.

What qualifies as “sufficient means” will vary from consulate to consulate. Some will require that you show savings equivalent to €40 per day that you’re going to be in Portugal to support yourself, while others will require you to show at least €50,000 in any combination of income or savings.

That’s extremely low for a passport with that level of quality.

Lots of European countries make it difficult for those who weren’t born there to get citizenship. In contrast, Portugal offers a fairly easy second citizenship route. In fact, it’s the easiest EU citizenship option for those without the “right” grandparents.

But how do you get it?

You will need to apply for your initial visa to stay in Portugal from your local consulate. We encourage you to apply roughly 3 months within your expected departure date for Portugal.

Once you have your visa, you must travel to Portugal to obtain your temporary residence permit, which you will receive after a visit with the local authorities.

During the first year of the residence permit you will be required to spend a minimum of four months in the country and can’t leave for more than 6 consecutive months at a time.

After the first year, your temporary residence permit renews in two-year intervals.

During each two year period you have to spend at least 16 months in the country and can’t can’t leave for more than 6 consecutive months.

After five years of temporary residency in Portugal, you will be eligible for permanent residency and citizenship (the naturalization period was reduced from six to five years in mid-2018).

So if you have a few years, and don’t have grandparents from Ireland, Italy or a German father, then Portugal is currently the European country where it is easiest to get citizenship.

Now, in this case, “easy” does not mean “Panama easy”. The financial requirements are higher to establish Portuguese residency, and you do need to spend more time on the ground than you do in Panama.

But Portugal offers an incredible passport. And given the low barriers to entry, the lax residency requirements and the short-time to naturalization, Portugal is by far the easiest way to get EU citizenship (without ancestry).

Keep in mind however, that even though it’s possibly the easiest European passport to obtain, the path from Portuguese residency to full citizenship takes at least five years of residency.