Senior lawyer
Lawyer practicing international migration. Specializes in issues of migration law - paperwork on the territory of Ukraine and the countries of the European Union (Romania, Hungary, Spain, Czech Republic).
Case: Support in obtaining Portuguese citizenship for a minor child
Portuguese citizenship for a child
Obtaining citizenship depends on several factors: the place of birth of the child, the status of the parents and their stay in Portugal.
The child was born in Portugal
- If both parents are foreigners but have been legally resident in the country for at least 1 year at the time of birth, the child automatically acquires Portuguese citizenship.
- If the parents are illegal migrants, the child does not automatically acquire citizenship, but can apply later through naturalization.
A client, a citizen of Ukraine, contacted the migration lawyers of “Prikhodko & Partners” regarding support in obtaining Portuguese citizenship for a minor child based on birth in Portugal.
The client had already encountered the fact that the lawyers he had contacted before refused to issue citizenship for the child, on the grounds that, in the absence of practice, they referred to the fact that the child’s parents had to have lived legally in Portugal for the last 5 years before submitting the application, and the parents themselves have not lived there for a long time at the moment.
Our lawyers analyzed the client’s package of documents and found that the child effectively has the right to the citizenship of Portugal by birth.
The basis for this is not the last 5 years of residence in Portugal with legal status, but the following factors:
- birth of a child in Portugal;
- the parents are legally present in Portugal at the time of the child’s birth, having residence permits (the period of 5 years before the birth of the child is taken into account), these do not necessarily have to be the last 5 years as of the time of filing;
- the parents worked and paid taxes during their residence in Portugal during the entire period.
After that, our lawyers checked the client’s package of documents and found that the father had proof of paying taxes for more than 5 years in Portugal, during his work and residence, and the child also had a Portuguese birth certificate.
The first step was to prepare a power of attorney for a lawyer in Portugal to represent the client when submitting documents to obtain citizenship for the child. Then, documents were submitted directly in Portugal to grant citizenship to the child and assign him an internal passport of a Portuguese citizen.
A few weeks later, a new birth certificate for the child was received in electronic format with the assigned number of the internal passport of a citizen of Portugal. With this document, the parents had to officially apply to the Portuguese consulate in Ukraine for the purpose of obtaining an internal and foreign passport for the minor child.
We prepared an appeal in Portuguese and sent it to the parents to send to the e-mail of the consulate, after which the parents received a booked date for a visit to obtain passports.
During the visit, documents were submitted to obtain an internal passport of a citizen of Portugal and, immediately after completion, to obtain a foreign passport.
This case shows how important the professionalism and competence of the lawyer you are contacting plays. If you need help from a lawyer on migration law, fill out the form on the website and a lawyer will contact you shortly.
Telegram
Viber
WhatsApp
Facebook
Instagram