Portugal · Citizenship by descent
Citizenship for descendants of Portuguese Sephardic Jews
Closed
Last verified July 2026
Closed to new applicants. Organic Law 1/2026 revoked Article 6(7) of the Nationality Law with effect from 19 May 2026. The Jewish Community of Lisbon stopped accepting new certification requests on 4 May 2026, the day after promulgation. Applications filed before the cut-off continue under the prior rules.
This programme is closed. We keep the page up because agents still
advertise it and clients still ask. Nothing below is available to new applicants.
One of the most significant heritage-citizenship routes in Europe — over 250,000 applications and more than 75,000 approvals since 2015 — closed permanently in May 2026 after a decade of progressive tightening. Combined with Spain's parallel Sephardic law closing in 2019, the entire Iberian Sephardic corridor is now shut.
Qualifying routes
€250
Naturalisation as a descendant of Portuguese Sephardic Jews
CLOSED — Article 6(7) revoked 19 May 2026
The facts
- Qualifying figure
- €250
- Total landed cost
- not applicable — route closed
- Physical presence
- none historically
- Permanent residency
- not applicable
- Citizenship
- pending applicants only
- Language test
- none historically
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
What can go wrong
- The route is closed. Any firm still taking Sephardic certification retainers for new files in 2026 is selling a repealed provision — this was already a hallmark of the sector before closure and remains one after.
- Pending files are not risk-free: the 2022 tightening (Decree-Law 26/2022) already added residence/property connection requirements, and pending applicants face heightened documentary scrutiny and criminal investigations into certification practices.
- Portuguese nationality already granted under this route can still be challenged where obtained fraudulently — Article 12(B)(3) expressly denies consolidation to fraudulently obtained nationality, and 10 years of good-faith holding is now needed to consolidate.