Portuguese nationality backlog exceeds 690,000 applications

Portugal’s registry and notary institute, the IRN, had 690,480 nationality applications awaiting a decision on 30 June 2026, ECO reported on 21 October, citing Público. The reported backlog was 38% higher than a year earlier.

Applications based on legal residence by immigrants living in Portugal represent 26% of pending cases. Sephardic ancestry accounts for 23%, while marriage or a de facto partnership with a Portuguese citizen accounts for 13%.

The overall figure therefore should not be read as the number of resident immigrants waiting for naturalisation alone. It is also a snapshot from the end of June, rather than a count of applications submitted on publication day.

The Justice Ministry says the IRN prioritises applications recognising nationality from birth for minor descendants of Portuguese citizens submitted through consulates and online.

The aggregate backlog does not establish how long any individual applicant will wait. The report provides no universal completion date, and the different application routes matter when interpreting the total.

The ministry distinguishes recognition of nationality from birth for descendants of Portuguese citizens from later acquisition, including through marriage. Combining these routes in one backlog makes the effect of different processing priorities harder to interpret.

INE figures cited by ECO put the number of foreign residents obtaining Portuguese nationality in 2025 at 12,829, compared with 20,624 a year earlier. Those annual outcomes and the hundreds of thousands of pending applications measure different things: one counts nationality grants to residents, while the other describes cases awaiting decisions.