No SEF appointments available

Hi everybody,

I am a Romanian/Canadian citizen in Portugal, already got my Certificado de Registo, the rest of my family Canadian citizens (wife + 2 daughters). We have a rental contract, all of us have NIFs with Portuguese address, the girls are enrolled in school, the problem is that we are not able to get an appointment at SEF for my wife and daughters to get their residence cards through reagrupamento familiar. And, from what I understood from the lady I was able to talk to on the phone at SEF, no one knows when we will be able to make an appointment for the rest of my family.

We were assured at the Camara Municipal when I got my Certificado de Registo that the rest of my family have the same right to reside in Portugal that I have, even with Canadian passports. But we do not feel comfortable on this promisse, especially with the initial 3 months after entry of my family members expiring soon...

The question is, what do we do in situations where they do require proof of residence (such as residence card or proof that an appointment at SEF is pending)?

What do we do if my wife is stopped on the street and asked for ID (and the 3 months allowed expired already)?

What do we do if we want to travel out of Portugal?...

Anyone with any experience with this kind of issue? I am pretty sure we are not the only ones who've gone through this...

Any recourse available at SEF?

Thank you for any possible reply/advice,

Cristian

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Hi Cristian,

It is highly recommended to pre-book your appointment online through the SEF website. Avoid using the phone.

https://www.sef.pt/en/Pages/pre-marcacao-online.aspx

_____

(Translation required)

https://eportugal.gov.pt/servicos/agend … eiras-sef-

Pedir renovação de Cartão de Residência para Cidadão de Estado terceiro familiar de nacional da UE/EEE/Suíça:
https://eportugal.gov.pt/servicos/pedir … /eee/suica

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Hi JohnnyPT,
The problem is, it's a first-time (not renewal) residency card they need, and this has to be done over the phone according to SEF.
Has anyone booked appointment for first-time residency card online?... Is that possible?
Thanks,
Cristian

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@Cristian Toma

Cristian - I wanted to follow up on your question below and what you learned? we are going through this same issue now with our children and not sure what the risk is? We have our residency cards in March and now awaiting for family reunification for our children. we arrived in January and are beyond the 3 months.  We've been advised for the children not to leave the Schengen until they get their visa.  Any thoughts or discoveries?

Many thanks
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Hi there,
We called every day (on average 50-60 calls per day before being able to actually speak to someone) for over 1 month, each time being told that there are no appointments available, until the end of February when - surprise! - after calling for about 300 times we got through and were told that, yes, there were appointments available!
So I made appointments for my wife and daughters and we're going to SEF Espinho in 2 days. (They have been in Portugal already for over 4 months now)
The interesting thing here is that a SEF agent told me at some point in February not to waste my time and call every day but wait until March and then call again, because in March they will open appointments for April and May. Had I followed his advice we'd have probably missed the appointments openings, because they opened them in the last week of February (we got ours on the 22nd and a friend of ours who called a few hours later told us that already there were no more appointments available for reagrupamento familiar).
So keep calling every day until you can speak to someone, eventually you will get an appointment.
Good luck!
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Dear All,
It seems many of us are in a similar position!
I am now delayed by nearly by 18 months, due completely to the SEF appointment system.
This is compounded by the fat that one needs a Police Clearance within 3 months of the appointment, attested by the Portuguese Consulate; and so I have now done 4 of these.

I have a lawyer who is advising me, and their advice is the same, "there are no appointments on the system".
Covid has no doubt contributed, but so has the recent processing of Ukrainians into the country.
All I need is a biometrics appointment and I am done under the GV application, and can receive my residency.
It is inefficient and ineffective, and the disappointment is that I have invested over 500K into the country, while Portugal has not kept their side of the contract!

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@williamstony360 While SEF is a special issue I would think that ypou better get used to the workings (or better not workings) of your new home. It is very annoying and I hear similar stories from people that are trying to exchange their driver's license. Somethimes I think that Portugal is only a good immigration country for those from EU countries as they have an automatic right to be in Portugal.

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@nz7521137  You are quite right about that, I found my Romanian passport to be a lot more of an asset here than my Canadian one. :)
My family members who (so far) only have Canadian passports have had quite a bit of hard time since we came here over 4 months ago.
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Portugal is a good immigration country for EU and non-EU citizens.


The SEF delays have several causes:
- 2 years of pandemic that delayed everything
- 35 thousand Ukrainian refugees who have priority in the treatment in the last 2 months
- and last but not least, and maybe the main cause, political problems that will lead to the SEF extinction, probably already next month... but I'll talk about that later.

When you post here you need to know what you're talking about, and not write here just because ... (!) :|

As for the driving licence, the renewal can easily be done at any "espaço cidadão" (this is the best solution) or "loja do cidadão" and not necessarily at the IMT delegations. The IMT delays are also explained by the pandemic.

@Cristian, Please give your feeback here after you have your SEF appointment for reagrupamento familiar.
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Okay, so here we go before I forget the details.
We've been to SEF today for our appointments for reagrupamento familiar for my wife and daughters.
We've had issues, as I suspected that we might.
I'll start with the list of necessary documents on SEF's website:
RESIDENCE CARD FOR A THIRD-COUNTRY NATIONAL WHO IS A FAMILY MEMBER OF CITIZEN OF UE/EEA/SWITZERLAND
- An identification document of the person you accompany or that you are regrouping with (Register Certificate, Residence Card or Identity card) [Certificado de Registo, Cartão de Residência ou Bilhete de Identidade];
We provided my Certificado de Registo
- Two passport-type photographs on a white back-ground;
Not needed! They took their photos right there, together with index finger prints and signature sample (including signature of my 8 and 9 year-old daughters - first time in their life they had to sign something)
- Photocopies of all used pages of your valid and current passport;
Not needed! We just had to provide the original passports.
- Evidence of dependent family members (if applicable);
We provided the certified translated Canadian birth certificates of our daughters, together with originals with apostille from 2020.
- Full narrative birth certificate or marriage certificate. The birth or marriage certificate duly signed and stamped is valid with the apostille, under the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 (Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents), according to which “Each of the Contracting States shall waive the legalisation of acts to which this Convention applies, and shall produce its effects in their territory” (see article 2);
That's where the problems started. We have a marriage certificated dates 2010 from Mariupol, Ukraine, with apostille also dated 2010. We were told the marriage certificate is not valid because the apostile (or the certificate? we're trying to clarify that now) is too old. We have been told that we have to "revalidate" the certificate at the Ukraine Consulate, then retranslate it and resubmit it.

Other things that we had to provide:
- proof of income (Portuguese bank account extract! Foreign bank info not accepted)
- proof of address (rental agreement, NIF with Portuguese address)
- NISS if available
- Numero de utente if available

The total cost was 21 Euros per person - 15 for the card and 6 for some kind of certificate of residency

So that's that, we'll now have to see what we do about the marriage certificate. I'll write more once we sort that one out.
Otherwise, the ladies at SEF were very nice and helpful, they even accommodated us by processing our daughters (who had appointments at 10:30 and 15:30) right after my wife's appointment (they were handled by the SEF office chief apparently while the other staff were dealing with other appointments) so that by 11 AM we were all done.
Cheers to all,
Cristian
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Hi Cristian
Much appreciate the info we have been here since 2018 we have our first 5 year residency with SEF in March next year also we are getting married in September this year over here just hope our birth certs are still valid come March as we have to get them done to get married everything is paperwork paperwork there again it's probably the same in other countries, once again thanks
Jean
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So another update on our quest for reagrupamento familiar.
I was able in the end to clarify what SEF needed in terms of "valid" marriage certificate: they asked us to provide a duplicate marriage certificate with new apostille followed by new certified translation:

"Para conclusão do processo da sua esposa é necessário que providencie uma segunda via da sua certidão de casamento. Este documento tem que vir apostilhado e traduzido. Se o casamento foi realizado na Ucrânia deve pedir o documento a esse país. Relativamente ao prazo para entrega dos documentos, a colega quis dizer que a partir da data de hoje tem até seis meses para entregar o documento pois aos seis meses se não houver entrega do documento o processo é deserto."

So we contacted the Ukrainian Consulate in Porto and they told us that we could either try to obtain a duplicate of our marriage certificate from Ukraine, or, a more simple way they suggested was to bring the original certificate together with the certified copy at the Consulate and they would stamp and validate them anew.
I asked SEF if the second option was acceptable to them and they replied:

"Atendendo às atuais circunstâncias da Ucrânia, e a título excepcional, será aceite o documento que possui de 2010 certificado e carimbado pelo consulado da Ucrânia no Porto."

So hopefully we'll now get the Consulate to apply the validation stamp or seal or whatever, then we'll send everything again to SEF.
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@JohnnyPT Thank god I know what I am talking about 1f605.svg

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I have heard that SEF appointments were opened yesterday for the beginning of July. They open appointments either at the beginning of each month / every 2 months, to have an appointment 2 months later... at least, that's how it's working now...
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This is great information as we hope to be in Madeira in June/July  with a D7 visa and now we'll know when to start calling SEF. Although I am hopeful that it might be easier in Madeira.
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New update - our daughters got their residency cards - it took about 5 weeks from the moment we visited SEF to get them by registered mail (I had to sign for them).
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Update: The Consulate of Ukraine in Porto asked us to edit the certified translation of our marriage certificate so that both translated sides of the certificate fit on one page, which then they stamped and sealed. We sent it to SEF and they accepted it and now they are processing my wife's residency card.

Hopefully in another 5 weeks or so we'll put an end to this chapter of our new life in Portugal. :)
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We went to the SEF in Faro because of another matter but while we were there the lady we spoke to told us that because we did our Brexit paperwork which is the SEF residency (it's the paperwork you had to do to cover your right before Brexit) that we are in the system but most importantly we are legal & the paperwork from SEF is your legal residency papers & we will be contacted by SEF to go do the biometric cards. So I now sleep better knowing we are ok.
jean
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Final update: It took actually a lot less than expected to receive my wife's residence card. We mailed the document required by SEF on 23 May and received the card on 10 June - so that's a bit more than 2 weeks, and not the 5 we expected. (I guess the explanation is that the application had already been fully processed and they issued the card as soon as they got the required document and confirmed its validity).

So, hurraaah, we're all legal Portuguese residents now! :)

Good luck to everybody.
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Thanks for the update @ctomac, and congratulations! 1f603.svg

Vero
Expat.com team
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Thank you Ctomac for the insight. Super useful!


I have managed to talk to SEF on a couple of occasions about the Art 15 application for my wife (UK). I am EU and have my CRUE. They are telling us that we need a criminal records check for my wife! Has someone had to do that? Also, if yes, does it need to be a DBS or AKRO? And, finally, does it need to be translated into Portuguese?


Art. 15 clearly states that SEF should only be asking for certain documents (passport/marriage certificate/residence card of EU spouse)  - and NO MORE THAN THAT. The European commission specifically states that if a country requests more than the necessary documents (under Directive 2004/38/EC), it is in breach of EU law (the right of free movement of EU citizens and their spouse/kids) - so why are they asking for documents above and beyond this??

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Criminal Record Certificates

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.p … 42#5212199

Post #10  UK = (2)

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@houaahouaa regarding the criminal record check, I always obtain a police clearance from ACRO UK, in order to do this you will need to upload a proof of residence in Portugal if you are living in Portugal, and in order to get this proof of residence in portugal or what is known here as atestdao de residencia. You can get the atestado de residencia by contacting by email or go in person to the freguesia of your neighborhood or bairro. they will give you two formas, one forma you fill by your self and the other forma where you need to find two portuguese citizens as witnesses in your building and registered in your freguesia who can write their names and provide a copy of their cidadão cartão, and sign. After completing these two formas you send them back to the freguesia and will wait 2 - 3 days to receive the atestado de residencia. Then you need to translate it from portuguese into English with a translator office. after completing translating it then you go to the acro UK website and do the application of obtaining the police clearance.

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