Portugal D8 Visa — Remote Work and Digital Nomads

Advising Indian families on Portuguese residency since 2009, from our Koramangala office in Bangalore.

Almost everything written about the D8 skips the most consequential decision: which of the two versions you apply for.

The temporary stay visa runs for a year, allows multiple entries, and can be renewed. There is no residence permit to arrange after arrival. It suits someone who wants more than the 90 days Schengen allows but is not ready to commit.

The long-stay visa is a four-month entry document. You arrive, register with AIMA, and convert it into a two-year residence permit, renewable. Only this version builds the continuous lawful residence that permanent residence is counted from.

The income and document requirements are identical. The difference is entirely in what the time is worth afterwards.

€3,680 a month, for 2026. It is four times the national minimum wage, so it moves every January — and it has moved a lot: the same requirement was €3,040 as recently as 2023.

Because the figure resets each January, XIPHIAS confirms the threshold in force before filing and again before your AIMA appointment, and builds the income evidence with a margin above it.

Figures of €11,040 and €44,160 are sometimes quoted as a D8 savings or bank-balance requirement. Neither appears in the D8 rules.

The D8's legal basis is Decreto Regulamentar n.º 4/2022, which added articles 18.º-B and 31.º-A to the 2007 regulation. Both list exactly four documents, and the only financial one is proof of average monthly income over the last three months of at least four times the guaranteed minimum monthly wage. No balance, no deposit, no lump sum.

€11,040 is the D7 threshold (twelve times the minimum wage, Portaria 1563/2007 art. 5.º n.º 6). €44,160 multiplies the D8's monthly multiplier by the D7's twelve-month period and has no basis in any instrument.

What you need is €3,680 a month, evidenced across the preceding three months. A spouse and dependent children are covered by Portugal's general means-of-subsistence rule (Portaria 1563/2007): an additional 50% of the minimum wage — €460 a month — for a spouse, and 30% — €276 a month — for each dependent child.

Portugal changed its nationality law on 19 May 2026 (Lei Orgânica 1/2026). Naturalisation now requires seven years of legal residence for nationals of EU member states and Portuguese-speaking countries, and ten years for everyone else — including Indian nationals. It was five years for everyone before that date. Applications already pending on 19 May 2026 keep the old five-year rule.

Permanent residence is unaffected and remains five years (Lei 23/2007, art. 80.º).

If Portuguese citizenship on a five-year horizon is the reason you are considering this, plan on ten years instead, and weigh that before you commit.

Note also that India does not permit dual citizenship: acquiring Portuguese citizenship would end your Indian citizenship under Section 9(1) of the Citizenship Act 1955. Portuguese residency does not.

XIPHIAS Immigration has guided Indian families into Portugal since 2009, from our office in Koramangala, Bangalore. We were named Best Immigration Consultant by The Times of India in 2022. Our immigration consultants in Bangalore will take you through the requirements, costs and full timeline to permanent residence and citizenship in Portugal.

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• Immigration consultants in Bangalore
• Immigration consultants in Koramangala

• Decreto Regulamentar n.º 4/2022 — arts. 18.º-B and 31.º-A (the D8 legal basis)
• Portaria 1563/2007 — meios de subsistência
• DGERT — retribuição mínima mensal garantida para 2026 (Decreto-Lei 139/2025)
• Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026 — Diário da República

Verified against Diário da República and DGERT on 30 September 2026.