Episode 3
We are now official tax residents of Portugal! This podcast is all about the paperwork and the process.
Hello and welcome to another episode of As the Dinoson's Turn. And today we're going to talk about our residency appointments called our Ceph appointments. And we've we've three.
SPEAKER_01We've had them all.
SPEAKER_00We've had all three of them.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00No, I was saying there's there's four of us. You can't do math today. So there's four of us. We had three appointments. Tracy and I had one. And the boys each had separate appointments. Apparently now they offer something where you actually can all go as one unit, but that's not how ours got set up. There's Tyler. If you're uh if you're watching the video, you could see all of this. If you're just listening to the podcast, you didn't see Tyler photobomb us, but he came and waved to us. So we've had our three Ceph appointments and those all went well. We are we're legal.
SPEAKER_01We are. We are official residents. And so you go through this whole process to get a permission visa to stay that lasts for about four months or so. And then you have to have your immigration appointments once you get into town. So those immigration appointments, apparently our neighbors putting their tractor back. Um, those immigration appointments are by appointment, and our lawyer got those appointments for us. So um what happened before was that the lawyers or you could actually get your self-appointment at the time that your visas were granted. That is no longer the case. Um they just changed that in the last 30 days. You get your visa granted, and then you have to work on getting your self-appointment afterwards. And that is because the immigration appointments in Portugal are way behind schedule. Um, so Jason and I, we had our appointments in Porto, and then Tyler had his in Braga, and then Jack had his in Viana do Costelo. Um, so not, I mean, all within an hour of where we live. Um, that was very helpful. We've read about people having to go three hours or so away. Um, you have to have additional paperwork and additional filings. Everything has to be updated. It's different paperwork than what you have when you do your initial presentation. We made the decision to pay our lawyers to help us with each one of these. Do you want to talk about why we were like, it's totally worth the money?
SPEAKER_00I think that that's probably one of our biggest uh it is our biggest expense is hiring an attorney to help us. But I can't imagine doing all of this stuff on our own without help along the way. I mean, people do it, you read about it, you can do it. I think that it's just a lot less stress and agitation if you have an attorney helping you, and our our law firm set up the appointment. So we just basically had to show up with our paperwork, and then they helped us. And you get called back to this desk where a worker goes through your papers basically, and the attorney goes with, and he was the one who answered the questions that this person had.
SPEAKER_01So they scan everything into their system, they take your picture, they take your fingerprints, they make you do your electronic signature, and then you pay a fee. Um, they give you a certificate that's been stamped, they give you a receipt that's been stamped, and they say it depending on your location is when you get your cartel de Ciudadão, and that's your um residency. It's an actual citizenship residency card that everybody in Portugal has. Um, in Porto, they said 30 days. In Braga, they said 30 days, in Viana do Costello, they said 90 days. Um, and we've actually learned about people who went to like Coimbra, which is the center. They're waiting. It's been eight months, they still don't have theirs. So we'll see when we get them. Um, that will be our big thing. But we really decided that a lawyer was the best. And I think this is also because of all of my experience living in different Latin countries, um, dealing with different bureaucracies, knowing what that looks like. Having an intermediary is always going to make things smoother.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, it doesn't mean that you can't do it on your own, but having somebody who knows how to navigate the culture, who is a part of the culture fighting for you and working with all those things, that actually makes a huge difference in making sure that things are really smooth in that process and that you have absolutely everything that you need. And so I think that that was one of the things that, you know, we knew going in that I mean, the the last thing I wanted was to get into our immigration appointment and not be able to answer a question or not be able to anticipate what they might need, um, and not have a relationship with them because I've never seen them before, and then have to like go back or be denied.
SPEAKER_00So I saw something on Facebook in one of the expat groups that someone had moved here. They have an they're trying to make an appointment for August, and they were asking, what do we select on the the website for our appointment and stuff? And it's I I think that right there is the value of having an attorney, is they do that. You don't have to figure that out. You also read, I know I was reading about some people just show up at the the Ceph location, like they go every day hoping that they can get in, and then they wonder why they can't. I that that's there's that, and then just all that we've talked before about the the paperwork and stuff of getting here and how long it took to get a bank account set up and stuff. We started the process in July of last year, and we didn't get the bank account open until October. Um, but then you know what's funny is when we made the actual application in December around Christmas time, we were told that that could take to like June, and we got approved within two or three weeks on that.
SPEAKER_01You really never know. It has to do with where you get into the process. Um, and it is always helpful, I think, to have somebody who navigates and then also, I mean, our lawyer talked about how they're here, they're there all the time helping people with this. And so they have a relationship with people who work in this office that we do not have. And so that's very helpful. Um, I see this all the time, you know, people who have intermediaries or have somebody who can help you with each one of those pieces, the process goes smoothly. Um, but again, it depends on who you get on any given day. If you don't have a relationship with them, then that makes it even more difficult.
SPEAKER_00So I mean, it is an expense, and I guess we're blessed that we were able to pay that expense, but I don't think we would have been able to do this if we hadn't.
SPEAKER_01No, if we hadn't had a lawyer, there'd be no way that we'd have would have been able to make all of this happen. I mean, because there are multiple steps in that process where things get stuck, always things get stuck. Um, and so you know, we needed somebody who knew the system and knew the people who could actually help navigate that. So things getting stuck with the first step of VFS, which is VFS Global. It they actually do visa stuff for multiple countries. Portugal didn't used to do it this way. Um, they changed during COVID and it's been a nightmare since. But our lawyer has been able to was able to, you know, kind of push the envelope and really have the conversation, particularly since the law changed right in the middle of all of this. Like it hadn't even a new law 30 days before, and BFS didn't know how to actually deal with all of those things. So our lawyer was able to deal with um and walk them through the process and show them how to do things, which was very helpful. Um, when I went to the embassy, no problem whatsoever. That was pretty straightforward. Um, and but knowing that we were in country and this was going to be the yes, you actually need to make sure that you now can't leave until you get your cartas yuda. So I know the kids were hoping we would be able to go um to another country for some summer vacation things. I don't think that's gonna happen based on Jack's Ceph appointment.
SPEAKER_00We can't you can't leave the country until you get that card in hand, even though we're in the system.
SPEAKER_01Even though we're in the system and have a visa within our passport, and we actually have a certificate that says that it's good for certain amounts of time, it is not good for um travel. So we're going to go on a jaunt and see if we can understand Portugal more and go on a road trip. That's our our big plans for summer vacation. But um yeah, it was interesting because each one of the staff offices had different requirements. So you show up, um, and in Porto and Embrago, you or like you get a number. Like you, like people, there are these kiosks everywhere. You go in, you say what you want, you click on it, and it gives you a letter, a number, it tells you a door to go to, all those things. That's what happened. When we got to Viana de Costello, it was like a little house. Um, there was no reason. Like they closed the door the moment they got in there, like we have no idea what's going on. Um, and so it was interesting, it was kind of like a free-for-all, but the lawyers went up first, and everybody else, who even though we were standing out there with multiple other people, they just had to wait until the lawyers were done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, I mean, that's the other piece of it. In the smaller places, it was definitely lawyer priority. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So let's let's close this podcast by talking about the timeline of everything that we've done. Oh my god. I mean, you we've been together since 2006, and we've always talked about wanting to do this, you know, move to another country. Spain was where we had talked about always. That's just our assumption of what we were going to do when we retired. And so then, I mean, you can read about this on our blog about the things that happened and walking the Cino to Santiago in 2019 and being inspired to make life changes, I guess.
SPEAKER_01And well, and then you having had a stroke and and all of those things caused by chiropractic care, we believe. Um, and that is just kind of like right before Camino, it really kind of drove home that we needed to make some type of a change. And then the pandemic hit. And I really do believe that if the pandemic hadn't hit and we hadn't both been so burned out from pandemic work and the kinds of works that we were doing at that time, we probably could have waited longer.
SPEAKER_00Right. It was always a retirement plan, I guess, was to move to Spain.
SPEAKER_01Well, and then we tried during pandemic too, and then the laws changed and pandemic and Brexit and all of these things hit all at once, and we were like, okay, it's not gonna happen. We really should wait.
SPEAKER_00We also have to say we had moved in the spring of 2020, kind of the start of the pandemic, because at that point we really weren't thinking about Spain. I mean, we'd walked the Camino in 2019, and it was like, wouldn't it be nice? But spring, yeah, spring of 2020, we sold the house we were living in and moved to a brand new house. Yep. And then over the summer, like two months in, suddenly we're like, let's do it.
SPEAKER_01We can make this work. And so in January of 21, we put the house on the market. It sold, we're great, it's everything's wonderful. And then everything in Spain locked down for immigration reasons and for Brexit, and we had no house and had nowhere to live, and realized there was just no way that we were going to be able to make it happen. I had already quit my position. Um, all of these things, and it was like, well, holy motherfucking trip balls, what are we going to do? Because it really was like January, and then we were like, well, we can't get out of this now, because by March, everything had changed so much we couldn't make it happen. And so it would literally was we have no other choice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And that was when the housing market was really hot. So we had listed our house and it sold in 20 less than 24 hours. Like we listed it at the one evening, and by like nine the next morning, it was sold. So we had no house. Um, we had to move in with my mom for a couple of months while we looked for another house and waited for closing on the next house. And waited for closing on the next house. And then we're like, okay, we're just gonna we're done. We're settling down. This is where we're at.
SPEAKER_01I really was done. Um, I was like, okay, it's all right. The kids are going to middle school, they're going to high school, it's totally fine. We're good where we are. It's like we're just staying. You had other plans and kind of moved things along. And I was in complete denial that it was ever going to happen because of our experience with Spain. Like the experience with Spain of we had everything all together, it was ready to go, we were ready to submit it, and they shut everything down and changed the laws. And I was like, well, this is never gonna happen then, especially knowing that they can change the laws within a moment and it you you can't you can't actually make any difference, you can't move forward. Like it's just they decide one day, doesn't matter if you're in the pipeline, we're done.
SPEAKER_00Right. So but I yeah, I guess I kept pushing on it. Just I in the burnout, you can read about the blog post and we should probably do a podcast just on burnout and professional, like not being able to take it anymore. I was like, I don't know, I guess I'm more of a free spirit than people sometimes think I am, I guess, or something. I don't know if free spirit's the right word, but it's like, well, why are we doing this? If we don't like it, let's change it. If we want to move, let's move. Why are we like, oh, well, we'll live here for the next 10 years? Why?
SPEAKER_01What I love is I think the assumption, though, is always that I'm the more free-spirited, outgoing one, and would be like, I'm the more spontaneous one. And that is not the case in all things.
SPEAKER_00You're the crazy one, and I'm the normal one.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. But like when it came to this, this it's not in all things. I, you know, yeah, it didn't hold true.
SPEAKER_00It doesn't hold on this, it didn't. I was like, well, why are we doing this? And so we started looking at other options, and Mexico was something that we really had settled on. I don't know if settled on is the right word. But it was possible. We thought that it was pretty possible. Um, and Portugal was always there though, as something I don't know why we never really took Portugal seriously. It was always on the list, but it was never I don't think that we really considered it.
SPEAKER_01I was I immediately go to Spanish-speaking country. I think it was really that. Like I, you know, I'm thinking Spanish-speaking country, what cultures do I know? What do I feel comfortable with? All of these other things. I mean, I had been to Portugal once when I was living in Spain, and like so I was here 2004-2005 and enjoyed it, loved Portugal a lot, but I think that was just it was a nice place. And I didn't really have much more to say about it.
SPEAKER_00So we took a spring break trip in March of 2021 to Merida, Mexico.
SPEAKER_01And we knew that wasn't gonna work.
SPEAKER_00Um people think that Mexico is this place where you go and you're just gonna get like shot by drought runners or something, but you know, that's true in some places, but Merida is literally ranked as the safest city in the world. And we had looked at Merida at a few other places in the Yucatan, um, including some potential job spots um for Tracy. And we went and visited, and I guess the consensus was that it was too hot.
SPEAKER_01It was too hot, but you know, when you walk, you you I mean, the only way I can describe it to you is it didn't feel right. Like, you know, you you get there, you think, well, this is a nice place to visit, but this isn't home. This doesn't feel right. And I think that that was one of the things that we really decided. It didn't feel right. And so knowing that, it was like, okay, well, I started a new job, we were done. Like we would look and we would explore. This was the this was the plan we agreed to. Like, I would have put that out there. Um, I took, I took a different job, we would just explore, we would travel around and know that we could keep our options open and we could be anywhere we wanted to and visit multiple places and just see how it went. And we could reconsider and reconvene when the kids were out of high school.
SPEAKER_00But when we were in Merida, I made an appointment with the law firm that we work with here in Portugal. And from our Airbnb in Merida, we met with the attorney for the first time. I wouldn't say we got the ball rolling, though. It was just an exploratory call. And so we still had this idea of, well, it's it's going to be years down the road. We're we're here in our current jobs, and this is what we're going to do. And then fast forward to summertime. I don't remember the circumstances for why I pushed harder to move the ball forward with.
SPEAKER_01You decided, well, what was the what was the harm? This is the way it started. What was the harm in just going ahead and opening a bank account? Because we would need one anyway. And let's go ahead and get nips. Like, let's at least do that part of the process because we would need them anyway. And if we would we're gonna go that direction because it felt nice and we knew Spain was almost always going to be out of reach. I mean, you look at their immigration, and it's like, you know, even for a digital nomad visa for a family of four, you have to have an additional 70,000 euro in a bank account that you never touch. So I mean, it was always like it's unattainable.
SPEAKER_00Portugal is much more attainable for the average person. We should be clear that we're not wealthy people at all. And so um, you know, we're able to make this work by being digital nomads, but it's, you know, we live in a 300 square foot stone structure.
SPEAKER_01And and we're even looking at buying something that is well under 200,000, or like we're looking at like 150. We're not looking at it, like these 1.4 million dollar places on the Algarve.
SPEAKER_00We're not, we're not so we we always have had to have that kind of normal person um restriction in place on where where exactly can we move at Portugal. Even with some of the tightening that they've done, Portugal has been still attainable for us. And um, so we started the process in July of opening a bank account. And it just happens that you know the the Russia-Ukraine war has been going on, and apparently there's people funneling money from like the US and Canada and Canada to Russia via Portuguese bank accounts, and so there was uh a large amount of bureaucracy, more than the usual, I guess, involved with opening a bank account and something that was supposed to just take a few weeks, took several months.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, it was the the NIF ID process was supposed to be a two-day process. That took several weeks.
SPEAKER_00A NIF, by the way, is it's not, I guess it's not a US social security number equivalent because there's a Portuguese social security number. A NIF is another number kind of like yeah, it's kind of like a social security number, but it's a different number.
SPEAKER_01Well, and then you like there are so many. Well, we'll have to go through all the identifications because there are like four or five different numbers you have in Portugal. Um, but that was supposed to take just a couple of days. That took a couple of weeks, and then a bank account process was supposed to be no more than two weeks, and that literally took four months almost. Like it was like three, three months. Um, and then it was like, okay, now we have these things, no big deal. It's fine.
SPEAKER_00And we set up well, we set up a meet um, not a meeting, we set up a what do you call it? Oh, a vacation.
SPEAKER_01We went we went for vacation to Portugal and then fell in love.
SPEAKER_00So we we went in November around what would be US Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01We went that week and and fell in love, and then all of a sudden it was like, yes, we're doing this and we're doing this now. It was like, okay.
SPEAKER_00But when we submitted the application then around Christmas time, so you have to open the bank account, then you can submit your application. We also had to get housing.
SPEAKER_01You had to have the you had to get housing, you had to for a full-year lease, you had to put in so much money into that bank account, you had to have your NIF number, you had to have so many letters, we had to do a criminal background check with the FBI. Like, I mean, there are all kinds of things that you have to do. So then there's cover letter paperwork plus the actual form, plus the passport photos, plus the fee. I mean, it was a lot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Now we put that in then around Christmas time, and we were told it would take to what June.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they said, um, well, you also have to purchase your purchase your ticket. So we had tickets purchased that were completely 100% refundable because we knew that we were never going to make that ticket. And that's exactly what happened. Like we had to have all of that bought before we could even submit anything, and then our application sat in VFS Global for three weeks.
SPEAKER_00So VFS Global is like a middleman, I guess. You you send your application to VFS Global, and they're like a gatekeeper that then forwards it on to the embassy, not just for Portugal, but they do this for a number of other countries in the world too, with residency applications.
SPEAKER_01I was convinced the moment it got stuck there, we were done. It wasn't a big deal. I wasn't gonna have to worry about it yet and all of those things. And then it was like, oh, okay, well, you know, then that moves on. Okay, we're here until the end of the um academic year at least. Not a big deal, no problem. It'll be completely smooth, the kids will finish things out. Um, and lo and behold, even with all of the Christmas holidays and the new year holiday and all of those other things, our visa was approved in like literally two weeks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was really fast. We had intent intended to finish the school year and I would get through tax season without having to tell anybody. We would move in the summertime. And then all of a sudden in mid-January, we got approved. And once you get approved, you have a window of time to get here. And so here we are.
SPEAKER_01Right, because when you're approved, you have your in-country stuff appointments and you have to have all of your paperwork done, plus, you have to have additional bank account things finished, plus you have to have um, I don't know, there's even more, there are more steps we registered for the national health system because you had to have health insurance and all these other things. I mean, it was just a lot that you can't do from afar. There was no way that we could actually wait until the end of May to be here. Um, and we had a lease, so we were paying for someplace else, and then our household. And I was like, okay, well, I guess we better get out of here.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think we should probably wrap this episode up, but um we have more to talk. We should talk about school, we should talk about the health system here because we've gone to get prescription refills.
SPEAKER_01I'm I think that that um is I think we have to talk about also the idea of like paperwork. And I mean, everything is on paper. You carry a file folder with you everywhere. It's it's unbelievable. Um, so it's it's a lot.
SPEAKER_00So stay tuned.