So, are you REALLY sure you want to move to Portugal?

 

Maybe give it a second thought? Because after all the effort, we are not. I know that sounds insane, given how the last post was all "yay, here we are". But what you don't see in these blogs, is the monumental, herculean effort to make it here. If you have the patience to read all of this to the end, you'll see why we threw in the towel. I started writing this blog post nearly a year ago, to document everything we went through. Without hyperbole, it brings me to tears to read it. We have done so much, sacrificed so much, but in the end, likely a single number written on a piece of paper, from over a year ago, that we did according to instructions, left us with a lose-lose situation. But here it is, in all its glory. If you want to see the purely technical side, then stick to Part 1. If you want to see the immense amount of blood, sweat, and so, so many tears we went through only to give it up, skip to Part 2.

 

Part 1: The Process (in theory)

Step 1: NIF / Bank / Finances

I think the longest part of the visa process is getting your financial ducks in a row. The requirements depend on your visa/situation, but no matter what, you need a Portuguese bank account with some cash in it. To get to that point, you need the equivalent of a social security number, called a NIF (Número de Identificação Fiscal). Fortunately, this is by far the easiest part of the process. If you are in Portugal, you can apparently trot on down to the local office and get one for free. However, since you're applying for a visa, that's probably not the case. You'll need to hire a representative to do it for you, and at the time of writing (2025), it costs about $100 US. We used a service called Bordr, who got it for us in a few days. Certainly they did a fine enough job, but there are countless agencies that provide this service, and I'm sure they're all fine.

 

NIF in hand, you can open a bank account. As expected, this is also really easy to do in the country and really difficult if you're not there. I know Bordr and other agencies have this service as well, or there are a small number of banks that allow you to do it online yourself - I did it through Banco Atlantico Europa. I think no matter which you choose, it is not incredibly easy, nor incredibly difficult. You may need to mail a document to Portugal, though hopefully in the future this becomes easier. It's mostly a lot of waiting. Submit the application, wait. Submit another document, wait. Sign something, wait. I would count on this taking 2 weeks to a month, depending on if you need to physically mail things or not.

 

After that, the rest of the finances come into play. For starters you'll need to send money to your new Portuguese account, depending on how much of an amount your visa requires. Also, they'll want to see other documents about your financial situation, such as employment contracts, and proof of income/savings. You need to go back 3 months when you submit the visa application, to show that it's "your" money, and some friend/family member isn't financing things. So this may be something to consider early on. If your financial situation is hard to follow, you'll need to get things in order and wait 3 months for it to show up on all the statements.

 

Step 2: Background Check

You'll need a background check, from wherever it is you are. Since I live and applied in China, I had the wonderful task of getting both an American background check and Chinese one. Both were very annoying for different reasons, but let's start with the American one, since most would be interested in that. For starters, it needs to be a State or FBI background check. I went with the State one, since that one has always been pretty easy. And it was in this case too, I just went onto the State Police's website and followed the instructions. It costs about $15. Then they mail it to a US address about a week later. I have no idea how the FBI background check works, but I know there are even agencies in other countries that can process this for you.

 

The Chinese one is a weird story because I am in a weird situation. Since I had recently moved, I did not have enough of a history in Yunnan to get one. I instead had to get it from Shanghai. I weighed going myself, but in the end the cost of hiring an agent was a little cheaper than 2 train tickets plus other expenses. However, in order to get my background check, I had to show proof of residence. This put me in a bit of a catch-22, since I didn't live there anymore. Eventually I found an agent that would be willing to try with my odd situation. I had to mail my passport to them, and sign a paper that they're my representative. The first office rejected her, and said since I didn't live there anymore, there was nothing they could do. So just like asking mom after dad says no, she went to another one. They put up a big fuss but eventually agreed to do it.

 

Step 3: Apostille

This fancy word that my spellcheck doesn't recognize is getting your documents "authenticated" for use in another country. And guess what - you need to do this for your finances, background check, and possibly other things, like family documents. In the US, you first need to get a public notary to notarize the document. After, you need to get THAT apostilled by the Secretary of State. The first part you can probably do anywhere, but the second you'll need to mail it to the state capital. Prices are probably about $20 for each step and per document, but in the US it was pretty fast. In fact, in person they'll just do it while you wait. For China, because I play life on hard mode, the background check had to be notarized/apostilled by the agent in Shanghai, and each took a week. The other Chinese stuff had to be notarized in my current city, which took a few days. Then I had to take that to the provincial capital to drop it off. Then a few days later, I had to go BACK to pick it up - because China is a very high tech place, until it's suddenly not. Anyway, you need the physical documents in hand, so the stuff from the US had to be mailed to me. And by the way - apostilles have 3 month shelf life before they're not valid. So work fast and try your best to time things well.

 

Step 4: Lease 

This is the weirdest, most difficult, and expensive requirement. In order to apply for a Portuguese residency visa, they want you to have a 1-year lease. This is another catch-22, because you can't get in the country without finding a place, and how can you find a place if you're not in the country? Well, by purchasing sight unseen. I mean, I get the logic, that Portugal doesn't want people to show up and be homeless. But I also think this is a really difficult requirement, and should be replaced with something like "1 year lease OR proof of adequate funds". Because landlords obviously wont take just a vague promise from someone on the other side of the planet, this probably means you're paying for many months rent on a place you've never even seen in person or been to. Fortunately our agent was able to negotiate something that made it not so bad, but yeah, this one sucked. Otherwise, there are plenty of rental websites out there, like REMAX or Century21. Additionally, there are fancy expat real estate agencies which help with this sort of thing. They generally cost $1000-$2000 to have someone take you around the city for "virtual viewings", plus all the other expenses, and paperwork. Pain. In. The. Ass. I want to say start early, because it's hard to say how long it will take. But I also want to say don't start early, because rental properties become available and off the market very quickly, AND because you'll be stuck paying rent unnecessarily. Also, I was warned that some landlords don't want to register their apartment with the tax office, because, well, tax evasion. That's bad for you, because when you walk up to immigration with your contact, they'll be very confused how an apartment appeared out of thin air. I leave it up to you and wish you luck, but this was a giant hurdle.

 

Step 5: Other Documents

You can probably expect the other stuff they want you to have - your passport of course, application form,  copies of EVERYTHING, etc. Another weird thing is an introduction letter and a letter stating your financial situation. I just winged it and kept it to a few paragraphs, and that seemed to be alright. They also want you to have purchased a flight ticket. This is... not ideal, because who knows if you'll be accepted or not? So, I leave it up to you, but you probably want to get a fully refundable one in case things don't work out. You also need to buy traveler's health insurance, which is pretty straightforward. Our agent definitely took a "more is more" approach, and encouraged us to get everything we could think of. Stuff like birth certificates, copies of previous passports, marriage documentation, you name it. In the end we had a mighty binder of probably a few hundred pages.

 

Step 6: VFS

I don't know what VFS stands for, nor do I want to. For some reason, many countries in Europe have outsourced their visa process to this company. They are... difficult. Their website is basically AOL from the 90s, everything is obtuse, and you have to check every second of your waking life in the hopes that a random spot opens up, because nothing is available until May 2174. Fortunately our agent knows some way around this, I assume by having some sort of insider track. I have heard in the US the wait time could be a year or more, which is feasible, since we were told it's the same in Shanghai. So, when should you book your appointment? I dunno. Probably before you have everything sorted, but also not too late because you're maybe paying for an apartment you're not using.

 

Regardless, you go to this office, and they check all your documents to make sure you dotted the Is and crossed the Ts. Then finally they take it all and send it off. Inevitably, in the 100s of pages, they will find something they don't like. Then they will tell you to throw out 75% of the work you did, because lol I guess. Do I sound bitter? I am a little. So, let's walk through our whole process of showing up on (even before) appointment day, and how things unfolded:

 

Part 2: Our dumb story of why this took 1.5 years and how it destroyed us

I can't really say this will be interesting reading, unless you want to A) laugh at the incompetence/misery we went through to get this, or B) Better understand the ridiculous odds we were up against. But I hope to look back on this absurdity 20 years from now, so away we go!

 

For starters, we knew timing everything is going to be really hard. Between getting the finances sorted, the background check, the 3-month validity of the apostille, renting an apartment early but not too early, and getting a VFS appointment, you just have to be really on the ball and pray everything is finished when you need it to. We started with the bank stuff since that doesn't "expire" like the others. However, my aforementioned background check from Shanghai was the first of many, many unexpected snags. This was quite nerve wracking when I had my apostilled documents from the US withering away, in a manner of speaking. If we didn't have an agent with an inside track to get the VFS appointment the moment you need it, I really don't know how it's possible to do on your own. I guess by starting with the appointment? But that's not very intuitive, who makes an appointment for something and THEN think "Oh right, what do I need for this?" And praying you don't run into the speed-bumps like we did.

 

But anyway, documents in hand, appointment set, we went to Kunming. We went a day early just in case, and also to make a little trip out of it. I touched on this last blog, but here was the first snag of many. VFS called us, and said "Actually, the Portuguese Embassy is moving all processing from Beijing to Guangzhou 2 weeks from now, so you should consider waiting." The first problem with this was that our documents were 3 weeks away from expiring, so I was not happy about cutting it that close. But also, what kind of request is this? We asked "Okay well... what happens if the documents go to Beijing? Is that a problem? Wouldn't they just be moved to Guangzhou if they're transferring everything?" And their answer was "I dunno." So we asked "Well, what would you recommend?" And their answer was "I dunno." We suggested they check with their colleagues in Beijing. And they're like "We have no way to do that." So that means, we spent our one day holiday in the hotel room, calling Guangzhou, calling Beijing, trying to get assurances that nobody is going to throw our application in a black hole. Eventually, after hours on hold and talking to maybe a dozen people, we got a name and a guarantee they'll handle it in Beijing. We told VFS in Kunming, who seemed very unimpressed that we did their job for them, IMO. Did I mention earlier how difficult I found VFS? Yes. Difficult is the word I am choosing.

 

The actual appointment wasn't too eventful, actually. There were a few problems, but we were able to solve those all there. Also as mentioned in the last blog, China Railways didn't like the copy of my passport, but after all this bullshit, that was the least of my concerns. I received my visa a little over a month after we submitted the documents. That starts another timer by the way, 4 months from the date of issue you have an appointment scheduled at immigration in Portugal. So, hope you're ready to go! Ella's however, was still processing. When the 2-month time limit expired, we called, and then, a few days letter, we got the news.

 

Rejected.

 

Why? Well, their reason was "does not have evidence to show support". This was confusing, since we sent everything together, and apparently we had enough to show that I had support. So we assumed there was a mistake, and appealed. They said okay, sure, send us the documents to prove you have support. You would think a few PDFs in an e-mail, boom boom. And you would think wrong.

 

So, back we went to VFS in Kunming. By the way, remember a long time ago when they said they were moving processing to Guangzhou? Well, they did that. So now VFS Kunming said their applications are no longer being processed by Beijing. You would think they can just mail it anyway, since we have an open case. No no, you see, that would make too much sense. They said the closest VFS office in Beijing's jurisdiction is Chengdu.

 

So, off Ella went to Chengdu, the next day. We hadn't planned for that of course, so I had to give Ella all my spare clothes, and go back home without her. She literally took a 7 hour train, walked in, dropped off some papers, and took a 7 hour train back. Why must you do that when China has had a postal system for thousands of years? You tell me.And this started another wait of a few weeks. And again after the time expired, we heard nothing. So we called them - which is no easy feat, I might add. You have to call constantly, because the line just hangs up instead of putting you on hold. Finally, after days of trying, we got someone. They said they would check. Eventually they called back, and said "Can you come to Beijing to talk about it?"

 

...

 

So, Ella set off for Beijing, alone, since I had to work. She went to the embassy, and they started by apologizing. First of all, they should have contacted us earlier. Because Ella and I should be issued slightly different visas. Per our visa agent's instruction, we filed as joint applicants, but actually, we should/could file as main and dependent. Regardless of this, and per his admission, due to their mistake, the applications became separated. Since mine apparently had most of the papers, her application was missing a bunch of vital stuff. (And by the way, I should add that we did have enough copies for both of us, however we had so many papers, VFS Kunming told us to reduce the paperwork by not sending them.) Also, the icing on the cake - now that I was approved, we could not apply together any longer.

However, the visa officer concocted a solution - Ella can apply for a 90-day family visiting visa, and then, when we are in Portugal, you can make an appointment with immigration to convert it. (Hi, future Weg here - remember this! It will be important later) And, no problem! Because he feels really bad about this, here's his personal e-mail, let him know when we submit it, and he will personally contact his colleague in Guangzhou and get it approved ASAP. However, this is all hush hush - he will not respond to anything we send to him, but he will read it and do what he needs to do. Regardless, it means we basically needed to start Ella's whole process over - getting the background check, apostilles, etc.. Of course we were much faster this time, but hey, still an annoying amount of work! It took us about 2 weeks, and then we went back to VFS Kunming. Again.

 

And then comes the next problem of many. (how many is that now?) Ella does not have a passport, because it's in Beijing with the guy. VFS said it's impossible to submit anything without a passport. They recommended she cancel the application, get the passport back, THEN come BACK to Kunming to apply. So that's what we did. The passport arrived a few days later, then we went back to Kunming again. How many times have we been there now? Who knows.

 

Oh, you thought it was finished? Of course not, we need another snag. The Guangzhou consulate called us and said "Are you SURE you want the family accompanying visa? It looks like you want this OTHER visa." So now we're getting two different suggestions from two different people. We spent a few days to research, and were pretty sure that the one first suggested by the visa officer in Beijing would be best. I mean, we were hardly experts, our agent had no idea, it was the same one the visa officer in Beijing said, and we were at our wits end to consider starting over a third time. So we said yes we want the one we applied for. But to the visa officer's credit, he did contact them. And finally, against all odds, Ella got her visa 2 weeks later.

 

However, this route brings up an interesting situation. Her family visa is tied to me, which means I'm a resident and she is not. More on that later! And the stress doesn't end there - her visa started a mere 10 days before my appointment with immigration in Portugal. Also that was next week. So we had days to completely pack up our lives and move to the other side of the world. Bye Asia, Hello Europe!

 

But the fun doesn't end there, oh no.

 

Oh definitely no.

 

My immigration appointment is not in Lisbon. It is in Coimbra, a city a few hours away. So off we go on the train. We arrived at immigration, and I see a sign that says "Appointments from 9:00am-11:00am". Well, that's us, so we get in this long line that snakes around the office. And wait. And wait. It's now 11:30, a half hour past my appointment. A worker comes out to check everyone's papers. He gets to us, and says "Oh, you already have an appointment. You shouldn't be in line, we will call your name."

 

Would have been nice to know. So I ask if they did call it already, since there is no speaker, or ticket system, and we're lined up 50m and around the corner from the desk. He doesn't know. So I notice another officer coming back from his shift, and I ask him. He also doesn't know, but he volunteers to take us anyway.

 

All things aside, he was extremely polite. The one hiccup is that he didn't like our Chinese health insurance. Later, I suspected that he gets many people who "buy" fake health insurance. In fact, he showed us another Chinese person's application, and yes, it looks very bogus. As a point of comparison, it was similar to a screenshot of Amazon with a $20 "One Year Health Insurance LOL" in the cart. So we had to run off to a health insurance company to purchase more. But after that, I was good to go. I got a temporary residency permit, and my permanent card would be in the mail within 90 days. (Future Weg here - I want to add "in theory" to that, because there are reports of it taking much longer. But at the time, I didn't really care, because effectively the temporary paper is the same thing. This too, will be important later.)

 

Now, with me sorted, we move onto Ella - remember back in Beijing, the note I made about the visa officer having us come on a 3-month family visa, and we can make an appointment with immigration? In theory yes, that is possible. Practically, we have learned it is virtually impossible. Portugal is overhauling their immigration process, and the time to get appointments for family visas is measured in years. How would we know that? We wouldn't, until we're here, because I'd need to be in the system, and then we can go to apply. We spent days researching this. Talking to everyone we could. Reaching out to immigration. Everything. Everyone we talked to just said "This is not possible in any sort of short-term. It is measured in several months." Every phone call, website, email, it was a definitive "No". None. They are completely booked, and will no longer accept appointments.

 

What.

 

Was this really the end? A curt "No." An automated phone messages? A notice after logging in on a website? I refuse to let it end this way. It just couldn't. After uprooting our entire lives for 8 months, moving here, finding an apartment, putting a down payment, setting it up, getting a bank account, meeting the neighbors, I refused to just let it end with a whimper, because nobody is available until long after her visa expires. We must be doing something wrong.

 

So I knew we needed help. We contacted a bunch of immigration lawyers - and I do mean a bunch. Maybe a dozen or more. E-mail after e-mail, they all told us the same - what we are trying to do just cannot be done. They suggested Ella could leave and come back until they get an appointment, which could be potentially be a year or more. But regardless, "leaving" and "coming back" is not just a visa run like Americans can do. Chinese passports need to apply for visas in advance, even for tourism. The maximum time for either a tourist visa or family visa is 3 months, and it can only be done in China. We would be nearly starting over, back to the same situation we were 1.5 years ago. Except this time, she would need to return to China, and do everything herself, and waiting an unknown amount of time to get a response. And I would be here. And the icing on the cake, she would need an official letter explaining that she has family/support here. How do we get that letter? From the same agency that is not giving appointments.

 

This was some bullshit. So we contacted more lawyers. Some had very outside the box thinking, and gave us options. One way I had also heard about online, is that you could sue the government for an appointment. Yes. Sue the government, to get an appointment, at their own department. That seems like a pretty extreme option, but hey, maybe that's a common thing here. But to start, it was like 2500 euros, so not cheap. Second, it could take months, likely concluding even after Ella's visa expires, making it pointless. Third, there is no guarantee for anything.

 

Another lawyer said they could get appointments, usually a few months later. I found this surprising, considering nearly every other lawyer had said it's impossible. But hey, maybe he knows a guy who knows a guy. However, he also said that he cannot get the ball rolling until I receive my permanent residency card. When will that arrive? Well, as said earlier, in theory 90 days. But others have said it took longer, sometimes up to a year. Normally it doesn't matter, as the temporary paper is the same. But suddenly in this situation it did matter. We pointed out Ella's situation, and the lawyer suggested something really weird to me - just overstay. He said that immigration is so backlogged, they stopped enforcing illegally overstaying your visa. I am not an expert on this country, but this realllllllly didn't sound right with me. Even if that is true, we are here to eventually get a passport. Will this issue come back to bite us, 5 years from now, making our whole time here pointless? What if Ella needs to show her passport to the police for some reason, and she gets found out? Will we have to tick that "Have you ever violated the conditions of a visa?" box on every visa application for the rest of our lives?

 

So, after days of reflection, and gallons of tears, we said, pardon my Portuguese, "Fuck this".

 

This was one of the hardest decisions I've made in my life. We felt so betrayed. It was agonizing to walk away from years of work. But I really don't know what we could have done differently. We did everything right. We even hired an agent to make sure we did everything right. We bent over backwards at every corner. We uprooted our lives. There was definitely a sunk-cost fallacy, but we had run out of fight, and most importantly, we had virtually nothing to show for it - me yes, but Ella wasn't at square one, she was at even worse off than when we started. Because now in addition to starting everything over, she would need a paper from immigration, which if we could meet with them, we wouldn't be in this position. Also, even if we did manage to get the appointment, it can take months to receive.

 

If we wanted to do it "right" without illegally overstaying, Ella would be going back to China, alone, getting everything together again, applying for a visa again, and waiting for a completely unknown amount of time. Some people online have been waiting years at stages for this process, so who knows how long we'd be separated? And the whole time, Ella would not be allowed to work. I, and we, just couldn't take any more. So we walked away. Maybe you think we made the wrong decision. And even though I just told you all the highlights, what you don't see while reading is the hundreds, probably thousands, of hours to prepare every piece of paper. You don't see all of the emails, phone calls, and personal communication full of conflicting answers, double talk, unclear directions, "whoops our bads", and waiting times ranging from "instant" to "I dunno, a year?" And so, so many tears. I want to say I regret it, but I sort of don't. We set out on this process to come to Portugal. And through no fault of our own, we failed. If we didn't try, we would be spending our whole lives thinking "What if". I'd be 80 years old consider about if we tried, who knows, maybe we'd be all settled drinking wine in a Portuguese chateau. That we missed out of a whole chapter of our lives because of apathy. But it was the opposite of that. We put an inhuman amount of effort into this. I can sleep at night knowing that we didn't just give it 100%, we gave it 5000%. And it won't work out, because the unfeeling bureaucratic system is more powerful. Nobody in the government here will ever know the collective small decisions they made that completely changed our lives, and put an untold amount of strife on our marriage and mental health. Part of writing this is my own catharsis, to shout into the void to hope they hear it.

 

But if I discovered something in this nonsense, it was a very personal angle on something a lot of people around the world are facing right now - applying for visas. It can be an incredibly demoralizing process, that you would never know unless you absolutely have to. The constant unknowns completely destroy your feeling of community and self-worth. For example, why look for a job? You could go to all the effort to be called away tomorrow. Why try to make friends? Why make your bed? Why do anything? It made me completely apathetic to anything not visa related, because a single email will mean it's time to just drop everything. And sure, I didn't feel like that for the first few months, but I did by month 18. I think of people who have been waiting years or more, how frustrating this must be. Every e-mail notification on my phone would fill me with dread, because more often than not, it was bad news. It wears you down. I am worn down to a nub. It seems Portugal doesn't want us to live here, so, we're not going to overstay our welcome.

 

So, anyway. Where does that leave us?

 

Well, we did go to all this trouble to get a visa for Ella. And we're already in Europe, so we may as well use it. Where are we going? Who knows. Part of me wants to run as far away from here as possible, but in truth, this is a beautiful place with a lot to see. I don't really know where we'll end up over the next few months. But after we figure it out, sitting on a Thai beach and cursing towards the direction of Europe sounds really nice.