MEREDITH
[ 00:00:08 ] Welcome back, Portugal Junkies and expats of the future. We're happy to see you.
MARK
[ 00:00:16 ] Follow along now.
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:20 ] We are pulling ourselves out of one of those Portugal bureaucracies today. We have been trying to change over the utilities from our old apartment to our new apartment and it is literally like pulling teeth. It's crazy. It's crazy how difficult something so simple should be. And that is not what we're going to talk about today, but it is real life.
MARK
[ 00:00:50 ] And it does explain why we've upgraded from coffee to wine.
MEREDITH
[ 00:00:54 ] This is true. We're enjoying some wine on this podcast today. So cheers everybody. By the way, wine here is, I mean, it's good. Good. And let me tell you, I put this on our website where Britt and Bird go Instagram, the one before Portugal Junkies. And here's a pro tip about wine in Portugal. When you go to a restaurant, how much is a glass of wine? A glass of wine? Yeah, a glass of wine.
MARK
[ 00:01:25 ] Anywhere between four and nine euros?
MEREDITH
[ 00:01:27 ] Maybe, no.
MARK
[ 00:01:29 ] Well, you can still get it for nine if you really want to push it. Well, sure.
MEREDITH
[ 00:01:31 ] If you're in a touristy place, you can pay kind of what you would maybe pay in the United States for a glass of wine. But in a non-touristy area here in Porto, it is not unheard of that a glass of wine is three euros.
MARK
[ 00:01:44 ] Yeah, for definite.
MEREDITH
[ 00:01:45 ] For their house wine. And y'all, it's good. Yeah.
MARK
[ 00:01:49 ] It's a dream. Again, getting away from it slightly, but the best one that we had was at the cave and it was a house wine. A jug. And it was a jug. It was like a liter or something. It was not house made, but it was a jug of wine. And it was absolutely gorgeous. Been trying to find it ever since. It was good. And I think that was only like seven euros for the whole thing. For the jug. For the jug.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:11 ] It's crazy, you guys. So I get back to you. My pro tip is always like if you go to a place in Portugal, any kind of restaurant, especially a place like that where you have a really affordable house wine, go ahead and try that.
MARK
[ 00:02:25 ] Don't judge it. Just because it's the cheapest.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:27 ] That's exactly right. Because if you saw that in the United States, you'd be like, oh, that is shit wine. Right? And you would never order it. Yeah. Here.
MARK
[ 00:02:35 ] It's a pro tip.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:36 ] I really have not found many house wines that have. No, that are not good. Like I certainly haven't given it back.
MARK
[ 00:02:43 ] That would just be plain rude.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:45 ] Anyway.
MARK
[ 00:02:46 ] Anyway. We digress.
MEREDITH
[ 00:02:48 ] Can you tell we're on the line? Okay. So here's what we're going to talk about today. In our prior episode, we did an overview. Of the D7 retirement slash passive income visa process. This is the visa that we did to move to Portugal and probably the most popular visa out there right now. The most common one. And we promise to come back and actually talk about in specifics, the requirements of the visa, and give you some tips and tricks and some experiences that we had about those elements, so that you get a bigger picture earlier than we did, because I feel like I said this on the last episode, I feel like we didn't have the bigger picture of the why they require some of these things. And if I had known that, I think it would have been an easier process of like putting your best application forward and showing yourself as best as you can appear in an application when someone's trying to give you a visa or not. Yeah. So we're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about four requirements. And we did not do these in order. Okay. So like you'll see checklists out there on the website for BFS Global about what they require. It may not be in the same order as the checklist. In fact, I know it's not because we chose that this episode was going to focus on the four most important and kind of most complicated ones. So we're going to do the hard stuff first. Yeah.
MARK
[ 00:04:21 ] I don't think you can wrap your hands around or wrap your arms around these four. You've got to get shot.
MEREDITH
[ 00:04:26 ] The others, the others are more administrative. It's more of like a check-off-the-list documentation than creatively putting your package together to kind of present yourself for the visa. So, a couple of things before we get started again. Very similar to the prior episode. This is for a D7 visa only and for people applying from the United States. The qualifications and the requirements I think would be the same if you were applying from a different country. But we don't know where you go to get those kinds of things from different countries. And so, we're not going to speak to that. We can only speak to our experience right now as American citizens. Applying from America. Even though he's English, but he became an American citizen before we left. Yay. He got his naturalization and was like, 'peace.' Anyway. He's collecting passports. Another digression. But I just wanted to say that again to make sure that anybody who's listening understands that's where we're coming from. And also, if you haven't listened to the prior episode, you probably should before you get into this one. It kind of sets this up. It does. It sets this up. Okay. So one more overview piece. In general, when you are applying for a D7 visa, think about us. We're applying as a married couple. We're not going to go without the other. Right? But you are applying individually. So you may be submitting the exact same documents, just duplicated for each person. So I want to make that clear. And I'll try to point it out when we talk about individual things. Yeah. I'm going to get to those things. But I wanted you to think about it that way, too. And if you're a family, the kiddos will know. The kids will also have to apply in the same way. So you are, obviously, kids are not going to have all the requirements that adults do. But think about it as individuals. Everybody has to be present. Everybody has to be at the interviews. Everybody has to be evaluated separately. And so keep that in mind as we go through this. Okay. So first thing up. Ready?
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:06:44 ] Go.
MEREDITH
[ 00:06:45 ] There is a requirement called an FBI criminal background check. And this was the very first thing that we did, mainly because it can take a couple of weeks for you to do this process. And anything time-bound was how we organized ourselves. So we sat there and looked at the checklist and went, okay, well, what can we do right now to make sure that we have this documentation back by the time our appointment comes up? And so we're talking about like from June to September. Right? So, this is why we're telling you about the FBI background check first is because.
MARK
[ 00:07:25 ] One of the first things. Yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:07:26 ] Basically, it takes. They say it can take a couple of weeks. And then some people say it can take longer than that. So, again, everything is fluid.
MARK
[ 00:07:34 ] It's got a six-month lifespan. Yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:07:38 ] Your actual certificate. So, basically what they're going to do is you're going to go to a USPS location. You're going to literally give them ID. Get fingerprinted. And they are going to send that information to the FBI and basically ask them to run a background check. And so basically that's what you're wanting to provide a background check as part of your application. Yeah. So when we did this, we ran into a little bit of trouble because number one, we had to find the USPS locations that actually provide the service. So not everybody does. So that's the first thing I would research. Check on that. And then when we got there, like the machine worked for me. And then by the time Mark had to do his. It failed to work.
MARK
[ 00:08:24 ] So we had to run around to a different USPS. Yeah. So we had to find. Like 20 miles away.
MEREDITH
[ 00:08:28 ] Right. So a call ahead. Make sure that they are. And you do set up an appointment. That would be what I would recommend. For sure. And basically, the process there is very simple. Again, identification. You do your fingerprints electronically. They send it off. But here's the key. You. You. You are given the option of getting it electronically and mailed to you. You need to request both things.
MARK
[ 00:08:54 ] Both. Both. Both.
MEREDITH
[ 00:08:54 ] And here's why. Your email certification or email results. You can open that email. And see what's on there. Right. You can know. Hopefully nothing. Hopefully you're clear. And address anything if it's not. Right. Right. Because the mailing that comes to you. With those same results. Don't open. You cannot open.
MARK
[ 00:09:19 ] Leave it sealed. If it's. Yeah. If it's unsealed, when you present, you will be turned away. They won't accept it. Right. First off.
MEREDITH
[ 00:09:26 ] So you are basically using the email as your peek to make sure all is good. All is good. And keeping that envelope unsealed as part of your application. They will seal it. They. Sorry. They will. Sorry. Keep it sealed as part of your application, and likely, unsealed when you go to your VFS Global Appointment. You will. It will be opened. Yeah. Right there. But if you present something that's already opened, they do have the right to turn you away. Yeah. So that kind of stinks. Okay. Anything else you would say about the FBI? This is kind of simple. It's, I mean, it's really simple. It's just the timing factor. Yeah. So this was the first one. First step that we did. Along the way. Because we knew that it would take a couple weeks. And we didn't want to be up against the wire for that.
MARK
[ 00:10:15 ] Right. I wouldn't say the same thing. No. But again, it's just really simple: apply early, pay the fee, yeah. Get your email copy back. Review that. It's a direct copy, more or less, of what's in the hard file. Leave the hard file sealed; that's it. Tick. Done. Done. One out of eleven.
MEREDITH
[ 00:10:32 ] Alright. Number two. This is a big one. Okay. Yeah. This is another time-bound one as well. You need a NIF, which is the Portuguese equivalent to a tax ID number. Yep. And you need a Portuguese bank account opened. Now. Here's the thing.
MARK
[ 00:10:53 ] You need the NIF in order to open a bank account.
MEREDITH
[ 00:10:57 ] Yes. So NIF is first. Yeah. And both of these are challenging to do remotely by yourself. There are services out there. Yep. We actually worked with a service that did this. And there are a lot of services that do this. I know that Border. B-O-R-D-R dot com is well known and well used in this community of expats to get over here. So partnering with them and working with them on getting your NIF is probably the most, the next important thing. Without a shadow of a doubt. Because you can't really do much else until you get your NIF. Yeah. So they're tied to each other. So in terms of, you know, doing this remotely, the reason why it's a challenge is because most people don't have a, they call it a fiscal representative, right? Here in Portugal, who's going to vouch for you in order to get you a NIF. And so you're working with organizations that have partnerships in order to do that. Yeah. So again, I would check on services. If you want to look at Border, I know that there's other ones out there that can do that. And I will put some links down here for you guys to check those out. Yeah. Some of them offer them in like a package. So they would both get your NIF and then once they have your NIF, they will get your bank account open for you too. Here's the thing with the bank account though. Like, you don't, like we didn't really get to choose what bank, right? And at the time it didn't matter because we didn't know the difference anyway. A bank is a bank. A bank is a bank. And we were just trying to meet the requirements of the visa. You know, I think that could probably be the case. That could probably be a whole other thing that we could talk about and maybe have some people come in and interview them about that process and banking here and all that stuff. Yeah. I think it could be really interesting. But you know, Border and other services usually can get these things done for you because of their relationships. Yeah. And that's what it comes down to. So unless you've heard something really terrible about a certain kind of bank or something, I would just roll with it in order to get done what you need to get done for the visa. And then you can always change it another time. Definitely. We work with BPI. A lot of people work with Millennium Bank. What's another popular one you think? Novo Banco. Novo Banco. So I would think those are kind of the top three. I think Millennium is probably the most popular. The next one. So something for you guys to look into with that. The technical requirement is not just that you have a bank account. It's that it's funded. And so we're going to talk to you more in a second about what that means when we talk about passive income requirements and showing that you're fiscally able to take care of yourself, all of that jazz. That's really it on the bank account. I think the only thing that you have to remember so far is we're telling you these requirements in the order in which we would address them. So get your FBI fingerprints done, your background check. Start working with someone about your NIF.
MARK
[ 00:14:10 ] In order to get your NIF.
MEREDITH
[ 00:14:11 ] In order to get your bank account. And the sooner the better on that because it can really take a long time. It took us a long, long time to get it.
MARK
[ 00:14:19 ] That is probably amongst them one of the more stressful things. I don't think we got it set up until August. Right. It was one of the more stressful things. Yes. And I would say that if you are on a scouting trip or you take a holiday here or something like that, to do it in person, it might take an hour. That's true. Maybe two hours out of your day to go and get your NIF and get a bank account set up. But you're going to have the documents with you. So you've got your passport. Bring a proof where you live in the US. You can either work with somebody while you're here or you can almost certainly do it yourself. I mean, I think that being on the ground doing it rather than trying to do it remotely. If you happen to be here. Perfect. Get it done.
MEREDITH
[ 00:14:58 ] Even if you have to open up the bank account with €100. Just stick something in there. Have it done. Right. It will save you a lot of time. We wish we had done that but we just didn't know.
MARK
[ 00:15:07 ] And I think I would really say get on to that early. And mainly because it's becoming harder for even representatives over here to open on your behalf a NIF and a bank account. Or, certainly, the bank account; that's getting really sticky for whatever reasons.
MEREDITH
[ 00:15:30 ] Well, and here's the thing: We didn't actually do this. We did a recon mission but we didn't do a scouting trip. Right. So. So when we first traveled to Portugal it was really for tourists and travel and enjoyment and all that. But it was really through the lens of like could we live here because we heard such good things about Portugal? But it wasn't an official scouting trip. I think a lot of people now, if they have the funds to do it, they're definitely coming here and visiting with an idea of scouting. And if you're going to do that open your bank account. Get your NIF. Figure all that stuff out before you leave. So that it's not done remotely and I think it will probably be a smoother process for you.
MARK
[ 00:16:13 ] Yeah. And just be aware of when you get your NIF, the fact that the fiscal representative in there will be either a lawyer or whoever it is that you've used to help you open that. That will run for 12 months. But you know once you move here or the rest of it, you can change that fiscal representative. Yes. Remove them. There are some out there that will continue to charge you, a year on year. And if you're a little blind to it, yeah. You'll just get these charges, yeah. Because they're recurring until you cancel it. So, it's easy to do, but I would always set yourself a calendar alert to say we're here. Yeah. We're settling. Let's take care of that fiscal.
MEREDITH
[ 00:16:54 ] Especially after you get your actual card, yeah. That is the time to okay, to go. Remove everybody from your fiscal. Yeah. Sorry. Maybe I should have said that. No, I think that makes sense. It's like, you know. Get all that taken care of and once you have your card in hand then you can make some changes because you don't want to like mess with the system. That kind of thing too. But. Please don't do that. Yeah. So this is a good example to talk about in terms of what I was saying at the beginning about you are applying separately but your documentation might be duplicated. Right. So like they're going to ask you for the proof that you have a Portuguese funded bank account. Well. Ours happens to be a joint account and so we had to both submit the statement that showed our name on it, the bank account number and the balance for both of us as separate parts of our own individual applications. So I'll keep pointing that out as we keep going down the list here.
MARK
[ 00:17:54 ] There's just some little intricacies that you need to be aware of. Yeah. So that you don't get tripped up. Yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:17:59 ] Okay. We're talking. We're talking. Let's have another cheers really quick. Okay. Two down. Okay. Lease.
MARK
[ 00:18:07 ] Lease. Let's take a breath. Okay. Let's start off with. Yeah. Here's where don't make the same mistakes we made. Or mistakes. This is true. For sure.
MEREDITH
[ 00:18:19 ] Although we're going to talk about this in a future episode about our big mistake. But we can brush on that here. Yeah. You. Here's a sticking point for this requirement. Okay. And some people don't get over it. And some people say screw it, and they don't proceed. Right. Because it's shitty, but it is what it is, and that is this is part of the process. You must have a one-year lease in place. Contract signed before you go to your VFS Global appointment. Appointment slash interview, so let's think about that, let that sink in. You must have a one-year lease contract signed before you go to your bfs global appointment and you show up and you show them the lease and it doesn't have to be effective for the day of your appointment, it can be after, but let's think about how many landlords are really willing to do that. So you're showing up with an apartment that you've paid for and you're paying for without knowing how long it is going to take to get your visa or knowing if you are going to even be approved right for a visa. So I hope that they can't hear that, apologies if you did. This is our home studio, okay, yeah. So we literally had to ask this question 117 times before we just had to believe it when people would tell us yes, that's how it is, that's how that yes. You are paying for something that you're not using and you're paying for it in the hopes that you're going to get your visa. Now again, unless you're a really undesirable candidate, I don't think that there's many times where you're Completely denied, and you're going to get your visa. It just never gets your visa; it just could be a longer process if you don't do it the right way or you're not accurate or you're not presenting yourself in the best way.
MARK
[ 00:20:34 ] Yeah, I can count on less than one-I really haven't heard that very much, the amount of times that's ever happened yeah from a for a U.S.
MEREDITH
[ 00:20:41 ] citizen from, but it's hard to swallow to think, oh my god, like because it's not just about it's not just about the recurring monthly rent here. You typically have to put a couple months down, right?
MARK
[ 00:20:57 ] Yeah, so each contract would be different, but essentially, you know, landlords gonna want first and last month. They may even want the first two or three months and last month. You can get out of a contract if it's depending on how it's written. So again, get it read over, make sure it's how do you want it to read, you know? After the first four months, it's one-third of the lease it's a one-third of the lease it's a one-third of the lease it's two-thirds of the lease!
MEREDITH
[ 00:21:26 ] So out of a 12-month contract, it's seven months for us. Yes, so all of those are intricacies of the Portuguese lease and typical, right? You obviously every contract is a little bit different, but what else is different here is like you can look at listings so I'll give you an example and I'll put the resource here Idealista.pt Idealista. pt is a great place to look apartments okay it's not a winner every time because there are some short-term Airbnb type places on there that do not qualify for this you have to have a one
MARK
[ 00:22:06 ] -year lease so those things can can creep up in there but basically it's a good place to start and look for leases but what I did notice when we started looking it says make an offer and I'm like okay in the United States we don't we don't negotiate on rent we just don't it's just here's your rent it's two thousand million dollars in Charlotte to live in uptown right and there is no negotiations there that that doesn't happen typically like a home purchase does in the states but here you can and so that's available yeah but it's also a tough Market too in certain places to find um the kind of place good or very good product though that you want to to be in yeah I mean there are some not so desirable ones for sure yeah but you know it goes with the wherever you're going to move to I'll also say this this is the biggest part of the affordability factor that people always talk about about Portugal and the fact that we talk about it all the time because there are parts of of this
MEREDITH
[ 00:23:24 ] Country and the economics of how we have moved here that are absolutely more affordable than where we were living, but when it comes to the lease and it comes to a place like Porto, the second biggest city in in the country, you know people talking about how you can get an apartment for 800 euros a month. I'm going to turn my head like yeah, really sure they might exist and they might exist further out from the city center and they might not have one modern amenity included at all, and there's all the things right so I'm going to level set that, yeah, for definite, for sure you can go on Idealista. pt and find out for yourself what you think you were willing to live in versus the pricing, yeah, and the further out you go and the more rural and the more village-like, sure there are absolute steals compared to maybe where you are, amenities as much everything is so fluid when it comes to the word affordability is all I want to say you know, and the other thing I would say about Idealist and any of the um real estate formats that are out there or portals that are out there is they're not always up to date, you can find something on there that's
MARK
[ 00:24:51 ] 'oh my God' that fits me great and you apply and you sort of get a lease or you talk to the agent and that's a completely different thing I'm not going to get into that but it's oh it was taken maybe two months ago you know it's not updated it's it is nothing it can't be the MLS or the listing services that we are used to yeah they don't exist they just don't have it like that as former Realtors I'm not getting into that on this because we're talking about a lease but the real estate is a different animal yeah but I do know that we will do an entire episode just about apartments and leases yeah but I do know that we will do an entire episode just about apartments and leases yeah but I do know that we will do an entire episode just about apartments and leases and
MEREDITH
[ 00:25:24 ] You know services, yeah this is what we are actually starting to help people do in Porto if they decide they want to move here, we're helping them find apartments, yeah so but more on that later, yeah um yeah. I just I I wanted to level set the whole lease thing and the rates and the affordability and all of that, but for the purposes of D7, you have to have a lease in place, it has to be at least one year contract and uh that's not negotiable, yeah it just is one year contract and it is. So they don't look at Airbnb and Airbnbs, no short-term rentals we were so shocked by that, don't it because we were like oh just get an Airbnb and then we'll Know so it's very important for you to a work with someone that you like and trust, that you know, like us, that are here if you want to do that or work with a service there are services out there who get your niff your bank account and help you find a lease. All of that can happen. It just is who you really want to work with. Okay, so anything else on the link? I think we beat the dead horse. Yeah. Okay. We are going to do more on our choices and mistakes that we made in our first apartment in another episode. We won't leave you with that story. We'll leave you hanging, just waiting for more information about the mistakes you made. Because there was a big one. Okay. All right, ready? Hmm. Oh, yeah. Sorry, I needed a big old slow-by line. The last one we're going to talk about for today.
MARK
[ 00:27:04 ] Proof of funds.
MEREDITH
[ 00:27:05 ] Proof of funds slash passive income because this D7 visa is the passive income visa and it's the retirement income visa. So to back up, most of the time this was built for truth. True retirees. And you might look at us and go, y'all are gray, but you're not retired, right? And I would say yes to that because we're not retired. But there are situations, especially now, that one can show passive income in many, many different ways and it doesn't necessarily have to be the traditional passive income like Social Security payments or pension payments or blah, blah, blah. That's why it worked for us even though we're not officially retired. Right.
MARK
[ 00:27:54 ] It was the way that we structured that to appear. Well, not even to appear, to actually be the way that it used to show. Well, we didn't have jobs. Right. And I will say this one thing. We did use the services of somebody, the immigration service that was over here. It was like an hour consultation. Yeah. Just to get some real nitty-gritty agenda questions. If we did it like this, does that work? Yes, no. And if yes, then great. If no, then how do we move back? And she was awesome. And she was amazing.
MEREDITH
[ 00:28:28 ] Because we basically outlined our situation and said, our jobs are not going to follow us over here. Right. So we will not have income in that way. But here we did have a business and we did have retirement accounts that we could pull from even though we're not getting dividends and paid out that way. But all to say, I know it sounds kind of weird because you look at us and go, but you're not really retired. So how did you get it? You were here on the retirement visa. But that's why. It's really about how you're showing you are fiscally responsible for yourself. Because here's the big picture thing I was talking about earlier. They want to know you have a place to live. They want to know that you're an established tax resident, your NIF. They want you to be contributing to the economy, your bank account, Portuguese bank account. They want you to understand. They want to understand. They want to understand how you're going to be able to live. You're going to take care of yourself through your income so that you're not a burden on the country when you get over here. So, with those things in mind, it's like that's the lens that should help you create the best application on the planet, you know? And so we are going to talk about what we put forward. And I've also got, well, we did a personal statement, which I've got a free template linked out on our Instagram right now. You can download that tomorrow because a personal statement is part of the process. But I bring that up because it kind of overviews exactly what we are offering in terms of who we are and how we're going to take care of ourselves and all of our intentions. It's kind of like this summary of the application that's really nice. So hopefully by reading that, you can kind of get an idea of, like, how you're presenting yourself and how we presented ourselves. Yeah. In a way that best reflected that we were not going to be a burden on anything. We are excited to be over here. We're excited to be a part of this country and culture. And we're not going to be a financial burden on anything. So when we talk about passive income, let's talk about types of passive income that you typically see. Yep. First one, like for a typical retiree, what would you say? Social security. Social security payments. I would also say, like, pension payments, 401K distributions that you've already set up. Or investment accounts that you, dividends that you've got coming in.
MARK
[ 00:30:58 ] Rental.
MEREDITH
[ 00:30:59 ] Rental income. And this is a lot that happens, this happens a lot for younger people these days. They have built a real estate portfolio.
MARK
[ 00:31:07 ] Yep.
MEREDITH
[ 00:31:08 ] So they don't have to be retired, but they have passive income. So that's how you can enter into this visa in that way.
SPEAKER_3
[ 00:31:15 ] Yeah.
MEREDITH
[ 00:31:16 ] What else? I would say, for us, we actually structured ours by, we were realtors, we were realtors in Charlotte before, so we had an established business where both of us could be shown to be paid by the business, the firm. And we set those up recurring starting in June. And so we could show a, what, three or four month history of that.
MARK
[ 00:31:41 ] And I think that's the important point. It's the time. It's about, the devil is in the detail. It's getting everything historically set up.
MEREDITH
[ 00:31:50 ] Yeah.
MARK
[ 00:31:50 ] So, you know, for all of these. If you're not sure, definitely seek out.
MEREDITH
[ 00:31:55 ] Oh, just email us or DM us or.
MARK
[ 00:31:58 ] Yeah, we can pass you on to people that we've spoken with and give you some referrals. But again, it's just showing yourself in the best light. But the way that we structured it was that we had those payments coming through the business. So. Right. As a recurring payment.
MEREDITH
[ 00:32:15 ] And if you're listening or watching on YouTube right now and you're going, 'Ooh, I don't really, I don't really fit that yet, but I do have a job.' Or an employer that is willing to, you know, allow me to work there, you have other options within the visa programs. It just might not be the D seven. Right. So don't be discouraged if you're hearing this and going, Oh, I don't fit any of that. That doesn't mean that, that you don't have an option in something else like the DA digital nomad or something like that. So, um, just as a side note, I don't want anybody to be like, Oh, I don't, I don't have any of that yet.
MARK
[ 00:32:50 ] Case closed.
MEREDITH
[ 00:32:51 ] Um, so. So let's talk numbers about how much passive income is this. I think this one is the ticket. So minimum wage here is abysmal. It's crazy. We think it's bad in the States. It's, it's really, really bad. Now, cost of living is typically a lot lower here as well, but it is abysmal and it's, it's really. It's hard to stomach sometimes, um, but that is what the government and immigration service basis, what you need to prove in order to move here. So, what is it? It is, I'm looking at my notes here, 9,840 euros per year for the first year is the minimum wage in Portugal. So what the, what they're basically saying is: You need to prove that you're at least making the minimum, you can take care of yourself for at least the minimum wage and that's €9,840 for the first adult and we're not even asking you to prove €9,840 for the second because we don't know what that family structure might look like. Right? So the second adult is half of that, which is 49, 20 euros. Okay. So now what we're at? Like 14, under 15. Okay. If you have a kid or multiple children, it would be 30% of that minimal number to make sure that kid is taken care of. And that's 32, 80 euros. So you start to add up whatever your family structure looks like. That's the number that you're trying to prove that you can carry, carry and take care of yourself. Now here is the bonus. And I'm going to say this, do not get discouraged. If you Cannot do this, but if the visa is two years, wouldn't it be good to show them that you have got two years worth of that? Not just three or four months of that, right? That, that you have, if you have those kinds of funds, I would make sure that you're showing them those kinds of funds. So definitely. And so when you, you know, we looked as a couple. Let's say it was 15 a year. So that's 30,000. Can I not necessarily show that in my passive income, but also show it in savings, in investment accounts, in empty credit card limits? Like the sky is the limit on what you can put in your application about your finances that are going to help bolster you. So, what we found that worked was. Was what we did, which was, we showed our passive income from our business. I think it was $1,500 each per month for three or four months leading up to that-was passive income check. We couldn't use our rental home yet because it hadn't been rented yet. So, that really didn't even factor in for us. And I wish it had, because it would have really helped us; but it didn't matter anyway, because everything didn't harm us. But you would have to have an existing rental, right? We were going to rent our house after we left. So, that really wasn't in play yet. Your dividends, anything like that, passive income, but then show them, open up your portfolio. This is the time to show whatever you have in savings, checking, 401k, pension, retirement, investment accounts.
MARK
[ 00:36:46 ] Don't be coy.
MEREDITH
[ 00:36:47 ] Yes, you want them to look and go, 'Oh.' Even if things go awry, they have backup plans.
MARK
[ 00:36:56 ] This is a home run on that. On that piece.
MEREDITH
[ 00:37:00 ] So that's what we did for ourselves. And I think-And that's what we would say, yeah, to do for you. I mean, there is a minimum requirement, and that's all-Minimum is all you need to prove, but I think anytime you can prove more than that is going to make you look even better in the eyes of immigration services making the call.
MARK
[ 00:37:21 ] Yeah. I mean, the person that we spoke to through the immigration lawyer, as it were, was, yeah, you can do it on that as a minimum requirement, but if you can show it more, show it, and I think that would be the top tip.
MEREDITH
[ 00:37:38 ] Yes, 100%. Anything else you're going to add about passive income?
MARK
[ 00:37:45 ] No.
MEREDITH
[ 00:37:46 ] Again, you're showing individual records of this. Yeah. Mark would show his investment account with his name on it for his application, and I would show my 401(k) that's been in existence with my employer that has my name on it, even though, to us, the way we structure our lives is very much a joint effort financially, because his name was on his and mine was on mine, we just use those in our separate accounts, our separate, sorry, our separate applications. Yeah. In that case, right? Because my name is on yours and his name. Yeah, whether we're individually saying when it was joint. Yeah.
MARK
[ 00:38:21 ] You know, cross them over as well.
MEREDITH
[ 00:38:23 ] But you're trying to make yourself look as positive as possible financially, so I would say don't be afraid to show them whatever it is that you want to show them, not just the minimum that they're asking for, but think about it through the lens of what are they trying to make sure of in order to say yes or no, and what they're trying to make sure of is that you are not going to be a financial burden on this country when you move here.
MARK
[ 00:38:49 ] I'm not going to be. Exactly. And you know, that's just going to add more value and weight to your application.
MEREDITH
[ 00:38:56 ] Absolutely. Okay, but I will say this as we wrap up. So we talked about FBI background check. We talked about, what was the second one? NIF and bank account. We talked about lease and we talked about your financial proof of funds, passive income. Those are the four most important things on the list of 11 or 12 things. Yeah. That we're going to talk about in terms of your application, but we're not going to talk about it today. We're going to do a part two of this and talk about the remaining requirements that are part of the D7 visa process, um. But I will say this: look, we are again, we are here to build a community and be a resource for people. If you have specific questions about your situation, we are available for one-on-one consultations. You can go to Instagram and book with us right there; you can also send us a DM. We are absolutely an open book about whatever we know and can share that can help you decide, make some decisions, understand your situation. Because I feel like that's the challenge here: is that everybody's situation is going To be a little bit different, and I'm hoping that now that you know the bigger picture about what they're really looking for, you'll be able to look at yourself and go, 'Okay, how do I present ourselves our family in the best way in order to achieve get a positive response from them?
MARK
[ 00:40:28 ] You know, the other thing I would leave this on is, is the fact that these four points-I mean, maybe not so much the FBI check, but certainly these other three big subject pieces, um, you know we can talk about them quite easily because it's we spent so much time trying to understand it ourselves. Yeah, and you know there isn't there's no quick Fix you, you're gonna have to go through it um to to achieve what you want but again it's you know we can talk about it nice and simple but it's not a simple subject each one right yeah I think there's when you don't know what to ask you don't you don't know what to ask if you don't know what to ask I felt like that most of this process and now that we're we're mainly through it it's it gets me really jazzed to be able to intelligently speak to it not saying we know everything please don't take it that way but we do know that we've learned a whole lot yeah i mean this is not financial advice this is not legal advice just no and we did work
MEREDITH
[ 00:41:36 ] and we will listen we are going to link every resource that we used there's a great for facebook forum called american and friends pt that has been instrumental in helping us um we worked with a lawyer here and we continue to partner with him and we will link him below as well we had him look at our lease right and we paid like 90 euros just to have somebody to look at it and make sure that we were reading what we understood we were reading um and just going to change it to things that we will yeah make suggestions for us so anyway i will we will link anything and everything that we can to the in here and we continue to be completely Available to you guys as you move through the process or you're even just considering it because it sure is worth it. I will say this, I know we have talked about the ups and downs and how especially on the other episode it's not for the faint of heart, this process. But once you are through the process, to be in this country and to be like starting kind of a new life in Europe, um, it's just so worth it in retrospect. It can be so frustrating and so painful and so like I want to rip my hair out because I don't know what to ask, I don't even know what questions to ask, and who do I even ask? And, that's why we are here and doing Portugal Junkies. Is to be that resource and help for other people as much as we possibly can, be so anyway it's a great podcast, thank you guys. Um, tune in for the next episode because we're going to kind of continue to go through the other requirements that are probably not quite as important or complicated but I want to make sure we touch on this, they still are a make a race yeah, you gotta include them and put for it put yourself in the best light in terms of the application and all that stuff. So we'll see you next time guys, cheers baby, cheers, y'all. Listen up, future expats, for more content about our move, the visa process, Portuguese culture. And destinations, and tons of support resources for your own decisions and potential move abroad. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Portugal Junkies.
MARK
[ 00:44:03 ] Stay in touch and help us reach more people by subscribing here and following us there.
MEREDITH
[ 00:44:09 ] Cheers, y'all.