In a shocking move that has brought the recent citizenship reform agenda in Portugal to a screeching halt, Portugal’s Socialist Party (PS) has employed a rarely‐used mechanism to send the newly approved amendments to the Constitutional Court of Portugal for preventive review, which has effectively suspended the law before it can be promulgated.
On October 28, the Assembly of the Republic approved major changes to Portugal’s nationality regime. These amendments increase the residence period required for naturalization to seven years for citizens of EU states and members of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), and ten years for citizens of all other nationalities. In addition, the law allows pending citizenship applications to proceed under current rules but does not shield holders of residence permits who have not yet applied for citizenship. However, until the amendments to the citizenship law are signed by the Portuguese president, eligible Portuguese residents can still apply for citizenship under the previous (current) five years to citizenship rule.
The intervention by the Portuguese Socialist Party is using a constitutional mechanism by which one-fifth of the deputies in the Assembly can demand preventive review of a decree before presidential promulgation. With 58 seats in the 230-member chamber, the PS is well placed to meet that threshold and has announced its plan to file the formal request this week. It already has enough representatives to meet this threshold without relying on cross‐party support.
The mechanism being used by the PS party is extremely rare. In fact, since the court’s establishment 42 years ago, preventive parliamentary review has been employed only twice, in both cases by the Social Democratic Party (Portugal) (PSD) and not resulting in a ruling on constitutionality.
Key to the PS’s strategy is a legal opinion authored by Jorge Miranda who co‐drafted Portugal’s 1976 Constitution. In an 82-page memo, Miranda flagged two specific provisions of the reforms as constitutionally suspect: the different residence periods for different nationalities, and the back-date substitution of the clock from the application date to the residence‐permit issuance date. He argued these might violate notions of legal certainty, equality, and human dignity. Further warnings came from the Bar Association, the Superior Council of the Magistracy, and other constitutional scholars.
Notably, five parties voted against the amendments – PS, PCP, Livre, BE, and PAN. However, only PS holds enough seats to trigger the preventive review on its own. The law, after passing the final vote on October 28, was sent to the presidential palace and, as of November 14, 2025, no action had been taken.
Because the PS party has signaled their request for a formal Constitutional review (and it is likely to be formally lodged the week of November 17, 2025), the citizenship law legislation is currently frozen until the Constitutional Court issues its decision. Once the Constitutional Court receives the legislation, it has 25 days to review it before announcing their decision. If the court finds the provisions unconstitutional, Parliament must revise or abandon them. If it upholds the law, the President may proceed to promulgate it.
What Happens Next?
So what might happen next? The court may strike down specific articles while leaving others intact, which could force another round of messy parliamentary debate. Alternatively, a full endorsement of the law would allow the government to enact the reforms and effectively reset the citizenship clock for thousands of residents. There is also the chance that President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa will take issue with different parts of the legislation not considered as problematic by the PS party and send the bill back to the Constitutional Court for a second time.
The longer the legislation remains frozen, the more the uncertainty will grow for prospective applicants. If you are reading this and are eligible for citizenship, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible, as you are still eligible under the five-year rules. In all cases, the preventive review signals that the law’s future remains very much in flux.
