Dear Sirs/Madams,

Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (SEF), the governmental entity in charge of the Golden Visa process, issued a statement today, in their social media, informing all interested parties that the policy for the schedule of biometrics for Golden Visa applicants was subject to a change.

It was announced that, as a means to resolve the backlog of appointments, the scheduling of biometrics shall take place automatically and in chronological order according to the online SEF submission date, starting with all investors that were pre-approved up until September 2020. SEF cited  “principles of equality, opportunity, and availability" to support this decision.

The new process, that was implemented today, shall have a very relevant impact on the process the biometrics’ scheduling. Therefore, from this date and until further notice, the responsible in charge of IAS´ investors are expected to receive an e-mail from SEF indicating the available period for the biometrics scheduling. The first notifications were already received and are providing a 10-day period for the scheduling of the appointments in the dates shown as available in the ARI portal, for the investors that have received these notifications, they were given the opportunity to schedule their appointments from the end of December up until the end of January 2022.

IAS shall inform its represented investors as soon as such notice is received and strongly recommend all investors (and dependents) to:

• Acknowledge and respond to the e-mail sent with a preferred date as soon as the e-mail is received (since they only provide 10 days to schedule these appointments and it’s subject to its availability);
• Attend the scheduled appointment, since there is no information yet on what will/can happen to the applicants that do not comply with their appointments, on the proposed dates.

IAS will keep all the investors aware about any possible amendments and new information that may arise on the procedure, or updates on their applications per se.