It is difficult to believe that our first summer as residents of Portugal is nearing the end. All the kids started back to school this week, many of the beach cabanas are down now, and the morning air has more of a chill to it. 

SEF is the government office that handles residency permits. We have to renew our permits before February 15. They say the mafia was able to get online and book all the appointment slots for permits and renewals so they could sell the time slots for up to 500 euros each. This caused SEF to stop making any appointments for a couple months which lead to many freaked-out expats/immigrants facing expiration. The problem would be if we traveled out of the country we wouldn’t be allowed back in without current permits. SEF finally solved the problem and opened up 11,000 appointment slots a couple weeks ago. They were mostly gone in about an hour. 

After a week of trying to get through online, we were finally able to schedule appointments for the end of December for our renewal for the next 2 years. It required getting up in the middle of the night because their site was always over-loaded until after 2:00 in the morning. It also required settling for an appointment at the office in Aveiro because Porto is way over-booked. It’s a little over an hour away by train, so it’s not a big deal. We are thrilled to have something locked in well ahead of our deadline. Now, we just hope SEF doesn’t go on strike and mess up our appointment. They strike a few times each year, but they are required to announce dates ahead of time. The bureaucracy here is, shall we say, unusual.

We have definitely noticed that the number of foreigners moving to Portugal is skyrocketing. Americans are still a tiny percentage of the total but our numbers are increasing exponentially. It seems like every week we meet new arrivals or folks visiting and preparing to move.