Report on Citizenship Law Portugal Ana Rita Gil and Nuno Piçarra1 1. Introduction The current Portuguese citizenship legislation2 has two distinct objectives: first, to keep and increase the links between Portugal and its expatriates, and second, to respond to the reality of Portugal as an immigration country and, therefore, to be inclusive regarding those who choose the country as a place to live. Portugal had a tradition of favouring ius soli which dated back to the seventeenth century and was continued by the 1959 Act. The 1981 Act, approved in the context of a large Portuguese emigration, ended this tradition and introduced the prevalence of the ius sanguinis principle. In 2006, this Act was profoundly amended by a reform which broadened the modes for the acquisition of Portuguese citizenship. This reform has maintained and, in some aspects, has even reinforced the ius sanguinis principle, taking in consideration the large community of Portuguese descendants who reside abroad. At the same time, it also created new ways to acquire citizenship through ius soli, taking in consideration the inclusion of the immigrants of second and third generations. These objectives were strengthened in 2018, with a new reform introduced by Organic Law 2/2018. The inclusion objective is favoured by the complete acceptance of dual citizenship, which has been in force since 1981. The current citizenship policy foresees a mixed system for the acquisition of citizenship at birth. However, this still gives prevalence to the ius sanguinis principle despite the creation and expansion of new forms of citizenship acquisition through ius soli. In fact, the descendants of Portuguese citizens who live abroad are Portuguese at birth (they just have to declare their wish to be Portuguese or to register the birth in the Portuguese register of births). By contrast, the ius soli principle is not considered to be an autonomous criterion for acquiring Portuguese citizenship. Additional conditions, besides birth in Portuguese territory, are always required, such as the residence of one of the parents in the Portuguese territory for a certain period of time. Since the reform of 2006, naturalisation can be achieved in two distinct ways. In some circumstances, it depends on a discretionary decision made by the Minister of Justice. In other situations, if applicants meet the legal requirements, they have a real subjective right to 1 The authors used parts of the chapter on Portuguese nationality by Constança Urbano de Sousa and Maria Baganha published in Bauböck (2006). This report was updated in November 2019. 2 Law 37/81 of 3 October, as amended by Law 25/94 of 19 August, by Organic Law 1/2004 of 15 January and by Organic Law 2/2006 of 17 April 2006. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/1 - © 2020 Author 1