Rules
Portugal's D8 digital nomad visa is two different visas, and only one of them goes anywhere
Portugal has two digital nomad visas. They share a name, a nickname and an income threshold, and they lead to entirely different places: one is a stay of under a year, the other is a residence visa that ends in a permit. The market prints one euro figure and lets readers guess which visa it belongs to. Underneath that, the regulation that governs the second one still routes anybody already in Portugal through paragraphs of the law that were repealed in June 2024.
Checked against PortugalNaturalisation: the column that had to be rewritten
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Contents
- The two D8 visas in the statute's own words: article 54(1)(i) and article 61-B
- The D8 income requirement: where €3,680 comes from, and why it moves
- The D8 in-country route points at paragraphs abolished in June 2024
- What the abolished D8 cross-reference means for an applicant in Portugal
- Which D8 visa to apply for, and why the choice is usually not close
- How to check the Portuguese D8 rules yourself in six minutes
- Frequently asked questions about the Portugal D8 digital nomad visa
- More on Portuguese visas and residence
Every page you will find about the Portugal digital nomad visa gives you a number: €3,680 a month. Most of them stop there, and the ones that go further disagree about what you are actually applying for.
They disagree because there are two visas. Portugal created both of them on the same day, in the same law, for the same activity, and gave them the same income test. One lets you stay for under a year and ends. The other is a residence visa and starts a clock that runs to a permit and eventually to a passport. Both are called the D8.
This page separates them, quotes the provisions that create each, and then sets out something that appears on no page in this market: the regulation governing the second one still directs anyone already in Portugal to a procedure that Parliament abolished on 4 June 2024.
The two D8 visas in the statute's own words: article 54(1)(i) and article 61-B
The temporary-stay visa is article 54(1)(i) of Lei 23/2007, added by Lei 18/2022. Article 54 covers visas for stays of under one year, and the remote-work entry reads:
> "Exercício de atividade profissional subordinada ou independente, prestada, de forma remota, a pessoa singular ou coletiva com domicílio ou sede fora do território nacional"
Employed or self-employed work, done remotely, for a person or company based outside Portugal. The visa is issued for the duration of the stay and allows multiple entries.
The residence visa is article 61-B, added by the same law, and it is a single sentence:
> "É concedido a trabalhadores subordinados e profissionais independentes visto de residência para o exercício de atividade profissional prestada, de forma remota, a pessoas singulares ou coletivas com domicílio ou sede fora do território nacional, devendo ser demonstrado o vínculo laboral ou a prestação de serviços, consoante o caso."
Read the two descriptions side by side and they are the same activity. Read what they are for and they are not remotely the same thing. A residence visa exists to be exchanged for a residence permit. A temporary-stay visa exists to let you be in the country for a while.
Note also what neither of them contains: an amount of money. Both are silent on income.
The D8 income requirement: where €3,680 comes from, and why it moves
The figure lives one level down, in Decreto Regulamentar 84/2007 — the regulation that implements the immigration law — in two articles inserted into it by Decreto Regulamentar 4/2022 of 30 September 2022.
Article 18-B governs the paperwork for the temporary-stay visa. Article 31-A governs the paperwork for the residence visa. Their last-but-one requirement is word for word identical:
> "Comprovativo de rendimentos médios mensais auferidos no exercício de atividade profissional subordinada ou independente nos últimos três meses de valor mínimo equivalente a quatro remunerações mínimas mensais garantidas"
Proof of average monthly income over the last three months of at least four guaranteed minimum monthly wages.
Two things follow, and both are missing from the pages that print the number.
It is a multiplier, not an amount. The guaranteed minimum monthly wage for 2026 is €920, so four of them is €3,680 — this year. It was €2,820 in 2022 and it will be something else in 2027, without a single word of the regulation changing. On the first results page for this visa today, one insurer's guide asks for "at least €2,800 per month", which is four times the 2022 minimum wage: a figure four years stale, and stale in the direction that gets a file refused rather than the direction that costs nothing.
It is a three-month average, not a salary. The regulation asks what you actually earned over the preceding three months. A contract stating a high monthly figure, signed last week, does not answer the question the regulation asks. Freelancers with uneven months should read that sentence twice.
A correction we owe here. Until 7 September 2026 our own pages said this threshold could not be traced to any Portuguese legal instrument and should not be treated as law. That was wrong: we read article 61-B, found it silent about money, and did not open the regulation implementing it. The correction and the instrument are both on our sources page.
The D8 in-country route points at paragraphs abolished in June 2024
Article 31-A has a second paragraph, and it is the only place in the entire D8 regime that addresses somebody who is already in Portugal without the visa:
> "Quando o requerente não disponha de visto de residência para prestação de trabalho remoto, é aplicável, com as necessárias adaptações, o procedimento definido no n.º 2 e seguintes dos artigos 88.º e 89.º da Lei n.º 23/2007"
The procedure of "paragraph 2 and following of articles 88 and 89". That was the manifestação de interesse — the route by which a person lawfully in Portugal, working and paying social security, could obtain a residence permit without first getting a residence visa abroad. For two years it was how a great many remote workers actually regularised.
Article 2 of Decreto-Lei 37-A/2024 of 3 June 2024 repealed it:
> "São revogados os n.os 6 e 7 do artigo 81.º, os n.os 2 e 6 do artigo 88.º e os n.os 2, 4 e 5 do artigo 89.º da Lei n.º 23/2007, de 4 de julho, na sua redação atual."
In force from 4 June 2024.
So read the cross-reference again with that list in hand. "Paragraph 2 and following of articles 88 and 89" today means: article 88(2), repealed. Article 88(6), repealed. Article 89(2), repealed. Article 89(4), repealed — and then given entirely new content in October 2025 by Lei 61/2025, where it is now about an entrepreneurial project inside a certified business incubator. Article 89(5), repealed. What survives under that heading is article 89(3), which lets the holder of a self-employment permit take employed work — which presupposes the permit the applicant does not yet have.
The regulation has not been amended since. Its seventh and latest amendment is Decreto Regulamentar 1/2024 of 17 January 2024, five months before the repeal, and it did not touch article 31-A. A regulation in force has pointed at a procedure that does not exist for two years and three months.
Nor does the general escape hatch help. Article 122(1) of Lei 23/2007 lists the cases where a residence permit is granted with exemption from the residence visa — nineteen of them, from minors born in Portugal to investors to, since October 2025, children in institutional care. One of them, paragraph (q), covers a person who holds a temporary-stay visa for research or highly qualified activity and wants to convert. That is the entry immediately next to the remote-work one in article 54. The remote-work temporary-stay visa is not in the list.
What the abolished D8 cross-reference means for an applicant in Portugal
It means the published rules give the D8 no working in-country route, in either variant. The temporary-stay visa is not on the conversion list, and the residence visa's own regulation sends you to repealed paragraphs.
It does not mean conversion is impossible. An immigration authority can operate on a general power and a published checklist; we did not reach AIMA's own procedural pages, which have been intermittently unavailable; and Lei 40/2024 of 7 November 2024 preserved the old regime for people whose proceedings had already begun and for those already registered and contributing to social security before June 2024. If you are in that group, you are on the old rules.
What it does mean for everybody else is one sentence: get the visa before you go. The consulate is the route, not a plan to arrive and sort it out. That is the opposite of what the D8's reputation suggests, and it is the single most consequential thing on this page.
Which D8 visa to apply for, and why the choice is usually not close
| Temporary stay | Residence | |
|---|---|---|
| Created by | Art. 54(1)(i) of Lei 23/2007 | Art. 61-B of Lei 23/2007 |
| Paperwork rule | Art. 18-B of DR 84/2007 | Art. 31-A of DR 84/2007 |
| Length | Under one year | Leads to a residence permit |
| Income test | Four minimum wages, three-month average | The same, word for word |
| Leads to a residence permit | No | Yes |
| On the art. 122 conversion list | No | Not applicable |
| Counts towards naturalisation | No | Yes, as lawful residence |
If you intend to try Portugal for a season, the temporary-stay visa is the honest instrument and nothing is lost. If you intend to stay, it is a year spent outside every clock that matters — and since 19 May 2026 those clocks are considerably longer than the market still says. Naturalisation is now ten years for most nationalities, seven for citizens of the EU and Portuguese-speaking countries, and the paragraph that let time in the permit queue count was repealed on the same day. That is set out in full in our guide to Portugal's nationality law.
How to check the Portuguese D8 rules yourself in six minutes
- Open Decreto Regulamentar 4/2022 on the Diário da República site and find articles 18-B and 31-A. Read alínea c) of each. They are the same sentence.
- Read article 31-A(2). Note the words "n.º 2 e seguintes dos artigos 88.º e 89.º".
- Open Decreto-Lei 37-A/2024 and read article 2. It names those paragraphs.
- Check the amendment list of Decreto Regulamentar 84/2007. The last entry is January 2024, before the repeal.
- Read article 122(1) of Lei 23/2007 to the end of the alíneas, and look for the remote worker. Paragraph (q) is the nearest thing there, and it is a different visa.
Every instrument named here has its own line and its own link on our sources page.
One credit, because this page is not first to everything. The two-variant distinction does exist in this market — a Lisbon law firm has it as a chapter of a YouTube video. What no page has, as far as we can find, is what follows from the distinction: the conversion list, the repeal, and the cross-reference left standing.
Frequently asked questions about the Portugal D8 digital nomad visa
How much income does the Portugal D8 digital nomad visa require?
Four times the guaranteed minimum monthly wage, averaged over the last three months — article 18-B(c) of Decreto Regulamentar 84/2007 for the temporary-stay visa and article 31-A(1)(c) for the residence visa. At the 2026 minimum wage of €920 that is €3,680 a month. It is not a fixed euro figure: it moves every January, and pages that print only the euro amount go stale without changing a word.
What is the difference between the D8 temporary stay visa and the D8 residence visa?
The temporary-stay visa, article 54(1)(i), is for stays of under a year and does not lead to a residence permit. The residence visa, article 61-B, is exchanged for a residence permit and counts as lawful residence for naturalisation. Both carry the same income test, which is why one euro figure circulates for two different visas.
Can I move to Portugal first and apply for the D8 from inside the country?
On the published rules, no. The only in-country route the D8 regime names is article 31-A(2) of the regulation, which sends you to the procedure of articles 88(2) and 89(2) of Lei 23/2007 — and those paragraphs were repealed by Decreto-Lei 37-A/2024 on 4 June 2024. Article 122(1), the list of permits granted without a residence visa, does not include remote workers either. People whose proceedings began before June 2024, or who were already registered and contributing to social security, are covered by transitional rules under Lei 40/2024.
Does the D8 lead to Portuguese citizenship?
The residence variant does, on the ordinary naturalisation rules, because the permit it leads to is lawful residence. Since 19 May 2026 that means ten years for most nationalities and seven for citizens of EU member states and Portuguese-speaking countries. The temporary-stay variant does not lead to a permit at all. See our [nationality law guide](entry:portugal-citizenship).
Is the D8 the same as the D7?
No. The D7 is for people living on their own income — pensions, rent, dividends — and its threshold is the minimum wage itself, €920 a month in 2026. The D8 is for people working remotely for an employer or clients outside Portugal, and its threshold is four times that. The two are compared in our [Portugal residency guide](entry:portugal-residency).
Do I need to spend time in Portugal to keep a D8 residence permit?
The residence permit carries the ordinary absence rules of Lei 23/2007, not a rule of its own, and they are stricter than most pages selling the visa suggest. What the permit requires after it is issued — renewals, presence, permanent residence at five years — is set out in [what happens after the permit](entry:portugal-after-permit).
More on Portuguese visas and residence
The D7 and the investment route, with their own income tests, are in Portugal residency. The naturalisation arithmetic after the May 2026 law is in Portugal's nationality law. What living in Portugal actually costs, from the national statistics rather than from advertisements, is in cost of living in Portugal.
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