Every year, thousands of families dream about moving to Portugal. Very few actually do the paperwork to make it happen. In this episode of 100 Clauses, our first ever in English, lawyer Nuno Ramos Correia talks with Stephanie Leblanc, who left Los Angeles with her husband and two children to build a new life in Lisbon.
Stephanie's move didn't happen on a whim. It took nearly four years from the first scouting trip to actually living in Portugal, and almost a year just to go from applying for a D7 visa to holding a residency card. Behind every "we moved to Portugal" story there's a visa process, a tax decision, and a school choice that has to work for the whole family.
In this episode you'll learn:
- why the D7, D8 and Golden Visa are not interchangeable, and how to know which one actually fits your situation
- what the visa timeline really looks like, from the first document to the residency card
- how healthcare and taxes compared once the family actually ran the numbers
- why safety, not sunshine, was the real reason behind the move
- what Stephanie would have done differently with the right legal guidance from the start
Stephanie is the first to say it: having a Portuguese lawyer from the beginning would have made the process smoother. Her family got through it without one, but not without a lot of extra hours and a fair share of guesswork. Because moving countries, like signing a contract, works better when you know exactly what you're getting into before you sign.
Learn more about Diana and Nuno Ramos Correia at
https://ramoscorreia.com
