Current status: active

Portugal's entrepreneur residence-visa route is active as of 14 September 2026. It is commonly called the D2 Entrepreneur Visa, although Portuguese official pages describe it as the residence visa for independent professional activity or immigrant entrepreneurs.

For founders and business owners, the controlling legal branch is Article 60(2) of Lei n.º 23/2007. It is distinct from the D2 independent-professional branch and from the IAPMEI StartUP Visa.

Who can use the D2 entrepreneur route?

Article 60(2) provides a residence-visa basis for immigrant entrepreneurs who intend to invest in Portugal and who either:

  • have already carried out investment operations; or
  • can prove that they have financial means available in Portugal, including financing obtained from a Portuguese financial institution, and demonstrate an intention to carry out an identified investment operation in Portugal.

The implementing regulation requires a declaration describing the investment's nature, value and duration, together with proof of completed investment or proof of available financial means and a properly described intended investment.

There is no universal statutory minimum D2 investment

A recurring error in commercial Portugal-visa content is to publish a fixed “minimum D2 investment” as if Article 60 contains a capital floor.

The ordinary D2 entrepreneur provision does not state one universal minimum euro investment. Instead, Article 31 of the immigration regulation says the application is assessed taking into account, among other things, the economic, social, scientific, technological or cultural relevance of the investment.

That does not mean a token investment is automatically sufficient. It means the case is qualitative and evidence-driven: the proposed business, available funding, implementation plan and credibility of the investment need to make sense together.

If you want a route with explicit statutory capital/job thresholds, compare Portugal's ARI investment-residence regime instead.

Read the ARI business-investment route.

What a strong entrepreneur file should establish

The law does not prescribe one universal business-plan template, but a credible D2 entrepreneur file should make the core facts easy to verify:

  • what business will operate in Portugal;
  • what has already been invested, if anything;
  • what funds are available for the Portuguese operation;
  • the source and accessibility of those funds;
  • the intended amount, nature and duration of the investment;
  • how the business will generate economic activity;
  • the founder's role and relevant experience; and
  • supporting implementation evidence, such as company documents, contracts, premises, licenses or supplier/customer evidence where applicable.

A business plan should support documentary facts rather than substitute for them.

Visa-stage requirements

The current gov.pt page says this residence visa is filed through the competent Portuguese consular post and lists the entrepreneur-specific evidence as:

  • a declaration that the applicant has made or intends to make an investment operation in Portugal, identifying its nature, value and duration; and
  • proof of completed investment, or proof of financial means available in Portugal and the intention to carry out a described and identified investment.

The route-specific documents sit alongside the general residence-visa checklist, which includes identity/travel documents, criminal-record evidence, accommodation, insurance, means of subsistence and other required consular documents.

Gov.pt currently publishes a 60-day decision/service period for the category. This is not a promise of the total relocation timeline: appointment availability, extra-document requests, travel and the later AIMA residence-permit stage can add time.

Means of subsistence and 2026 reference values

Separate from the business investment itself, Portugal requires means of subsistence.

Portaria n.º 1563/2007 uses the RMMG (minimum monthly guaranteed remuneration) as the reference and applies the following family weighting:

  • first adult: 100%;
  • each additional adult: 50%; and
  • dependent child/young dependant: 30%.

The Portaria specifically states that an applicant for a residence visa who intends to invest in Portugal must have the relevant means assured for at least 12 months.

For mainland Portugal, the 2026 RMMG is €920. On that statutory reference, 12 months corresponds to €11,040 for the first adult, before adding the weighted amount for accompanying household members. An additional adult corresponds to €460 per month (€5,520 for 12 months), and a dependent child/young dependant to €276 per month (€3,312 for 12 months).

These figures describe the subsistence calculation, not the business-investment requirement. They should not be marketed as the amount required to capitalize the company.

D2 entrepreneur versus StartUP Visa

Both can serve founders, but they solve different problems.

The ordinary D2 entrepreneur branch does not require admission by a certified incubator or the specific innovation/scalability benchmarks of StartUP Visa. It can therefore fit conventional businesses that have a credible Portuguese investment and operating plan.

The StartUP Visa is an innovation program administered through IAPMEI. It requires certified-incubator participation and evaluates innovation, scalability, market potential and qualified-employment potential. The project must be capable of meeting StartUP Visa's program criteria, including the €325,000 five-year turnover/assets potential benchmark.

A technology startup can sometimes plausibly consider either route, but the evidence architecture is different. Do not use “startup” as a synonym for StartUP Visa.

Read the StartUP Visa guide.

D2 entrepreneur versus ARI

D2 is an ordinary residence-visa route based on entrepreneurship/investment and does not set the ARI program's large fixed capital/job thresholds.

ARI is a special investment residence regime. Its business-relevant options currently include creating at least 10 jobs, or transferring at least €500,000 into a Portuguese commercial-company structure combined with specified permanent-job creation/maintenance conditions. ARI also has a much lighter minimum-presence regime.

For a founder planning to live and actively operate a normal Portuguese company, D2 can be the more proportionate starting point. For a high-capital investor who needs the special ARI framework and can meet its exact statutory conditions, ARI is a different category entirely.

What residence permit follows the visa?

The residence visa is used to enter Portugal and proceed to the residence-permit stage with AIMA. The exact AIMA evidence depends on how the entrepreneur structures the activity and on the current appointment procedure.

Portugal's ordinary temporary residence permits for professional/entrepreneurial activity are generally issued for two years and are renewable for successive three-year periods where the legal conditions continue to be met. The applicant should preserve evidence that the business/investment is real and ongoing, because renewal is not simply an automatic extension of the original business plan.

Can a shareholder qualify just by owning a Portuguese company?

Company ownership can be relevant evidence, but incorporating a company does not by itself guarantee immigration approval. Article 60 focuses on the investment operation and the applicant's ability/intention to carry it out. The regulation also calls for an assessment of the investment's relevance.

A passive shareholding with no credible connection to the claimed entrepreneur activity should not be treated as automatically equivalent to a substantive D2 entrepreneur case.

What about opening a small company?

The absence of a fixed statutory D2 minimum means small businesses are not automatically excluded. But the smaller the proposed capital base, the more important it becomes that the documentation convincingly explains how the business can launch, cover its costs, generate activity and support the founder's intended residence.

Budget, sector, licensing, staffing, premises and expected cash flow should be internally consistent.

Family reunification changed in 2025

Lei n.º 61/2025 changed Article 98. The current general rule requires the sponsor to have held a valid residence permit for at least two years before family reunification. A 15-month period applies to a spouse/equivalent partner who cohabited with the sponsor for at least 18 months immediately before the sponsor's entry into Portugal.

Dependent minors/incapacitated family members and some co-parent situations are exempt, and exceptional waiver/reduction is possible in substantiated cases. Route-based exceptions are listed for permits under Articles 90, 90-A and 121-A; the ordinary D2 Article 89 route is not listed among them.

This point makes many older D2 family guides unreliable for a new 2026 application.

Permanent residence and citizenship

AIMA's current Article 80 guidance says permanent residence can be requested after at least five years holding temporary residence, subject to the other legal conditions, including basic Portuguese.

Portugal's Ministry of Justice now states that the ordinary adult naturalization route based on legal residence generally requires 10 years of legal residence. The older five-year citizenship claim should not be used as a current promise for a new applicant.

D2 entrepreneur application strategy

A practical preparation sequence is:

  1. decide whether the project is ordinary entrepreneurship, an innovation/incubator case, or a high-capital ARI case;
  2. describe the Portuguese investment precisely — nature, value and duration;
  3. document completed investment or funds genuinely available for the planned operation;
  4. prepare a business plan that reconciles with bank, company, contract and operational evidence;
  5. satisfy the separate means-of-subsistence and general consular requirements;
  6. check sector-specific licensing or regulated-activity rules; and
  7. plan the AIMA and renewal evidence before committing to leases, staffing or irreversible expenditure.

Verification note

This route was verified on 14 September 2026 using current gov.pt and Diário da República sources. It is active. No universal fixed D2 entrepreneur investment floor was found in the controlling Article 60/Article 31 framework. This page has not been reviewed by a Portuguese immigration lawyer.

Official and supporting sources

Related routes in Portugal