Migrant children now qualify to become Portuguese citizens if their parents have held residence permits in the country for one year. The children must have been born in Portugal, and their parents have to express the wish to nationality acquisition on behalf of the children. Until now the Nationality Law, originally from 1981 and later amended in 2018, set the residence requirement at two years.

This change comes after the left-wing parties with a seat in the Portuguese parliament - the Socialist Party, the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), the Left Block and the greens, as well as the Party of Animals and Nature (PAN) - approved on 23 July an amendment to the Nationality Law. The approval was made by electronic vote, with 144 votes (63.4%) in favour, 82 votes against, and one abstention.

The amendments were discussed within a Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Affairs working group EWSI previously reported on, coordinated by former minister and Member of Parliament Constança Urbano de Sousa. She noted that the reduction in the residence requirement period from two to one years was justified as '[the one-year period] is the temporal criterion used by the United Nations and the European Union to distinguish immigration from other movements of people or tourists, people on business visits or short stays.'

In 2019, Portugal granted a record number of citizenships - read more here.