Portugal Visa Application From the UK: Steps for Britons

A Briton living in the UK applies for a Portuguese residence visa at a VFS Global centre, in person and by appointment, and the application goes to the Portuguese consulate general in London or in Manchester according to where you live. The file includes a UK criminal record certificate and other UK documents that must carry an apostille from the Legalisation Office before the appointment.

This guide covers only the application step from the UK. Which visa fits you, the income tests and the permit that follows are in our guide to residence routes to Portugal for Americans and Britons, and the rights of Britons who moved before 2021 are in moving to Portugal as a British citizen after Brexit. It is a reading of official pages, not legal advice. We read the foreign ministry’s visa portal, the websites of the Portuguese consulates general in London and Manchester, the VFS Global pages for Portugal in the UK, the ACRO Criminal Records Office and GOV.UK on 18 October 2026. The most recent change they state is the London consulate’s notice of 16 October 2026, and this article’s update date refers to it.

Which Portuguese consulate handles your application?

The ministry’s page on where to lodge a long-term visa application sends you to the consular post for your nationality or, if you live in a different country from the one you are a national of, for your country of residence. For the United Kingdom it lists the consulate general in London and the consulate general in Manchester, both with VFS. Its list of external service providers adds that for the United Kingdom the VFS centres are in London, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Within the UK, your place of residence decides. The two consulates publish their areas:

VFS describes the same arrangement: customers residing in the counties under the London consulate can only submit at the London centre, and those under the Manchester consulate submit at Manchester or Edinburgh. The Manchester consulate’s jurisdiction page says that if you live in another area you should contact the London consulate. The pages we read do not say what happens if you live somewhere that neither list names, so write to the consulate that is closest to you before you book.

A Briton living outside the UK looks up their country of residence in the ministry’s list instead. Americans living in the United States apply through the US consular network, which this guide does not cover.

How do you book the appointment?

Every applicant, children and infants included, submits the national visa application in person at the VFS centre, by appointment only, on the appointment date. The booking is made online.

• Where: only through VFS’s online booking portal. VFS’s notice of 6 December 2025 says its contact centre cannot create bookings for customers and does not have real-time information on when slots appear.
• When slots appear (London): the London consulate’s notice of 21 October 2025 says appointments are opened weekly, every Thursday. We did not find a comparable statement for Manchester and Edinburgh.
• How early: VFS says you can submit a national visa application up to 3 months before the intended travel date. It adds that appointments are booked very quickly because the consulate processes a fixed number of national visa applications per day.
• Urgent travel (London): the same notice says that for urgent and essential travel, such as business or work, study, family reunification or health, you can write to visas.cglondres@mne.pt with proof of the essential travel, and the consulate will decide whether to ask VFS for an urgent appointment.
• Questions: the London consulate gives visas.cglondres@mne.pt and the Manchester consulate gives vistos.manchester@mne.pt.

Walk-in days are a new, narrow exception. The London consulate’s notice of 16 October 2026 says that from November 2026 there will be walk-in days at the VFS centre in London, every Wednesday except bank holidays, between 8:30 and 12:30, subject to capacity. They are for family members of Portuguese or EU citizens, family reunification with an AIMA notification, higher education students on a degree program, and short-stay applicants with at least three previous Schengen visas. Work, retirement and remote work applicants are not on that list, so they still book.

What goes in the file?

The documents are those of the ministry’s list for a residence visa, which our residence routes guide explains in full. The general core is:

The ministry says these are the mandatory initial documents and that the consular post may ask for more at its discretion. VFS says the mission may ask for additional documents or invite you to an interview, which can cause delays.

Two more rules from VFS apply to UK documents. All public documents must be legalized, and for documents from the UK, including the ACRO certificate and civil registry documents such as birth and marriage certificates, that means an apostille. Certified translations are required for documents not written in English or Portuguese. VFS does not say that English documents need a translation, and we did not find a page that does.

How do you get the criminal record certificate and apostille?

This is the step that takes longest, so start it first.

The certificate. The ministry asks for a criminal record certificate, and VFS names the ACRO certificate for UK applicants. ACRO describes its Police Certificate as for people who want to emigrate, need a visa to live or work abroad, or want residency in another country. The page gives these facts:

• The fee is 70 pounds for one copy. Extra copies cost 7.75 pounds each if you order them with the application, or 15 pounds each if you order them up to six months after receiving the certificate.
• ACRO says it can take up to 20 working days to process a correctly completed application, not counting postal time, and advises you not to make plans until the certificate has arrived.
• You apply online. You need a recent passport-style photo, colour copies of your passport, an email address, your address history for the last 10 years, details of any impending prosecutions and past convictions, and a card.
• It is sent by post only, and standard postage is included, without a tracking number. An international courier option costs 48 pounds.
• ACRO says it is your responsibility to check with the requesting authority whether a Police Certificate is acceptable, that it cannot refund you if the authority refuses it, and that it sets no validity period because authorities differ, so you should check the validity period with the authority.

The basic DBS check. GOV.UK describes a basic DBS check as available to people working in England and Wales, at 20 pounds, usually processed in about 3 days. The same guidance points to ACRO as the route for people who need a visa to live or work abroad. We found no page saying that Portugal accepts a basic DBS check in place of the ACRO certificate, so do not order one for this purpose without the consulate’s written answer. We also did not read what applies to certificates from Scotland or Northern Ireland, and the Manchester consulate covers both.

The apostille. ACRO says it does not offer an apostille. GOV.UK says the Legalisation Office checks signatures, stamps or seals against its records and attaches an apostille. A UK public document such as a birth or marriage certificate from a registry can be legalised, and so can copies or other documents certified by a UK notary or solicitor. The service also says:

GOV.UK says you cannot get an e-Apostille for ACRO police certificates for England and Wales, DBS certificates, or birth, death, marriage, civil partnership and adoption certificates from the General Register Office, so those need a paper apostille. Courier return to a UK address costs 6 pounds per 1.5 kg, or you can pay for postage instead with an addressed envelope and stamps. GOV.UK also says to ask the person requesting the document whether they need original documents or certified copies and whether each document needs its own apostille, and VFS does not answer that question for the Portuguese side, so ask the consulate.

Taken together, and this is our addition, the processing times the pages give for the ACRO certificate and the standard apostille add up to as many as 45 working days, about nine weeks, before any postal time, so the paperwork alone can take longer than the visa processing. The pages we read do not say how recent a certificate must be when you submit, which is another reason to ask the consulate before ordering.

What does it cost?

VFS says the pound figure for the visa fee follows the current exchange rate and may change without notice, that all fees are non-refundable, that cheques and bank transfers are not accepted, and that cash is not accepted in Manchester and Edinburgh. The ministry lists exemptions from the visa fee for children below 6, descendants of residence permit holders under family reunification, holders of a Portuguese study scholarship, highly qualified research, and certain patients, and none of them is an ordinary adult applicant. Contesting a visa decision costs 75 euros in administrative fees according to the ministry, except for applications that follow a family reunification authorization.

How long does it take, and when should you start?

Three clocks run, and the pages give each one.

• The documents: up to 20 working days for ACRO and, for a standard apostille, usually up to 25 working days, each plus postage.
• The consulate’s decision: the ministry says the deadline for deciding on a resident visa application, except in circumstances stipulated by law, is 60 days. VFS says the minimum processing time is 1 month, that in some cases it could be a minimum of 3 months, and that it gives no guarantee of a return date. From Edinburgh, VFS says to add 2 days, because the file is sent first to the Manchester VFS office.
• The window: you can submit up to 3 months before the intended travel date.

If you must be in Portugal on a given date, VFS advises leaving enough time between the appointment date and the travel date. Our own arithmetic, not a statement of any page: a certificate, an apostille and a 60-day decision can easily fill four to five months, so count backward from the date you want to arrive.

What if you are not a British citizen but live in the UK?

The ministry asks for proof of regular status if your nationality is not that of the country where you apply. VFS spells out what that means in the UK: a non-UK national must provide a UK residence permit, endorsed in the passport, issued as a biometric card, or a digital share code, valid beyond the expiry of the visa applied for. For a residence visa, VFS says the UK permit must be valid for more than 120 days, counted from the day you intend to arrive in Portugal. An American living in the UK falls under this rule. The ministry asks for the criminal record certificate from the country of nationality or from the country where you have lived for over a year, and we did not read which of the two the consulates prefer for a non-Briton, so ask before you order. How a US certificate is obtained is outside this guide.

What happens when the visa is granted?

VFS describes the residence visa as initially valid for 120 days with up to two entries, followed by an appointment with AIMA in Portugal to get the residence permit. The ministry gives the same shape in its own words: two entries, 4 months, and during that time the holder must apply to AIMA for the permit.

On arrival, the order of the first weeks matters. Our guide to the paperwork of your first month in Portugal sets it out, from the AIMA appointment to the tax number.

What changed recently?

Two notices matter for UK applicants. The London consulate’s 16 October 2026 notice announces the Wednesday walk-in days from November 2026 described above, for the listed categories only. Before it, the 21 October 2025 notice made VFS the channel for all Portuguese visa applications from London, Schengen and national. GOV.UK’s basic DBS guidance was last updated on 5 October 2026, when its fee was reduced to 20 pounds, which affects the cost of a basic check but not the ACRO certificate. The ministry’s own fee and deadline pages carry no date.

What we did not find

The ministry’s pages on document authentication and travel insurance are empty on the day we read them, so this guide does not rely on them. We could not open VFS’s pages on photo specifications and on the London centre’s address as text. No page gave a validity period for the criminal record certificate on the Portuguese side, or said whether a basic DBS check is accepted. If a consulate answer differs from this guide, follow the consulate.

Related guides: applying for the Portuguese national visa from the United States, D7 or D8, which fits you and the student visa.

Official pages read for this guide, all on 18 October 2026: the ministry’s visa portal pages on where to lodge an application, the residency documents, types of visa, deadlines, fees and external service providers; the visa, jurisdiction and news pages of the consulates general in London and Manchester; the national visa and online booking pages of VFS Global for Portugal in the UK; ACRO’s Police Certificate page; and the GOV.UK guidance on basic DBS checks and on getting a document legalised.