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Good practice Imported

Portugal's D8 Digital Nomad Visa

Portugal · Lisbon · See the Portugal profile · See the Lisbon profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 76% 57/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Portugal's D8 remote-worker visa, requiring income of 4x minimum wage, issued over 2,600 visas in its first year (Oct 2022–2023) — mostly to US, Brazilian and British nationals — becoming one of Europe's most-used digital-nomad visa schemes.

>2,600
D8 visas issued (first year) (2022-2023)
~22 %
Share of 2023 issuances to US nationals (2023)
Portugal's D8 Digital Nomad Visa

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (SEF) / Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo (AIMA), Government of Portugal
Period
2022–present
Region (NUTS)
PT17
Keywords
Digital nomad visa, remote work, immigration policy, talent attraction

Context

Portugal introduced the D8 ('digital nomad') visa on 30 October 2022 for non-EU/EEA remote workers and freelancers, requiring proof of income of at least four times the national minimum wage plus accommodation and health insurance. It sits alongside the longer-established D7 passive-income visa but targets active remote employees and contractors.

Results

Within its first year, Portuguese immigration data reported by Portugal Resident and SchengenVisaInfo.com showed over 2,600 D8 visas issued, with US, Brazilian and British nationals the largest recipient groups (Americans alone around 22% of issuances in 2023). The scheme continued operating under AIMA (which absorbed SEF's functions in 2023) and remained active into 2026.

Conclusions

The D8 visa's income and paperwork requirements mean it functions as a selective, income-gated pathway rather than a broad-based inclusion measure, and no independent economic-impact evaluation (e.g. tax revenue or local spending generated) was found alongside the issuance counts — the reported evidence covers visa volume, not downstream outcomes.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
Immigration agency staff (SEF, later AIMA) processing visa applications

Conditions for success

  • Clear, verifiable income threshold criteria
  • Continuity of administrative processing through the SEF-to-AIMA transition
  • Complementary positioning alongside the existing D7 visa

Common failure modes

  • Income and paperwork requirements make it a selective, income-gated pathway rather than a broad-based inclusion measure
  • Absence of downstream economic-impact tracking limits ability to assess real public benefit

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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