The nationality law is signed. The path to Portuguese citizenship just doubled.

Good morning, Lisbon. It's Wednesday, 6 May. Twenty-one degrees and sunny. The Concertação Social meets tomorrow, and the citizenship law just changed. Let's get into it.

🌬️ AIR QUALITY: 22 (Good).

🗞️ TOP STORY

THE NATIONALITY LAW IS SIGNED. HERE'S WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU.

On Sunday, President Seguro promulgated the revised Nationality Law. If you are an expat living in Lisbon and thinking about Portuguese citizenship, the rules just changed.

The residency requirement for acquiring nationality has been extended from five years to ten for most nationalities, and from five to seven for citizens of Portuguese-speaking countries and the European Union. Children born in Portugal to immigrant parents now need at least one parent to have been legally resident for five years, up from one year, and the word "legally" matters — informal or undocumented residency no longer counts. The Sephardic Jewish nationality regime, introduced in 2015, has been eliminated. So has the pathway for those born in former Portuguese overseas territories.

The law was approved on 1 April by PSD, Chega, IL, and CDS-PP, with the entire left voting against. Seguro had until 3 May to sign, veto, or refer it to the Constitutional Court. He signed it — while publicly saying he wished it had been "based on greater consensus" and was not marked by "ideological marks of the moment." The PS chose not to submit this version for constitutional review, though the separate Penal Code decree on loss of nationality as a criminal penalty is currently before the Constitutional Court.

If you have already submitted a citizenship application under the old five-year rule, you are widely expected to be processed under the rules in force at the time of your application, though this has not been formally confirmed. If you have been legally resident for five years but have not yet applied, the ground has shifted — you now need ten years, or seven for CPLP/EU nationals. If you arrived recently and were planning around a five-year timeline, your timeline has doubled.

Bottom line: The nationality law is signed. If you are thinking about Portuguese citizenship, your planning horizon just changed, and the cost of waiting went up on Sunday.

⚡ QUICK HITS

Two banks changed hands in one week. Novo Banco's sale to BPCE completed on April 30 for €6.7 billion. Days later, reports emerged that Fosun is considering selling its 20.45% stake in BCP for around €2.7 billion. TAP is being privatised with Air France-KLM leading. EDP has had China Three Gorges as its largest shareholder since 2012. The pattern of Portugal's strategic assets moving into foreign hands is accelerating.

The Concertação Social meets tomorrow. Labour Minister Palma Ramalho has framed it as the final session on Trabalho XXI. The CGTP has already called a general strike for June 3. UGT secretary-general Mário Mourão has not excluded joining but will not decide until after the meeting. Seguro pledged to veto labour legislation without union support — a pledge he did not apply to the nationality law, which raises the question of whether he'll follow through here.

The British School of Lisbon has opened a new campus in Restelo. The expansion adds capacity at a time when demand from relocating families consistently outpaces the supply of English-language school places in central Lisbon.

🍽️ SPOT OF THE DAY

100 MANEIRAS (BAIRRO ALTO)

There are restaurants you go to for the food. There are restaurants you go to for the room. And then there is 100 Maneiras, where you go because a Bosnian war refugee built something in the back streets of Bairro Alto that is genuinely unlike anything else in the city, and the only way to understand it is to sit down and let the story unfold.

Ljubomir Stanisic arrived in Portugal as a teenager, fleeing Sarajevo during the war in the 1990s. He healed, as he has said in interviews, by cooking. In 2009, he opened 100 Maneiras on Rua do Teixeira, a narrow street in Bairro Alto's quieter western flank, and has spent the years since becoming one of Portugal's most famous and most divisive chefs — a television personality, a provocateur, and a cook whose tasting menus are structured as autobiographical journeys through displacement, memory, and the collision between Bosnian and Portuguese kitchens.

The restaurant seats 30 people. The format is tasting menu only, with three options: "The Story" (17 moments), "The Short Story" (11 moments), and "Echoes of 100" (vegetarian). Each course is named, "Feel the Beet," "The Last Supper," "Where There's Smoke, There's Fire", and the service team walks you through the narrative as you eat. The cooking is innovative, provocative, and occasionally confrontational. This is not a restaurant that wants you to be comfortable. It wants you to remember it.

Executive chef Manuel Maldonado runs the kitchen alongside Stanisic, and the wine list is one of the strongest in Lisbon, with more than 500 references and a pairing option for each menu. The cocktails at the bar downstairs, in a room covered in art, are worth arriving early for.

100 Maneiras held a Michelin star from 2021 to 2024 and remains one of the most awarded restaurants in Portugal. From everything you've read so far you're right to think it's not cheap. But the experience, part dinner, part performance, part confession, is one of the most distinctive evenings Lisbon can offer. If you have been here six months and haven't been, this is the nudge.

→ See why this is one of Lisbon's most unforgettable evenings ←

Rua do Teixeira 39, Bairro Alto. Open seven nights a week from 7pm to 1am. Lunch Short Story available Fridays and Saturdays only. Reservations essential: +351 910 918 181 or via TheFork.

Insider tip: If the full tasting menu feels like a big commitment, you can try the Bistro at Largo da Trindade 9 instead. Same kitchen, à la carte, no four-hour time investment. If you like what you taste there, book the full tasting menu. That's how most regulars found their way in.

📅 WHAT'S ON

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See you tomorrow morning.