You've decided to move to Portugal. Here's how to do it right.
From a family who did it on a D7 with three kids under five — the paperwork, the money, the hospital, and the part nobody warns you about.
Who it's for
You've already decided
This isn't a pitch for Portugal. Portugal doesn't need more people talked into it. If you're still weighing it up, read module 00 — it's free, and it argues the other side.
You're moving with kids
Crèche waitlists, school choices, giving birth in the public system, the paperwork each child needs of their own. The parts most guides skip because most guides were written by people who moved alone.
You'd rather not pay €5,000 for an agency
We used one. They were excellent, and they were expensive. This is the same road map, written down, for the price of a nice dinner.
What's inside
- The Timeline
- Around forty tasks, counted backward from the month you want to land, filtered to your visa path and your family. FBI check and apostilles, NIF, bank account, consulate appointment, utente number, the licence swap. Each one says why it matters and when it has to happen. Tick them off as you go.
- The Walkthroughs
- Nine modules on the decisions rather than the forms: choosing where, the D7 in practice, money before you land, taxes, buying versus renting, arriving with small children, finding your people, and what's worth paying someone else to do. Every page carries the date it was last checked.
- The Vault
- The templates and trackers — the document checklist, the cover letter, the budget model, the questions to ask a cross-border accountant. Being written now, and yours as they land.
Why us
We moved to Portugal in the middle of a pandemic, on a D7 visa, when I was six months pregnant with our first daughter.
We bought a house we'd only seen in photos. We landed in Braga, in the north, and spent three years there. We had our first daughter in the Portuguese public system, then twins. We learned that the first place you pick isn't always the right one — and that's fine. Then we moved south to Ericeira, where we found the community we'd been looking for, and where family actually wants to visit.
Along the way we hired a lawyer, a relocation agency, and an accountant. The agency was excellent. It was also expensive. This is the option we wish had existed: the whole move, step by step, with the checklists and the honest parts — what the paperwork really involves, what a family actually spends, what the hospital is like, how to think about taxes before you land, and how to choose where to live so you don't have to do it twice.
We've never once regretted the decision. But we'd have done it faster, cheaper, and with fewer 3 a.m. Google spirals if someone had handed us this.
[Danya — your real founder copy goes here. This is drawn from your notes as a stand-in.]
One price, everything in it
Founding price
- The full personalized timeline, filtered to your family
- All nine walkthrough modules
- The Vault, including everything added later
- Lifetime access — no subscription
10% of every sale goes to Just a Change, renovating homes for Portuguese families in need
Questions
- Is this legal or immigration advice?
- No. It's what one family did, written down carefully, with links to the official sources for every step. For the D7 itself the consulate's page is the authority; for tax, get a US–Portugal accountant. We say so throughout.
- We're on the Digital Nomad visa, not the D7. Is this still for us?
- Yes. The timeline filters by path — you'll see the D8 income requirements instead of the D7 ones, and the ninety percent of the process that's identical either way.
- How current is it?
- Every walkthrough shows the date it was last verified, at the top of the page. The process has already changed since we went through it — the consulate appointment works differently now — and we'd rather show you the date than pretend it's timeless.
- What if we don't have kids?
- The kid-specific tasks drop out of your plan automatically. You'll get a shorter timeline and the modules that still apply.
- Do we get updates after we buy?
- Yes. One price, and the Vault and walkthroughs keep growing. You're buying the thing as it becomes complete, at the price it costs before it is.