Other visa programs for foreigners with means remain intact.
Amelia Guertin has been in the country on and off for the last year, living on a tourist visa while she applies for a long-term one. She arrived in Portugal after living in Hawaii, San Francisco and New York City, cities that felt “wildly unaffordable,” she said. Immediately, she knew she wanted to settle in a place that felt cosmopolitan, but also laid back.
Earlier this year, she hunched over a laptop with her architect, Hannah Reusser, at Rove, a Lisbon bar with plush velvet sofas, exposed ductwork and moody lighting. Ms. Guertin, 31, had already started demolition on a small house she bought last October for €320,000 in Aroeira, a seaside town south of Lisbon, where she can surf.
Ms. Reusser discussed making the three-bedroom, two-bath space more functional, suggesting she rearrange the kitchen and living room. Ms. Guertin, the chief operating officer for a British tech start-up, pushed Ms. Reusser on the deadline. Was June realistic? Ms. Reusser worried it was too ambitious, given pandemic delays and material shortages.
An hour later, Ms. Guertin rushed down cobblestone streets, heading to her Portuguese language lesson a few blocks away, worrying about the schedule. “In Portugal, you have to have a lot of patience,” said Ms. Guertin. “It feels disorganized, but I have confidence that it’s going to get done.”
At Da Noi, a tiny restaurant in central Lisbon, diners squeezed into tables and those who had come for drinks spilled out onto the street, talking in English, German and French. Mixing an Aperol spritz behind the bar was Simāo Martins, 22, an economics student at the University of Lisbon. He works full time, but lives at home with his mother, just like his friends.
