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My 2-entry D visa is valid for 4 months

I have a SEF (immigration and borders service) appointment for a residence permit, 2 months after the visa starts.
After the SEF appointment, I plan to leave the Schengen area and come back to Portugal on the week (preferably on the day) my D visa expires.

They usually take 3 months to issue residence cards at my SEF office.

Time spent in the Schengen area in the last 180 days as of last week of the visa : Less than 2 months.

I'll have an A4 PT document which is a proof of application for residence permit.

1) Would airline or border agents cause me trouble? My passport isn't liked by the EU and doesn't have visa free access to Schengen area. So, I'm a bit worried.

I think border agents of Schengen area can see that I applied for a residence permit using their system, but I'm not sure.

There are a lot of people who are stuck in Portugal. They can't leave because if they leave their residence permit becomes useless. This is the case because they couldn't renew their residence permit after their current one expired. As a "solution", Portugal gave extensions until end of 2023 for such people but that's only recognized domestically. I know of people who missed funerals because of this problem. As a positive thing I should mention that Portugal doesn't discriminate passports. The guy who missed the funeral was an American. Anyway, my point is I shouldn't trust Portugal to update their system in a timely fashion. This means border agents of Schengen area might not see my residence application on their system because the system relies on the data Portugal enters.

Direct flights to PT are quite rare.

2) Even if border agents are ok with this, can the airline create problems? Not sure what to do about this? Some airlines requested return tickets from me even though the country I was flying to wasn't requesting one from me, and it was visa-free.

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  • I can't find it right now, but didn't you ask exactly the same question just a few days ago?
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Mar 12 at 18:54
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    Can you please spell out the acronyms? For instance what is PT?
    – ZeroTheHero
    Mar 12 at 19:39
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    Portugal @ZeroTheHero
    – Nicolas Formichella
    Mar 12 at 20:03
  • Which airline(s)?
    – Traveller
    Mar 12 at 20:39
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    I think border agents of Schengen area can see that I applied for a residence permit using their system That is definitely not the case. Maybe border guards in Portugal can but not in the whole Schengen area.
    – Relaxed
    Mar 12 at 21:46

1 Answer 1

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Time spent in the Schengen area in the last 180 days as of last week of the visa : Less than 2 months.

Irrelevant in the case of a D visa/Residence Permit, as stays in the issuing country are not counted against the Schengen clock

This means border agents of Schengen area might not see my residence application on their system because the system relies on the data Portugal enters

Until the EES (Entry Exit System) is rolled out later this year or next year, there are no global systems for those purposes.

A non-Portuguese border guard will only rely on what you actually present physically, be it a residence permit, a visa, etc. A Portuguese one may check in some databases for the Residence Permit, but this is not widespread

Direct flights to PT are quite rare.

If this is a possibility, you can transit through Turkey, the UK or the middle-eastern states, they all have direct flights to Lisbon or Porto and have (all but the UK) very lax visa requirements for transit.

can the airline create problems

Of course, they can, but wrongful, denial of boarding, i.e. you did have the correct paperwork, but they still deny you boarding, is, if you are taking an EU airline (Turkish and Emirates for example are out of the question, even though the Turkish civil aviation authority has a similar policy), very expensive for the airline in compensation (EU261, up to €600), so they better not deny you for invalid reasons

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  • +1, a lot of useful info but I am not sure I follow the logic of the transit through Turkey and the like. What does it achieve?
    – Relaxed
    Mar 12 at 21:52
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    I think that the logic of transit through Turkey is so that you can enter the Schengen area in Portugal. OP said that they don't have many direct flights to Portugal. Indirect doesn't have to be via another Schengen state.
    – badjohn
    Mar 12 at 22:02
  • I think you’re quite wrong on the general principle of what Schengen border agents have access to. The EES will finally start recording entries and exits, and will be useful to count stays exceeding the 90/180 limit and other overstays, but border agents have already access to SIS and ViS. However, I don’t think any of those systems (existing or planned) actually has any info about residence permits (though I’m too lazy to check at this time), only regular visas and alerts. So in this case OP needs to have a valid visa.
    – jcaron
    Mar 12 at 22:37

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