The longest part of the process was getting the FBI records check, which took a little over 2 months. After you have that, the visa takes about 6 weeks and you can move to Portugal. The permit doesn't take any time. You just have to go in and apply and they mail it to you. If you were to start today, you could be in Portugal in 4-5 months. Then you could get your permit a month or two after you get there (You need to get your documents in order first, such as having a PT bank account with your money in it.)

You have to show you have enough income to live for a year. I think it's good to give them the impression that you are wealthy and are just coming to live and spend money. I know that's the impression my lawyer gave them. But if you have $30K USD in the bank, it's probaby enough.

Disclaimer: Dealing with Portuguese beaurocracy can be maddening at times and they are constantly changing regulations and protocols. Don't trust anything you read on the internet, even from official web sites. It also depends who happens to be working at your window at the immigration office. They are not used to getting applications like ours. They are used to dealing with people who either have work or are looking for it. It's not likely, but possible, that you could get the visa and then be denied the permit once you get here. Most of the people that I dealt with along the way were very reasonable.

From what I have read on the internet for non-EU residents you have to apply for the visa outside of Portugal. Is that still true? Also, do you know if you can apply at a third country embassy? For example, could an American apply at the Portuguese embassy in Mexico City or would they have to do it in DC?

I'm sure you have to go through the embassy in DC. It's all done through the mail though, so I don't know if it matters if you're not physically in the U.S. I really can't answer that. Dina Silva at the D.C. consulate was pretty helpful with questions if you want to email her. Her info is on their web site.

Any good sites to find real estate?

Thought I'd contribute my little bit as I'm also a foreigner (from the EU though) living in central Portugal for over 4 years now. Generally I agree with most of what has been said but they are a few things which I've seen which are either totally wrong or in some cases I'd at least raise one eyebrow to.

Firstly thanks to D33P for offering his time to do this in the first place. I never realised there were so many places to play. I've only been to some of the main casinos in Portugal myself. As far as I can tell the big problem with playing live poker here is the games start so late. In Estoril the cash games don't start until after 9 p.m. and usually they have only 1 table of €5/10 NL Hold'em. In Espinho (South of Porto) the cash games start even later and it's a €2/5 game - occasionally they can have 2 tables here.

So for me live cash game poker isn't great here - afaik if you want to play during the day time at a casino you need to go over the border to Spain. I know for instance that the games start at Madrid around 4 p.m. and go on till the early hours of the morning. If there's a casino or poker club in Portugal like this I haven't heard of it but I'd love to be proved wrong.

I'd agree that internet here is pretty good. Though in my case my house is actually a little isolated and I can't get a telephone line so I'm using 3G for my internet, fortunately I have an excellent 3G connection.

Absolutely true. If you like tournaments there's plenty going on.
Here's a schedule for 2012 http://pokerpt.com/calendario-torneios-ao-vivo.html that has still to be further updated as it's missing 12 events form the Solverde Poker Season, also many people from the north of Portugal go over the border to Casino La Toja in Galicia for their tournaments.

Yip basically anywhere away from Lisbon or even more so the Algarve, which is the most expensive part of Portugal the cost of living gets a lot cheaper. Though now with all the extra tolls on the road due to the economic crisis if you want to drive any significant distance it can get quiet costly.

I'd raise an eyebrow to this . As someone who can knows quite a lot of Portuguese I struggle when chatting to a Brazilian - it might be the same language but the accent, intonation and pronounciation are very different. So someone say from the USA who has been thought Brazilian Portuguese and is at conversation level I think likewise will struggle initially with Luso Portuguese.

You are spot on with everything you say but I don't know where you got that temperature information from. Average daily high in the shade during the summer here in central Portugal (I'm just 10 km from the geographic centre of Portugal btw) is 26 degrees C and that's just the average daily high. It's often above 30 degrees during the summer and occasionally though not often hits 40. It's true it rarely drops below 0 but it can happen, especially during a colder winter like the previous 2 years, at night time it was dropping below zero quite a bit then, this year that's not the case.

One point to note though that the temperature even in summer time can drop a lot at night time. So in this fairly mild winter that we're having where it's getting around 14 to 16 degrees, for instance it's a max of 14 where I live today but it's forecasted to drop to 3 tonight. Similarly in the summer time you could have a scorcher of a day but later on in the evening you can get chilly in just a t-shirt.

If nice weather is what you're after then the Algarve (the least Portuguese part of Portugal btw!) has imo the best weather it's got the mildest winters and since you're near the coast normally the summers are not overly hot. The next region up from the algarve the Alentejo however can get some real extremes of temperature.

I'd agree with most of what sly caveat says - I realise taste in womenz is a personal thing and while there are some good looking women in Lisbon - as a generalisation I'd have to disagree with them being phenomenal. Try Hungary for phenom womenz! (I'm not Hungarian btw)

Defo agree with the language thing too, to fully enjoy life there you're going to have to learn the lingo - not an easy language either imo but good luck and persist with it - and if you can find yourself one of those phenom Portuguese women then that should help a lot .

Also I'm attached but I really get the impression that Portuguese are very much into things Portuguese and that goes for relationships too. I don't get the impression that Portuguese women are going to be overly inclined to get involved in a serious relationship with a foreigner, of course there's always going to be exceptions and I guess you'd have a better chance in a more cosmopolitan area such as Lisbon, though tbh I wouldn't be surprised if you have more joy with other foreigners there

http://www.remax.pt/

http://casa.sapo.pt/Imoveis.aspx

http://www.century21.pt/

http://www.era.pt/pg_home.aspx?lang=pt

start here.

My comment on Portuguese women being phenomenal was made after my first week here. I was staying in Saldanha and there must have been a modeling convention in town because I have never seen so many beautiful women in one week in my life. It has definitely regressed to the mean since then. There are some beauties here, but no more than anywhere else I guess.

Nice first week then .

Maybe you still had your tourist hat on also - things (such as women) almost always seem better in a place when you're on vacation there rather than living there.

Are you still in Portugal then?
I'm going doing much more of the live tourney circuit this year so if you plan on playing any of these I might see you around. There's quite a few events happenign this month in the Lisbon region alone - though I have played against you a few times so not sure if I want you playing in the same live events

Yes, I've relocated here so will be here awhile. What are some of the live events going on? I'm sure others following this thread would like to know as well.

www.pokerpt.com is the best place to check afaik for what's happening in the Portuguese poker scene.

Here's a list of what's happening in Portugal this year http://pokerpt.com/calendario-torneios-ao-vivo.html

another portuguese sound for you guys to enjoy.

orelha negra: a cura

Do they have short term stay apartments at a reasonable price (around €300 a month) for 3-4 months, with internet and access to a pool? I would like to check it out for a short stint.

What part of Portugal? If you're talking about Lisbon, you will be able to find a cheap place like that, but it's going to be old and not baller at all. Probably no central air or heat and very doubtful it will have internet. You can forget about the pool. Even the nice apartment buildings don't have a pool. When I was looking for a place I don't think I looked at one that had a pool.

If you are looking in a more beachy touristy area, then you are going to have more short-term oriented rentals with a pool and internet. You're probably looking at paying that price for a weekly rental though, not a month. No idea about other cities like Porto or Coimbra.

i dont care about area, just the above requirements, thanks for your answer!

That is from another thread. Is that true?