The HQA visa, short for Highly Qualified Activity, is a Portuguese residence route for experienced professionals and entrepreneurs who put capital into a research-led venture in partnership with a Portuguese university or research institution. It has become the most asked-about alternative to the Golden Visa, mainly because the entry figure is a fraction of the €500,000 fund route.
It is a different thing from the Golden Visa, and it is not a cheaper version of it. The two routes suit different people. This page sets out what the HQA actually requires, what it costs, how long it takes, and where it sits against the Golden Visa, so you can see quickly whether it is worth a conversation.
What the HQA visa is
Portugal’s immigration framework has long carried a category for highly qualified activity. The HQA programme as it is marketed today is a structured way of using that category: an applicant funds a research and development venture that is incubated with a Portuguese academic institution, and applies for residence on the strength of their role in it.
In February 2023 Empowered Startups was recognised to administer the programme, working with Portuguese research and innovation institutions. That recognition is what turned a technical visa category into a route that non-Portuguese applicants can access in a packaged form.
The applicant is not expected to run a business day to day, and there are no commercial performance targets attached to the residence permit. The venture is structured and administered for immigration purposes. That is the honest description of it.
First, which HQA are we talking about?
The employment pathway. Portugal also grants residence visas to highly qualified professionals taking up senior positions with Portuguese employers, with salary thresholds set against national reference figures. If a Portuguese employer wants you, that is a clean route, but it is a job first and a visa second, and it belongs to a different conversation.
The entrepreneurial HQA programme. This is the one people usually mean, and the one this page covers: you invest in the region of €175,000 into a Portuguese venture that funds a collaborative research project with a Portuguese university, qualifying your activity as highly qualified.
Who it fits
The HQA has a genuine profile requirement, and this is where most enquiries fall away.
You need to be a non-EU national without permanent residence in the EU. You need a background that stands up as highly qualified: a higher education qualification, or a demonstrable senior professional record in a field consistent with the venture. There is a criminal record check in your country of citizenship and in any country where you have held long-term residence.
In practice it fits founders, senior operators, consultants and technical professionals. It does not fit a passive investor who simply wants the cheapest door into Europe, and it does not fit someone who cannot evidence the qualification side.
What it costs
The programme is built around a figure of approximately €175,000 into the research venture. Ask what the figure includes — investment into the venture against total programme cost including fees — and get it in writing.
On top of that sit the costs that apply to any Portuguese residence application: government application and permit fees per family member, legal fees, document legalisation and translation, and your own tax advice. Get the total, in writing, before you commit to any route. A headline number that excludes fees is not a price.
For scale, the Golden Visa fund route currently starts at €500,000, the cultural donation route at €250,000, and €200,000 for qualifying projects in low-density areas — every qualifying route is on the investment options page.
How long it takes
An HQA application is a national visa application made at the Portuguese consulate covering your place of residence, followed by a residence permit application in Portugal.
Structurally it moves through a different queue from the Golden Visa. Golden Visa files sit with AIMA’s investment stream, which has carried a well-documented backlog: submission to biometrics has been running at around twelve months, with people who filed at the end of 2025 being scheduled through the final quarter of 2026.
The HQA does not sit in that queue, which is the substance of the speed argument made for it. Treat any specific month count you read elsewhere as marketing until you have it confirmed for your own consulate and your own file.
The first residence permit is issued for two years. Renewals run for three years at a time.
How much time you have to spend in Portugal
This is the point most often got wrong, and it is the one to be clear on before you choose.
The Golden Visa carries an unusually light physical presence requirement, commonly summarised as seven days a year. The HQA is a national residence visa, and the standard Portuguese residence rules apply to it: you should not be outside Portugal for more than six consecutive months, and not more than eight non-consecutive months across the validity period of the permit, with exemptions available for documented professional reasons.
You will see the seven-day figure quoted on HQA pages elsewhere. Check it against your own permit conditions rather than against a marketing page, including ours.
Separately, spending real time in Portugal has a tax consequence. Portugal treats 183 days in a twelve-month period as the primary test of tax residency, alongside the permanent home test. If the HQA is going to put you in Portugal for a meaningful part of the year, your tax position needs looking at by someone qualified before you apply, not after.
HQA and the Golden Visa side by side
| HQA visa | Golden Visa | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry figure | approx. €175,000 | €500,000 fund route; €250,000 donation; €200,000 low-density |
| What you hold | a stake in an incubated R&D venture | fund units, or a donation with no return |
| Profile test | qualification and senior professional record required | no qualification requirement |
| Time in Portugal | standard residence rules apply (6 consecutive / 8 non-consecutive month absence limits) | approx. 7 days a year |
| Processing queue | consular route, outside the AIMA investment backlog | AIMA investment stream, currently backlogged |
| Capital back | governed by the venture structure — ask the question early | fund route allows exit at the five-year point |
| Route to citizenship | same rules as any Portuguese residence | same rules as any Portuguese residence |
Read the “capital back” line carefully. On the Golden Visa fund route the exit point is defined and understood. On the HQA it depends entirely on how the venture is structured, and it is the question people forget to ask while they are looking at the lower entry figure.
For the direct head-to-head — stay rules, investment types and the 2026 citizenship timeline — see Golden Visa vs HQA: the real difference.
Where citizenship sits after the 2026 law
The nationality law changed on 19 May 2026 under Lei Orgânica n.º 1/2026, published in the Diário da República on 18 May 2026.
The naturalisation clock now runs at ten years for most applicants, and seven years for EU nationals and nationals of Portuguese-speaking (CPLP) countries. The count runs from the issue of the first residence permit. Applications for nationality formally submitted on or before 18 May 2026 continue under the previous five-year regime.
Two things to keep separate, because conflating them is the most common error in this area. Residency and citizenship are different questions. The residence permits themselves were not changed by this law, and the path to permanent residence rights at five years was not changed by it. What moved was the timeline to a passport.
The law applies to Portugal as a whole. It does not single out the Golden Visa, and it does not single out the HQA. Neither route is faster than the other to citizenship.
The law also added a civic knowledge requirement to naturalisation. The implementing regulation setting out how that will be examined has not yet been published, so no test is currently in application. We are watching for it.
HQA holders who genuinely live in Portugal will normally become Portuguese tax residents; here is what IFICI (NHR 2.0) offers in 2026.
Both routes work. Which one is right depends on your profile, your liquidity, how much time you intend to spend in Portugal and what you want the capital to do afterwards. If you would like the two mapped against your own position, book a private consultation and we will go through it.
