Every Portugal Visa Site Says the D7 Rises to €970 in January. Nobody Has Signed That Into Law.

If you have been researching a move to Portugal this month you will have read that the D7 income requirement rises to €970 in January.

It might. It has not been signed.

The number comes from the Acordo Tripartido sobre Valorização Salarial e Crescimento Económico 2025-2028, an agreement between the Portuguese government and the social partners signed in October 2024. It sets out a path for the national minimum wage: €870 in 2025, €920 in 2026, €970 in 2027, €1,020 in 2028.

An agreement is not a law. Article 273 of the Portuguese Labour Code requires the guaranteed minimum monthly wage to be set each year by its own legislation, after the standing social concertation commission has been heard. In practice that means a decreto-lei published in the Diário da República, and for 2027 that has not happened yet. Until it does, the legal figure on the mainland is €920, set by Decreto-Lei n.º 139/2025 and in force since 1 January 2026.

Why a wage figure decides your visa

Because both routes are pegged to it rather than written as a fixed euro amount.

The D7, the passive income route most retirees use, asks the main applicant to show income at the level of the national minimum wage. Reported practice adds 50% for an accompanying adult and 30% for each dependent child.

The D8, the digital nomad route, asks for four times the minimum wage.

So at today's legal figure:

• D7, single applicant: €920 a month
• D7, couple: €920 plus 50%, so €1,380 a month
• D7, couple with one child: add 30% again, so €1,656 a month
• D8: €3,680 a month

And if the €970 decree is published as the agreement anticipates:

• D7, single applicant: €970
• D7, couple: €1,455
• D7, couple with one child: €1,746
• D8: €3,880

That is €50 a month on the D7 and €200 a month on the D8. Trivial if you are comfortably clear. Decisive if you are not.

Who this actually matters to

If your passive income is €1,100 a month and you are applying alone, nothing here changes your answer. You clear either figure.

If you are a couple showing €1,400 a month, you clear €1,380 today and you fall €55 short of €1,455. If you are a remote worker on €3,750 a month, you clear €3,680 today and you fall €130 short of €3,880.

Those are the people for whom the difference between an agreement and a decree is the difference between a yes and a no.

The timing, which almost nobody writes about

Here is the part worth knowing.

Last year's decree was published around 29 December, for a figure that applied from 1 January. Two days.

So the sequence you are dealing with is: a widely reported number that is not yet law, followed by a long quiet period, followed by confirmation a couple of days before it takes effect. If you are near the line, you cannot plan around the confirmation, because it arrives too late to act on.

What you can do is know which figure applies to your application and when. Consulates assess against the requirement in force when they assess. If you are close to the threshold and your documents are ready, the calendar is not a detail, it is the decision.

What we are not telling you

We are not telling you the 2027 figure will be €970, because it has not been legislated. The agreement is a trajectory and trajectories get revised. There has been public discussion in Portugal about going further and faster than the agreed path, which cuts both ways for anyone planning around a specific number.

We are also not giving you a figure for Madeira or the Azores. The autonomous regions set their own minimum wage and it is typically higher than the mainland's. If you are planning a move to Funchal or Ponta Delgada, that is a separate number and you should ask for it specifically rather than assuming the mainland figure applies.

What to do

Work out which side of the line you are on, at €920 and at €970, including the dependent uplifts if anyone is coming with you.

If you are comfortably clear of both, this is noise. Ignore it.

If you sit between the two figures, the timing of your application is the most important variable in your file, and it is worth a conversation with the consulate handling your case rather than a forum.

Watch the Diário da República in late December, not the relocation blogs in September. The blogs are quoting an agreement. The Diário publishes the law.

And check the figure in force on the day you apply, not the one you read when you started planning. That gap, between a number being announced and a number being in force, is where most expensive relocation mistakes actually happen.

We wrote about the same mechanism in Mexico last month, where the residency threshold is a multiple of an index that resets every February and the consulates' own dollar estimates lag it. Different country, identical trap.

Our Portugal country guide and Portugal visa guide carry the current figures with the instrument named beside each one and the date we last read it. If you want your own numbers checked against the rules as they actually stand, that is what a Personal Relocation Assessment is for.

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ExpatLife.ai researches relocation and visa routes against primary sources. We are not immigration lawyers and this is not legal advice. The current minimum wage and its governing decree are matters of published Portuguese law. The multipliers applied to the D7 and D8 are as reported by immigration practices and relocation firms, not quoted from statute, and consular practice varies. Confirm your own figures with the consulate handling your application.

Research and drafting assistance: Claude (Anthropic). The €920 figure, Decreto-Lei n.º 139/2025, Article 273 of the Labour Code and the unlegislated status of the 2027 figure were verified against Portuguese sources. Editing and final responsibility: ExpatLife Editorial Team, 17 September 2026.