The September Briefing
Portugal's new citizenship clock is running without its rulebook; Thailand started a 30-day count; the Netherlands, the UK, and Spain each moved a door. What changed across our nine countries, and what it means for a life in one of them.
Portugal: the new citizenship rules are in force. The manual for applying them is late.
Portugal's new nationality law — Lei Orgânica 1/2026 — took effect on May 19, and it redrew the citizenship timeline for everyone who arrives from now on: seven years of residence for EU and CPLP nationals, ten for everyone else, up from five across the board. Just as consequential, the clock now starts when your residence card is issued — not when you filed the application that led to it. For Americans, months of processing time that used to count no longer do.
The law gave the government ninety days to publish the implementing regulation — the document that defines the new civic-knowledge test, the evidence standards for "effective connection," and how the recalculated clocks get documented. That deadline passed in mid-August with nothing published (confirmed as of August 20). Applications filed since May 19 are being handled without a rulebook, and practitioners report that outcomes are starting to vary by which registry office holds the file.
What it means: if Portugal is your plan, nothing here says don't go — it says document everything. Keep dated proof of every interaction with the registry, calculate your own clock from the card-issuance date, and get the A2 Portuguese certificate now rather than waiting to learn what the test will look like. The rules changed in May; the certainty hasn't caught up yet. We're watching the Diário da República for the regulation and will report the week it lands.
Thailand: the 60-day tourist stay is gone
As of September 15, visa-exempt entry to Thailand is 30 days, down from 60 — confirmed by the Tourism Authority of Thailand. The change touches tourists and the border-run lifestyle built on top of tourist entries. It does not touch the instruments a real move runs on: the DTV, the LTR, retirement extensions, and marriage visas are all unaffected.
What it means: Thailand keeps narrowing the gap between sampling and committing — this is the third tightening of casual-stay routes in two years, while the 10-year LTR sits untouched under its Royal Decree. If your Thailand plan involves "figuring it out on the ground," the ground keeps shrinking. The commitment visas are the plan.
Netherlands: the surrogacy and parentage bill reaches the floor October 12
Bill 36 390 — the Wet kind, draagmoederschap en afstamming — is scheduled for plenary debate in the Tweede Kamer on October 12, after clearing its final committee step on September 9. The bill would create a regulated framework for surrogacy within the Netherlands and, notably for American families, address recognition of parentage from foreign surrogacy arrangements, alongside strengthened rights for children to information about their origins.
What it means: for two-father families formed through US surrogacy and considering the Netherlands, the question that currently lives in case law and legal opinion — does your parentage travel? — could gain statutory footing. Nothing is law until it passes both chambers, and we don't plan around bills. But this one is worth watching by name, and we'll report what the vote actually does.
United Kingdom: earned settlement remains unwritten
The consultation on "earned settlement" — the proposal to double the standard route to settlement from five years to ten — closed in February with over 200,000 responses. As of the latest practitioner briefings (August), the government has published no final policy statement and no impact assessment; implementation, once expected in April, is now spoken of for autumn, and the recent change of Prime Minister adds a variable no one can price. One piece has moved: a new English-language requirement for settlement is already in the rules, effective 2027.
What it means: today's five-year rules remain today's rules, and nobody — including the professionals we corroborate with — can yet tell you what a late-2026 arrival should plan on. If the UK is your answer, the honest posture is to know both arithmetic paths and commit to neither in writing. We'll report the policy statement the week it appears.
Spain: reported deliberations are not a ruling
Spanish press reported on September 5 that a majority of the Constitutional Court, in deliberations, views parts of the 2023 trans law as unconstitutional. No ruling has been published. The law remains in force, the government continues to apply it, and documents issued under it are unchanged.
What it means: exactly what it says — a reported deliberation is not a sentencia. For trans Americans with Spain on the shortlist, nothing about your legal position there changed this month. What this does confirm is that the law is genuinely contested, which is why it sits on our watch list rather than in the settled column. When the Court publishes, we'll read the ruling itself — not the coverage of it — and report what it holds.
On watch
The things that haven't happened yet, which is often the most useful thing to know: France's implementing decree for the CSM health-insurance reform (still unpublished as of mid-September) · Thailand's proposed remittance-tax relief (nothing counts until the Royal Gazette) · Portugal's nationality regulation · The UK's earned-settlement policy statement · The Dutch surrogacy bill's October 12 vote · Spain's Constitutional Court ruling.
The briefing is free, monthly, and covers what changed — not what trended. If you're ready for research on your own household rather than nine countries at once, that's the Abroad Dossier.
Sources: Diário da República (Lei Orgânica 1/2026, May 19, 2026); practitioner analyses of the regulation deadline (August 20, 2026); Tourism Authority of Thailand (September 2026); Tweede Kamer, dossier 36 390 (committee decision September 9, 2026; plenary scheduled October 12, 2026); UK practitioner briefings on earned settlement (July–August 2026); El Debate (September 5, 2026). Research and information, not legal, tax, or immigration advice — where a question needs a licensed professional, we say so and point you to the right one.