Family reunion and SEF appointment

My partner was allowed to remain until 31/12/23 whilst awaiting her application being reviewed.

Don't know if those official timescales have been extended.

The government help centre "CLAIM" in Albufeira were very helpful and knowledgeable and assisted us greatly in our application.

They may know position.

@AA AA55

Just keep trying daily, appointments become available from time to time. They won't be penalized for staying over 90 days while waiting for appointment. My family got their appointments almost 5 months after arriving in Portugal.

@ctomac

Thanks for the reply. Did they also had allowance of 90 daus stay? Didnt sef asked for a valid visa at the moment they had an apoi tment?

I can not find any oficial documents where it says that people can stay as long as they waiting for an appointment to be made even though their Shengen permision to stay expires...

@slugsurmamates

Thank you. The thing is we can even make an apointment, as there are no slots yet..

The appointment I am suggestion is with CLAIM, in our case a walk in rather than an appointment.  They took our details and applied to SEF upon our behalf.  They were able to advise and give us a printouts of official government announcement confirming my partner could remain even though her 3 month Schengen visa was about to expire.  In our case, she could remain until end of this year.

That was a great comfort because we were seriously concerned that breaking the Visa terms would have real consequences.  We could also now travel with a document to show at borders when/if travelling