Portugal 2026, Can You Lose Portuguese Citizenship for Criminal Offences? Analysis of the Penal Code Amendment, Acórdão 409/2026 and Defence Options

The question of loss of nationality in Portugal has moved from academic debate to constitutional crisis in a matter of months. In April 2026, the Portuguese Parliament approved Decreto n.º 49/XVII, a Penal Code amendment that would allow courts to strip citizenship from naturalised dual nationals convicted of serious crimes. The Constitutional Court responded in May 2026 with Acórdão 409/2026, declaring key provisions of the amendment unconstitutional. This article provides a comprehensive, defence-focused analysis of what happened, what the ruling means in practice, and what dual nationals, defence lawyers and affected individuals should do now.

Executive Summary, Short Answer and Immediate Steps

Can Portugal strip or deprive someone of Portuguese citizenship for criminal convictions? As of May 2026, the answer is: not under the provisions Parliament attempted to introduce. The Constitutional Court’s Acórdão 409/2026 struck down the core loss-of-nationality provisions in Decreto n.º 49/XVII, finding them incompatible with constitutional guarantees of proportionality, equality and protection against statelessness. However, the political will behind the legislation has not disappeared, and Parliament has signalled its intention to revisit the matter.

For anyone affected, whether facing prosecution, already convicted, or simply holding dual nationality and concerned about future risk, the following immediate steps are critical:

• Seek specialist criminal defence counsel immediately. The constitutional landscape is shifting rapidly. An experienced lawyer can assess individual exposure and advise on protective strategies.
• Preserve all nationality and residency documentation. Gather certificates of nationality, naturalisation records, proof of residency duration, and any evidence of ties to Portugal.
• Monitor legislative developments. Parliament may introduce revised provisions designed to survive constitutional scrutiny. Early awareness is essential for timely defence preparation.
• Consider precautionary applications. In cases where prosecution is pending or anticipated, explore whether interlocutory protective measures can be sought to prevent any interim application of loss-of-nationality sanctions.

Background: Loss of Nationality in Portugal, Law and Historical Context

Key Statutes and Constitutional Principles

The foundation of Portuguese nationality law is Law No. 37/81, first published on 3 October 1981 in the Diário da República. This statute establishes the rules for acquisition, loss and reacquisition of Portuguese nationality. Under the original framework, loss of citizenship in Portugal was limited to a single, voluntary mechanism: a declaration of renunciation by a person who already holds another nationality. Involuntary deprivation of nationality was not part of the Portuguese legal tradition.

The Portuguese Constitution reinforces this position. Article 26 protects the right to personal identity, and nationality is understood as an integral component of that right. The constitutional framework also incorporates international obligations, including the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness and the 1997 European Convention on Nationality, both of which impose strict limits on the circumstances in which a state may deprive a person of citizenship.

Past Practice and Precedent

Portuguese courts have historically treated nationality as a consolidated status. Under prior jurisprudence, including the Constitutional Court’s reasoning in earlier decisions such as Summary 106/2016, the principle of consolidation means that once nationality has been held for a defined period and exercised in good faith, the state’s power to interfere with it is severely constrained. The Court has drawn clear red lines around attempts to deny the consolidation of nationality even where third-party fraud was involved in the original acquisition process.

This background is essential context for understanding why the 2026 penal code amendment Portugal was so controversial. The legislative attempt to introduce deprivation of nationality as a criminal sanction represented a fundamental departure from decades of Portuguese legal culture, constitutional practice and international commitment. Before Decreto n.º 49/XVII, no mechanism existed under Portuguese criminal law for a court to order the loss of citizenship as a consequence of criminal conviction.

What Decreto n.º 49/XVII Proposed, The Penal Code Amendment

Which crimes did the 2026 Penal Code amendment target as grounds for loss of nationality? Decreto n.º 49/XVII, sponsored by PSD and CDS-PP and approved in Parliament on 2 April 2026, sought to add loss of nationality as an accessory penalty (pena acessória) within the Portuguese Penal Code. The amendment would have permitted, and in some formulations, required, criminal courts to order the deprivation of nationality Portugal alongside the primary prison sentence for a defined catalogue of serious offences.

The legislative mechanism operated through several cumulative conditions. All of the following had to be met before a court could order loss of nationality:

• Conviction for a serious crime carrying an effective prison sentence of at least four years.
• The crime was committed within ten years of the individual acquiring Portuguese nationality.
• The individual held dual nationality, the provision could only apply to persons who would not be rendered stateless by the deprivation.

Which Offences Were Targeted

The catalogue of qualifying offences was expansive. The original bill proposed by PSD and CDS-PP included the following categories, with CHEGA successfully securing the addition of criminal association offences during parliamentary debate:

The amendment also introduced reacquisition timebars: individuals who lost nationality under these provisions could reapply between 10 and 25 years after a final conviction, depending on the severity of the offence. This graded rehabilitation framework was unprecedented in Portuguese law and drew immediate criticism from constitutional scholars who argued it created an impermissible secondary punishment layered onto an already punitive regime.

Critically, the provision applied only to persons who had acquired nationality through naturalisation or other derivative modes, not to persons born Portuguese. This distinction between naturalised and original citizens became one of the central constitutional battlegrounds.

Acórdão 409/2026, What the Constitutional Court Decided

What did the Constitutional Court decide in Acórdão 409/2026 and why was the loss-of-nationality penalty struck down? The Tribunal Constitucional delivered Acórdão 409/2026 in May 2026, in response to a referral challenging the constitutionality of Decreto n.º 49/XVII. The Court declared the core provisions introducing loss of nationality as a criminal accessory penalty to be unconstitutional, preventing them from entering into force.

This was the second time the Constitutional Court had intervened on this legislative initiative. In December 2025, the Court had already rejected an earlier version of the amendment, declaring four provisions unconstitutional and directing the legislature to revise its approach. Parliament’s decision to approve a substantively similar bill in April 2026, characterised by some commentators as defiance of the Court’s guidance, set the stage for the May 2026 ruling.

The Court’s reasoning in Acórdão 409/2026 rested on several interconnected constitutional grounds:

• Proportionality. The Court found that deprivation of nationality as a criminal penalty was disproportionate to the legitimate aim of protecting public safety. Nationality is a foundational legal status, and its removal carries consequences far beyond the criminal justice sphere, affecting residency rights, family life, access to social services, freedom of movement within the EU, and political participation. The severity of these collateral effects exceeded what could be justified by any penal objective.
• Equality. By targeting only naturalised citizens and not those born Portuguese, the amendment created a constitutionally impermissible distinction between two classes of nationals. The Court held that once nationality is acquired, the Constitution mandates equal treatment. A naturalised citizen convicted of murder cannot, consistent with equality principles, face a sanction, loss of nationality, that a born citizen convicted of the identical offence would never face.
• Protection against statelessness. While the amendment included a safeguard requiring dual nationality, the Court expressed concern about the practical reliability of this protection, noting that a person’s nationality status in another state may be uncertain, contested, or subject to change after the Portuguese proceedings.
• Consolidation of nationality. Building on its December 2025 reasoning, the Court reaffirmed that nationality consolidates over time. A ten-year window for potential deprivation created ongoing legal uncertainty incompatible with the constitutional right to a stable legal identity.

Practical Reading for Courts and Prosecutors

The immediate legal effect of Acórdão 409/2026 is that the struck provisions cannot enter into force. Courts may not apply loss of nationality as an accessory penalty under the terms proposed in Decreto n.º 49/XVII. For prosecutors, this means that indictments and sentencing submissions must not include requests for deprivation of nationality based on the invalidated provisions.

Industry observers expect that the ruling carries prospective effect, it prevents the provisions from ever becoming operative law, rather than retroactively unwinding any prior action, since the provisions never took effect in the first place. However, the practical question for defence counsel is whether any pending proceedings initiated between the parliamentary approval in April 2026 and the TC’s decision may have included references to the anticipated penalty. If so, those references should be challenged and struck from the record.

The decision does not preclude Parliament from attempting a further iteration. Early indications suggest that the political coalition behind the amendment intends to explore narrower formulations that might survive constitutional review. Defence practitioners should treat Acórdão 409/2026 as a powerful precedent but not as a permanent closure of the legislative pathway.

Who Is at Risk? Dual Nationals, Naturalised Citizens and Others

The loss of nationality provisions in Decreto n.º 49/XVII were designed to apply exclusively to persons who acquired Portuguese citizenship through naturalisation, declaration, or other non-original modes, and who simultaneously held at least one other nationality. Persons born Portuguese were not within the amendment’s scope, regardless of whether they also held dual nationality.

This targeting created a distinct risk profile. Dual nationals who had naturalised within the previous ten years and who faced prosecution for any of the qualifying offences were the primary population at risk. The likely practical effect, had the provisions survived constitutional review, would have been to create a chilling environment for naturalised citizens, particularly those from non-EU countries of origin, who would have faced the existential threat of losing their Portuguese nationality on top of any criminal sentence.

Example Scenarios

• Scenario A: Recently naturalised dual national. A Brazilian-Portuguese dual national who acquired Portuguese citizenship in 2022 is charged in 2026 with human trafficking. Under the struck-down amendment, this individual would have fallen squarely within the ten-year window and the qualifying offence catalogue. Following Acórdão 409/2026, loss of nationality cannot be imposed.
• Scenario B: Long-established naturalised citizen. A Moroccan-Portuguese dual national naturalised in 2010 faces prosecution for criminal association linked to arms trafficking in 2026. The sixteen-year gap since acquisition would have placed this individual outside the ten-year temporal window even under the original bill. However, if Parliament legislates a wider timeframe in future iterations, this person could be affected.
• Scenario C: Born Portuguese with dual nationality. A person born in Portugal who also holds Cape Verdean nationality through parentage is convicted of a qualifying offence. Under Decreto n.º 49/XVII as drafted, this individual was categorically excluded from the loss-of-nationality penalty, regardless of the offence. The constitutional equality reasoning in Acórdão 409/2026 reinforces this distinction as constitutionally required.

Defence Playbook, Procedural and Constitutional Remedies for Loss of Nationality

What defence strategies and remedies are available to dual nationals at risk of losing Portuguese citizenship? Although Acórdão 409/2026 has neutralised the immediate threat, defence against loss of nationality requires ongoing vigilance. Future legislative attempts are probable, and the constitutional principles established by the TC provide the foundation for any defence strategy.

Pre-trial and trial stage:

• Challenge applicability at the earliest opportunity. If a future version of the law enters into force and loss of nationality appears as a potential accessory penalty, defence counsel should file preliminary objections challenging the provision’s constitutionality. Cite Acórdão 409/2026 directly for its holdings on proportionality and equality.
• Raise a concrete constitutional review request. Under Portuguese procedural law, any party to proceedings may request that the trial court refer a question of constitutionality to the Tribunal Constitucional (fiscalização concreta). This mechanism allows a constitutional challenge to be raised in the context of specific criminal proceedings.
• Build the factual record on nationality and ties. Prepare evidence demonstrating the depth of the defendant’s connection to Portugal, duration of residence, family ties, employment, community involvement, children in Portuguese schools. This evidence is relevant both to the proportionality assessment and to any future sentencing discretion.

After conviction:

• Appeal the accessory penalty separately. If loss of nationality is imposed at trial, appeal the accessory penalty on constitutional grounds to the Tribunal da Relação and, if necessary, to the Supremo Tribunal de Justiça.
• Seek interlocutory protective measures. Apply for suspension of the accessory penalty pending appeal. Argue that the irreversible nature of nationality loss, and the cascading consequences for residency, family life and EU rights, justifies interim protection.
• Petition the Tribunal Constitucional. If appellate courts uphold the penalty, bring a constitutional complaint. Acórdão 409/2026 establishes clear precedent, and any substantially similar provision would face the same scrutiny.
• Explore European Convention on Human Rights routes. If domestic remedies are exhausted, file an application with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) under Article 8 (right to private and family life) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination). The discriminatory treatment of naturalised versus born citizens is a strong basis for an Article 14 claim.
• Consider CJEU preliminary reference. Where EU law is engaged, for instance, where loss of nationality would simultaneously extinguish EU citizenship, argue that the trial or appellate court should make a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union under Article 267 TFEU. The CJEU’s jurisprudence on loss of EU citizenship (notably the Rottmann and Tjebbes line of cases) requires a proportionality assessment.

Administrative remedies:

• Reacquisition applications. If nationality is lost (under any future operative provision), initiate reacquisition proceedings under Law No. 37/81 at the earliest permissible date. The statutory framework provides for reacquisition through declaration, subject to conditions.
• Rehabilitation petitions. Explore whether criminal rehabilitation mechanisms can accelerate eligibility for reacquisition, particularly where the sentence has been fully served and the individual demonstrates reintegration.

Tactical Checklist for Defence Lawyers

• Confirm the client’s full nationality status (all nationalities held, dates of acquisition, risk of statelessness)
• Calculate the temporal window from date of nationality acquisition to date of alleged offence
• Identify whether the charged offence falls within the qualifying catalogue
• File preliminary constitutional objections before trial on the merits
• Prepare a proportionality dossier (family ties, residency duration, children, employment, community integration)
• Secure copies of all nationality and naturalisation documents
• Draft interlocutory suspension applications in advance of any sentencing hearing
• Identify and retain ECtHR and CJEU specialists for potential escalation
• Monitor parliamentary proceedings for new legislative proposals
• Coordinate with civil liberties NGOs for strategic litigation support

Comparative and EU/Human-Rights Implications of Loss of Nationality

Portugal is not alone in grappling with the intersection of citizenship and criminal offences. Several EU Member States have provisions permitting deprivation of nationality in limited circumstances, though approaches vary significantly. France permits denationalisation of persons who acquired French nationality within the preceding ten or fifteen years in cases of terrorism-related convictions. The United Kingdom, since the British Nationality Act 1981 as amended, allows the Secretary of State to deprive a person of citizenship if conducive to the public good, provided the person would not be rendered stateless. These comparators demonstrate that while the concept is not unique, the constitutional limits differ by jurisdiction.

The EU dimension is particularly significant for Portugal. Loss of Portuguese nationality simultaneously extinguishes EU citizenship and all associated rights, free movement, residence across 27 Member States, consular protection, and the right to vote in European Parliament elections. The CJEU has held that Member States must exercise their competence over nationality matters with due regard for EU law, and any deprivation of nationality that results in loss of EU citizenship must satisfy a proportionality test. This EU-law overlay creates an additional layer of protection that defence counsel should invoke in any proceedings involving a dual national who holds no other EU nationality.

At the ECtHR level, Article 8 of the European Convention protects the right to private and family life, and Article 14 prohibits discrimination. A law that subjects naturalised citizens to a penalty that born citizens can never face raises serious discrimination concerns. Early indications suggest that human-rights organisations are closely monitoring Portugal’s legislative trajectory and may support strategic litigation if a new version of the law is enacted.

Practical Next Steps for Affected Individuals

For dual nationals in Portugal who are concerned about their legal position, immediate practical action is advisable even though the current legislative threat has been neutralised by Acórdão 409/2026:

• Gather and secure all documentation relating to your nationality acquisition, the naturalisation certificate, proof of the application date, and any correspondence with the Conservatória dos Registos Centrais.
• Obtain a current certificate of nationality from Portuguese authorities to confirm your status on the record.
• Verify your nationality status in your country of origin. Confirm that your second nationality remains valid and that you have not inadvertently lost it through renunciation or the passage of time.
• Consult a specialist criminal defence lawyer with experience in constitutional law and international human rights. The Portugal lawyer directory maintained by Global Law Experts lists qualified practitioners across relevant practice areas.
• Contact relevant NGOs. Organisations working on migrant rights, constitutional liberties and anti-discrimination can provide additional support, strategic litigation resources and community guidance.
• Stay informed. Subscribe to updates from the Tribunal Constitucional and monitor parliamentary proceedings for any new legislative proposals concerning citizenship and criminal offences.

Timeline of Key Legislative and Judicial Dates

The following table sets out the critical events in the loss of nationality Portugal debate, from the baseline legislation to the most recent constitutional intervention:

Conclusion

The debate over loss of nationality in Portugal is far from over. While Acórdão 409/2026 has blocked the immediate legislative threat, the underlying political dynamics that produced Decreto n.º 49/XVII remain active. For dual nationals, naturalised citizens, defence counsel and human-rights practitioners, the Constitutional Court’s ruling provides powerful precedent, but not permanent immunity. Vigilance, preparation and access to specialist legal advice remain essential. Those seeking qualified criminal defence counsel in Portugal can consult the Global Law Experts Portugal lawyer directory to identify practitioners with experience in constitutional, criminal and nationality law.

Sources

1. Tribunal Constitucional, Acórdãos (Constitutional Court of Portugal)
2. Diário da República / DRE, Law No. 37/81 (English translation)
3. Diário da República / DRE, Decreto n.º 49/XVII
4. Governo de Portugal, Official Statements
5. Portugal Resident, Parliament Approves Loss of Nationality for Serious Crimes
6. ConstitutionNet, Constitutional Court of Portugal Rejects Proposed Amendments
7. MCS, Loss of Portuguese Nationality: Constitutional Court Draws Clear Red Lines
8. Valadas Coriel & Associados, Reacquisition of Portuguese Nationality
9. GetGoldenVisa, Portuguese Citizenship Law Change (May 2026)