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The health insurance is always an yearly cover.

Alternatively you can register at SNS (public health system) at your local health center.

@Nia Queiroz  I started living in Portugal January 2024 but my visa is valid for 120 days (that's till April 2024 - the initial 120 days on D visa). I understand that is the normal situation and I have to attend my SEF appointment in April 2024 as written on my Visa.

If I am going to use the yearly health insurance option as you suggested, would it be advisible to pay for April 2024 to April 2025  so as to plan it on my SEF appointment as that will elongate the validity period of the insurance. Or does the insurance has to cover from January 2024 to December 2024?

I used Europe-insurance.eu. At first I had a 6 month policy, but my visa approval from VFS was delayed. So I purchased the same policy for 1 year. I was approved at my AIMA/SEF appt with the Europ-insurance.eu policy. I just went with a 1 yr policy just to have something. Once I'm in PT, I will check around for insurance, including the insurance by my bank (Millennium), and understand how medical insurance works in PT.

Hi there,

We got the same situation with you. So here are the things:

1, you may try but to register and get SNS number they require residency card. We were rejected as the residency card it not with us yet. Of course it depends on the central de saude, some require, some would be easy to let you register.

2, At the SEF appointment, depends on your type of D visa the travel insurance would be accepted.

They did not accept our travel insurance. So we had to sign up a local health insurance for our family.

Normally, the sign up process would take a while as you need to fill out the medical question form and they need to verify.

We ended up getting Medicare (no need to fill out the medical question form and no verification at all). The policy documents came after 1 day by email. 30 euros per month for a family of 4.

I hope these information would help.

Good luck !

@bloggerblogger

The visa is just an entry document. When you attend your sef appointment is to be granted a resident permit and only from there onwards you will become a resident. The health insurance must be from that date onwards as until then, you have your travel insurance.

Once you have your resident permit, your visa stops to be valid.

@anhtran86

A type D visa is a resident visa. No D visa allows travel insurance for resident permit.

AXA-Schengen insurance is what I used and was accepted. It includes repatriation which is one of the requirements and possibly normal travel insurance may not include. Very inexpensive!

@bobinportugal22

That's for the visa. Not for the resident permit.

We ended up getting Medicare (no need to fill out the medical question form and no verification at all). The policy documents came after 1 day by email. 30 euros per month for a family of 4.   

    -@anhtran86

This is especially useful now. Medicare sounds interesting and within my budget. Many thanks

@Nia Queiroz

       It was accepted at my SEF appointment in Portugal as required insurance to establish residency though the D7 visa.

@bloggerblogger

       I may be wrong but my research showed that Medicare would only cover you in a foreign country for emergency treatment and would not be sufficient to meet visa requirements as repatriation is one of the conditions.

@bobinportugal22

You will need 2 different insurances. 1 is the travel insurance that must cover repatriation and that is for your visa. Then you will need private Portuguese health insurance for your resident permit.

If AXA Schengen was accepted for your resident permit and if you were not registered at SNS, that was the SEF agent mistake and it shouldn't had happen. Unfortunately, many Portuguese official/ government entities do not always comply with the legal procedures and incompetence is frequent, but a travel insurance isn't allowed for a resident permit according to the law.