D7 residency visa queries help

@marlon hi after my meeting with VFS in New York They said keep my passport so I can return to Cayman. So yes ask to keep passport. When (if) visa D7 approved I FedEx passport to them for visa stamped in it. I send them pre paid courier envelope so that they can return passport to my place of residence which is Cayman. Next day I shoot offto my apartment and cat in Tavira. I believe you need be back in your country residence to received passport stamped with visa. I have almost reach my 90 days allowed in Portugal. I read they are checking passports to ensure folks do not overstay allowed days per year. Hope this helps. Enjoy your time in Portugal. Cheers David

@marlon Yes, you can ask them to let you keep your passport. In fact, if you tell them you are traveling to Portugal the next day they will tell you to keep it. In my case our flight to Portugal (to move) had been scheduled for months, and was to take place 6 weeks after the VFS appointment. We thought that would be plenty of time for them to issue the visa. But they told us it would take 10-12 weeks and if we already had a flight scheduled we should keep our passports. We went ahead with our flight as scheduled and figured we would have to fly back when they notified us the visas were ready. As @DavidD says below, you must be in your home country to courier the passport to them when they notify you the visa is ready. We were scheduled to fly back on May 25 to courier the visas but we were exposed to someone who tested positive for Covid and had to cancel our flight. Now we are flying back June 14 and will courier the passports as soon as we get back. They said to allow 2-3 working days for them to get the passports back to us. I realize your 2 week trip is different in that it is only a visit and not your permanent move. In our case it would have been cheaper to cancel the first flight and stay at home (except we had sold our house) the extra weeks until the visas were ready. But for a variety of reasons we decided to go ahead and stick with the original flight and plans.

@marlon hi Marlon. Yes. I asked VFS in New York and said ok to keep my passport. Just courier it   To them from my country of residence when visa approved.  Send them pre paid return courier airway bill. So now long wait for approval at my sons house as I have rented my house. Enjoy your trip to Portugal. Remember to return to USA to remit and receive your passport.

@misticjeff We paid $106.64 for our applications each via cashiers check. We paid the $35 or close to it for the fedex return via our debit card. The application fees are tied to the exchange rate and fluctuate at the beginning of each month.  When the consulate returned our passports with the visa they included like $10 and some change. Weird!

@misticjeff it turns out I gave you incorrect information. When I saw @JonesDN2020 reply that he paid $106.64 for each application, I went back and checked my records. In fact we paid $102.20 for each application in the form of a money order (one for each app). The $35 fedx passport return fee was paid with credit card. Sorry about that.