[louison11]

No, Portugal is different. To give you perspective: it takes 2-3 years to exchange a foreign driver license (most foreigners I know drive illegally by now), a lot of administrations frequently “lose” applications and ask you to do it again when they have too much backlog (this cost me hundreds of dollars in back and forth, certified documents etc in the past).

It’s also very common for administrations to have no one answering the phone/email. And most administrations are appointments only. So often, you kind of have to drive to different places, maybe different city halls, and hope that someone has a contact with an internal e-mail address and can hook you up. That’s just how it works. It’s the most barbaric administration and closest to a third world country I’ve experienced, and I’m French, so I know something about red tape.

[user_named]

Takes 18 months to get permission for your foreign spouse to move to Sweden. It then takes 12-18 months to get into the social system - you register quickly, but for the bureaucracy to actually add you into the system takes that long. So no, you're wrong. Portugal is not different.

[louison11]

It's not really the delays that make Portugal different, arguably most countries have long delays, it's the lack of reliability, transparency, and responsiveness.

I don't know Sweden. But we're a family of expats with multiple citizenships, so I deal with bureaucracy in 4 countries on 3 continents. Most countries have streamlined procedures, provide tracking numbers, addresses to send things in, phone lines... So it's long, but you know what's going on and what to do.

Here, even lawyers don't even know what to do. For a similar situation to get my partner a visa from within the country, we simply couldn't speak to anyone. Even the lawyer told us "well, you might have to wait a year or two to see if they re-open their ability to take new appointments." We eventually were able to get through after hustling like crazy, me driving to many different city halls to speak to officials there. Someone eventually knew a colleague there, and got us an appointment for 6 months later in a city 3 hours drive away. We showed up, it was a butcher. Their Google Maps pin was not even in the right place. Cherry on the cake. After getting turn-by-turn instructions from the butcher (who apparently does that 10 times a day), we eventually found their office.

Idk, never been to Sweden but I don't think you can compete with that :-D

Now I get it, they're vastly understaffed, Portugal is a small country. They're doing what they can.

[user_named]

You don't understand. It's not about Sweden, Germany, Portugal. As an expat you always deal with this. Indians waiting for green card lottery and then another 100 years? But I'm sure you will come up with a reason why that's different. You need to take a step back and become aware of yourself.

[ls15]

Public offices love to slap fines for being late on people. I think people should be entitled to the same fees if the offices are late.

[martindbp]

That was not our experience 8 years ago, it was much faster.

[bwb]

To note, this isn't always true.

My family moved to Portugal in late 2020. Covid played havoc as they had to find ways to digitalize many things their offices were doing. It took my wife 9 months to get her DL exchanged and me 11 months.

During that time, you are not driving illegally; you are driving from your foreign license. As long as you have the paper with the exchange info and a picture, you will be fine.

It also helps if you hire a relocation expert who knows the system. We paid ~$1,500 to a Portuguese American lady who helped us with everything. She handled setting up all our health care, apartment negotiation and contract review, set up all our utilities and phones, all our residency paperwork, DL exchange, bank account, and more. I highly recommend her and any group like her. They know how to work the system. My mom does similar back in the USA for newly arrived expats for companies.

Covid was a real shock to office-heavy organizations; it has been a mad scramble to change culture, paperwork, operations, etc. I think they are doing decent and hopefully, in 5 years, it is night-and-day difference.

I've lived in Egypt as well... the bureaucracy there worked really well (before revolution). I just had to go to a giant building and spend half a day there, done. Sure I had to taxi to a DSL place to pay, but that was pretty easy as well.

[llampx]

> It also helps if you hire a relocation expert who knows the system. We paid ~$1,500 to a Portuguese American lady who helped us with everything. She handled setting up all our health care, apartment negotiation and contract review, set up all our utilities and phones, all our residency paperwork, DL exchange, bank account, and more. I highly recommend her and any group like her. They know how to work the system.

In the third world, that's called a tout, and they're a symbol of corruption and inefficiency. The only thing missing seems to be bribes paid to move your papers from one desk to the other faster.

[bwb]

Not sure what 3rd world means anymore as the cold war is over :), but I think I know what you mean.

What they are called now is a "relocation expert", and they help set everything up for you. They are in no way a symbol of corruption or inefficiency, but rather a professional who knows the system. IE, to get a DL you go this office, you fill out this form, you fax it to x, etc.

Do I wish everything was 100% online and designed with high UX standards? Sure, I also would love if it rained M&Ms on Fridays at 4.11pm :). Both of these things are not going to happen.

[louison11]

Hey neighbor! So glad it was faster for you. My experience is that these things vary greatly based on where you apply, and pure luck. I know people in the Algarve who have been waiting for 3 years. And people who applied in Lisbon and got it like you within 1 year.

[bwb]

Ah good point, I know our person who helped us had some good tricks like using offices not in Lisbon which were busier. We live up North so it was all very easy.

[notch656c]

Most third world countries with such bad/slow bureaucracy solve those issues with bribery. I'd hate to live someplace that both has low corruption and such high bureaucratic burdens.

[slaw]

Could you give some examples of these countries?

[ykshev]

Bali, $100 and you have a valid driving license in one day. Without a bribe it's almost impossible even apply

[notch656c]

lmao