Portuguese consulate to expand services to accommodate demand

The Consulate General of Portugal in Macau and Hong Kong is increasing temporarily the number of daily time slots for the renewal of Portuguese identity cards and passports, the consulate announced through their social media pages.

In the post, the consulate said, “Thanks to a temporary increase of workers allocated for this purpose, we will provide more daily vacancies between May 6 and July 31, [which will increase the time slots] from 800 to 1,100 per week.”

The bid is also related to the summer holiday period, aiming to facilitate renewal of the documents ahead of the peak season for traveling.

This is the second time that the Portuguese consulate has enforced measures aiming to reduce significantly the time for processing documents; in 2023 these vacancies were increased by 60% from 500 to 800 per week.

It was also said that this new addition of time slots aims to benefit those whose documents have already expired or, in the case of passports, allow the renewal of documents that have less than eight months of validity.

The consulate also announced that the measure of scheduling a booking for the same week of the next month (one month ahead) will continue.

In the past, due to difficulties justified by a lack of staff, people of Portuguese nationality wishing to renew their ID cards or passports have had to wait as long as nine months or even longer for a booking vacancy, a problem that the Consul General Alexandre Leitão has called one of the most pressing issues to address.

In a different notice, also posted on the consulate’s social media pages, it was noted that the consulate will be open during lunchtimes from April 15 onwards for the collection of passports and ID cards that have been processed. The measure is said to be a trial one aiming to evaluate the effects so that a final decision can be made on whether the working hours will continue to be as they are currently (9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.) or if the trial extended hours will be made permanent to (9 a.m. to 4 p.m. without a lunchbreak).