Portugal from the UAE is the most searched route we cover and the one we are not currently taking requests on. Both of those facts deserve an explanation, since the second one costs us money.
What changed
The Portuguese consulate introduced a live video verification the applicant has to attend in person.
That is a step nobody can perform on your behalf. Watching a calendar and completing a booking is a technical problem; sitting in front of a camera and being yourself is not. So the route did not become impossible — it became a route where the part we would be selling is no longer the hard part.
We could take requests anyway and hand you the appointment. We would rather say what the situation is, because the value of the page you are reading depends entirely on us doing that consistently.
What our figures showed before it changed
Worth knowing, because it explains why this route mattered so much and why the alternatives are worth taking seriously.
| Centre | Checks | Openings caught |
|---|---|---|
| Dubai | 23,429 | 0 |
| Abu Dhabi | 5,050 | 61 |
Dubai released nothing at all across 23,429 observations. Abu Dhabi, watched a fifth as hard, produced 61 openings.
Anyone who picked Dubai for convenience — and most people in the UAE do — was watching a centre that, for the period we observed, was closed. That is the single most useful thing we learned on this route, and it is not a pattern that holds elsewhere: on the Latvia route the ordering reverses.
The Gulf alternatives, and the catch
Portugal applications are accepted in two other Gulf countries, and we have confirmed both against VFS’s own published fact sheets:
- Saudi Arabia — Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam, 24 visa categories published.
- Qatar — Doha, 25 categories.
Neither is covered by the competing services we surveyed, which is the unusual part: on the most contested route in the region, the workaround is not being offered by anyone.
The catch is residency. A Schengen visa is normally applied for in the country where you legally reside. A UAE resident applying in Jeddah may be perfectly fine or may be heading for a refusal, and which one depends on their documents and on whether that centre accepts non-residents.
We check that before anything is paid. The full reasoning is here, and the short version is that a booking succeeding tells you nothing about an application succeeding — they are different systems with different checks. A refusal costs you the fee, the appointment and a mark on your record. It is not a cheap experiment.
What to do if this is your route
Check Abu Dhabi as well as Dubai if you are proceeding independently. On our figures it was the only one of the two producing anything.
Establish your eligibility elsewhere before you chase an appointment there. The order matters. Work out where you may apply, then look for appointments — not the reverse.
Treat the video check as a scheduling constraint, not a blocker. You have to be available for it. If you are travelling for work, that is worth planning around rather than discovering late.
Watch for the requirement changing. Consular procedure moves. We keep this page and the route page current, and the route status is a file we edit by hand precisely because no automatic source publishes it.
What makes it worse
- Booking in a country you are not eligible to apply from. The most expensive mistake available on this route, and the booking system will not stop you making it.
- Assuming the video check can be delegated. Anyone offering to handle it for you is offering to impersonate you.
- Sticking with Dubai because it is closer. Our figures say that decision was, for the period we watched, the difference between 61 chances and none.
- Waiting for the route to reopen without a fallback. It may. Nobody has published a date, and a plan that depends on one is not a plan.
Where we stand
We are not taking requests for Portugal from Dubai or Abu Dhabi while the video check stands, and the route page says so plainly rather than quietly dropping the destination.
Jeddah and Doha we do take, subject to the residency question, and we would rather establish that first and lose the request than sell you an application that gets refused.
Portugal from Saudi Arabia · Portugal from Qatar · Start a request