Gilda Pereira – the face and voice of migration expertise in Portugal

Gilda Pereira is an inspiring woman. Founding Portugal’s first all-inclusive migration agency in 2014, Ei! Assessoria Migratória now celebrating its 10th anniversary, Gilda has made occasional media appearances, both nationally and internationally, featuring on Portuguese television, in newspapers, and on digital platforms. Gilda is one of the many experts consulted by governments on legal issues and has become the face and voice of migration expertise in Portugal.

Text: Chris Grame; Photos: Supplied.

Gilda Pereira has a soft and relaxed demeanour that belies the stresses of an early life growing up in Angola, a country torn by years of civil war, an experience that made her adaptable, flexible and, above all, resilient.

Today, this self-assured, self-made businesswoman heads Portugal’s first ever migration agency, Ei! Assessoria Migratória. Founded in 2014, it has offices in Lisbon and Porto and a partnership office in Canada. Gilda set the benchmark for migration services.

Since its founding, it has helped over 10,000 people from all walks of life and backgrounds, from students, business people and entrepreneurs to professionals involved in tech, the sciences and culture, make the move to Portugal, and the wide variety of reasons they do so are as legion as the backgrounds and countries they came from.

With a background in Law and a Masters degree in SME Enterprise Management, Ei! Assessoria Migratória was established from Gilda’s personal experience as a migrant who left Angola at the age of 12 to pursue her studies in Portugal, and later as emigré who returned to work in the oil business in Angola during her 20s.

Ei! Assessoria Migratória – the first in the sector

Ei! Assessoria Migratória was the first migration agency and consultancy in Portugal in 2014 and was a pioneering business in the field. Since then, Gilda has become such an expert of the shifts and changes in Portugal’s immigration law.

She has been featured on CNN Portugal’s “Top Story” segment, where she discussed migration processes, and has also contributed opinion pieces to prominent newspapers in Portugal, including Expresso and Visão.

The company was created from her desire to make life easier for those who have decided to move to Portugal.

“We take care of everything from day one,” she says, mentioning all of the pre-departure arrangements, visas, documents, bank accounts, transport, health services or schools, and yes, finding a home in which to live. In short, Ei! Assessoria Migratória provides “all you need to live in Portugal. Their mission is to make “life easier entering or leaving the country”.

Take its Legal Department, for example, which has accumulated years of legal experience spread across various areas to provide full support for the migration process; or its Visa Department, which is customised for individual clients who are looking to emigrate to Portugal and can involve a wide range of objectives such as investment, study, job-seeking, or simply looking for a better quality of life.

The company also has a Corporate Immigration Solutions Department. “We specialise in facilitating the smooth migration of global talent to Portugal. Our dedicated Corporate Department is committed to helping businesses in hiring international talent, helping them in their visa applications and property search; ensuring a seamless and efficient immigration process for companies and their overseas employees to thrive in the Portuguese market by using talent from across borders,” she explains.

The dedicated Tax Department takes care of all aspects of tax and social security, including tax consultation, IRS submissions and overseas income.

Then, Ei! Assessoria Migratória has a Relocation Department that deals with house-hunting, enrollment in the public and private health systems, the utility companies, schools, universities, and exchange of driving licences.

But who is Gilda Pereira and how did she become such a tour de force and the go-to expert in migration matters?

We meet in Ei! Assessoria Migratória’s centrally located Lisbon office. The space is relaxed and comfortable with an opulent ambiance of cream and dark brown, with rich wallpapers embossed with gold motifs.

Gilda takes me back in time to Angola in the 1950s. “My grandparents went to Angola in the 1950s in search of a better life, and when independence came and Angola was a free country, they returned to Portugal, but my father stayed,” she reminisces.

“My mother, who came to Portugal, married him through power of attorney and joined him in Angola. I was born in Portugal because of the civil war but joined my parents at four months old where I grew up.”

A high-flyer

Gilda returned to Portugal to attend middle school at 12 and later took Law at Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon. She laughs: “I never really wanted to be a lawyer, but chose law because it is a course that can open many doors and gives you different perspectives,” she admits.

I did one year in France and at that time considered European law. I toyed with the idea of doing something linked to the EU and European courts. I visited Strasbourg and Brussels and thought I wanted to have that kind of life,” Gilda recalls.

Gilda returned to Portugal after France and started working for a Portuguese consultancy linked to the oil business that had opened a branch in Angola, and because they knew Gilda had family in Angola, they invited her to head their branch there.

“I became a tax advisor for oil and gas companies, travelled extensively around the world, and took a special course on tax law pertaining to the oil and gas industry in Amsterdam.”

Gilda says that one of the things she learnt growing up and later working in Angola was getting things done in a different way.

“I grew up in a country that was going through a civil war, so I knew how to manage things in a way that many people in Europe didn’t know. I learnt how to deal with bureaucracy through contacts, how to be resilient, and how to deal with three days without electricity or water. All this makes you very flexible and tough,” she reflects.

And adds pensively: “Later it stood me in good stead when I worked in the oil and gas industry. I was still in my 20s, virtually the only woman there, and it was a tough environment I can tell you, but my resilience and early experiences dealing with difficult problems saw me through,” Gilda says.

Fast-forward to her decision to start a business in 2014 and the reasons why she ended up working in migration.

Back in 2014, the oil and gas crisis came, oil prices dropped, and Gilda knew that the contracts for the drilling companies were not going to be renewed. She therefore decided to return to Portugal at a time when she was married and had two children aged two and four.

“The question was what was I going to do? I was 33, had a law degree but no experience working in law, and realised if I worked for a law firm I’d have to start from scratch. I started thinking of founding a business. It was the right time because the recession was ending in Portugal and overseas people looking to relocate from abroad began coming to Portugal,” she recalls.

“I racked my brain for months, and it took me one year to arrive at the idea of what I wanted to do, which was to set up a migration agency, which was a concept that we didn’t have in Portugal at that time. Yes, migration was offered by relocation companies, but they didn’t have the specific knowledge of migration law,” Gilda reflects.

Gilda explains that other services were offered by law firms, but they didn’t have the specific knowledge of relocating companies and their teams.

“I wanted to create a company that brought together these two aspects. Having supported people working in Angola who needed to relocate their families, I gained experience in handling logistics and finding schools. I’m very open-minded when it comes to different cultures and nationalities,” she explains.

With limited resources at the time, Gilda says she did all the leg work on her own, without recourse to consultancies.

“It took a long time to build a framework of what services I thought the company would need to offer and I lost many sleepless nights thinking and thinking about it. Sometimes I would be half asleep, an idea would pop into my head, and I’d have to get up and write it down so as to not forget it by morning.”

Services people need

The first question Gilda asked herself was what would she, as an immigrant living abroad, need?

Gilda compiled a list that included everything from checking mail boxes, getting a visa, paying taxes on a client’s behalf, sorting out getting a European driving licence, procuring a car locally and getting an MOT service, to finding accountants, lawyers, international schools (if applicable), getting local health insurance and a doctor, a tax and social security number, and a house to buy or rent in which to live, so that when a client arrived in Portugal, they didn’t have to worry about anything or deal with Portuguese red tape every day.

And given her experience in Angola, the migration expert then realised that there were many Angolans and others who needed a visa to come to Portugal. Perhaps she could help them too? And that’s when Gilda came up with the name Ei! Assessoria Migratória (Emigrant/Immigrant).

“Then I had to find all the legislation that I could, and as I talked to people and discovered the many different needs I hadn’t thought about, added these to my list of services.

“I thought about all the documents I had to handle when I went to Angola: criminal record, education diplomas, and the ministries and consulates that needed to be
involved. It was all this bureaucracy that I realised I could help people navigate,” she explains.

Gilda says that when the company started, her clients were mostly Angolans and Portuguese who had been living in Angola. In short, she used her own network to start the business.

The Brazilian and tech waves

From 2016 onwards, Portugal saw an influx of High-Net-Worth Brazilians wanting to relocate to Portugal as the security situation began to deteriorate in their own country.

“My website went ‘viral’ in Brazil, and I secured many clients to do their migration processes to Portugal through Ei! Assessoria Migratória.”

Around this time, several multinational technology companies opened up offices in Portugal such as Microsoft and Google.

“When Google set up in Portugal, we did the relocation process for all the overseas staff at Google and other high-tech companies, dealing with hundreds of employees applying for the tech visa. At that time, we were dealing with around 2,000 to 2,500 processes,” recalls Gilda.

And that was a lot for a company that had 25 staff working at Ei! Assessoria Migratória at the time. Today, the company employs 20, most of them at its Lisbon office, but also eight at its Porto premises. “I must say I really have an amazing and organised team,” she remarks proudly.

Brexit and the US waves

Following the UK’s decision in a referendum to leave the European Union, an influx of UK citizens began looking to take advantage of Portugal’s Golden Visa programme to relocate to Portugal – a country which traditionally has been a popular retirement destination for British retirees for decades. Here too, Ei! Assessoria Migratória enjoyed a fresh influx of clients from Portugal’s oldest ally.

Then, with political turmoil in a divided United States came the next wave of immigrants relocating to Portugal; people who came from a wide variety of backgrounds, from young entrepreneurial start-up founders to retirees, or simply people who sought to base their businesses in Europe.

“After the Covid-19 pandemic, we had lots of US citizens on our books,” recalls Gilda, adding that at Ei! Assessoria Migratória, the top six client nationalities are Americans, British, Canadians, Brazilians, Australians and New Zealanders.

“We’ve hardly had any Chinese and we’re not exactly sure why that is,” Gilda admits, although the firm has seen a smattering of clients from India and different nationalities from Dubai.

Using customised technology

One of the reasons why Ei! Assessoria Migratória has enjoyed such a successful track-record in the migration market is its seamless 360º service it offers its clients.

This efficiency is partly down to the adoption of a highly specialised and customised software system that the company had specially developed, which follows and updates a clients’ entire relocation process from start to finish, keeping track of documents required, appointments made with the immigration office AIMA and the state-of-play at each step of the process.

“We had a special customised software and application called Migration Track designed for us for our workflow and which enables our clients to log in and see the status of their process, the invoices that were issued and paid, and provides them with a complete record of their process from start to finish with us.

“It tells us who is going to AIMA and when. We have staff going to AIMA offices around the country every day. On one day alone we had clients going for appointments to Leiria, Faro, Cacém and Espinho near Porto.

“Migration Track is also linked to an app where everything is booked in advance and organised so we know we need to have a vehicle available if the office is outside the Lisbon or Porto areas and it’s all on the app,” she explains.

The challenge of AIMA

Gilda talks with us about the teething problems Portugal’s new immigration office AIMA has faced since its creation in 2023, when it was formed from the former SEF (Serviços de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras) which saw a division between the immigration department, the notaries offices and the borders agency, the latter which was placed under the aegis of the Portuguese police.

“The changeover caused a lot of problems and resulted in a long backlog of immigration processes, some of which have built up to a three-year waiting list.

“There was a miscommunication when they created AIMA and divided the process between AIMA and IRN notary offices; the latter which now do the visa and residency renewals,” Gilda reflects.

“When SEF was dissolved, many staff left for early retirement and fresh faces were brought in who had to be trained from scratch, and that’s part of the reason for all this backlog,” she clarifies.

Meanwhile, Ei! Assessoria Migratória had a lot of people coming in under the Manifest of Interest mechanism. This means people coming in on a tourist visa who then stay, find a job contract, and then begin the relocation process on the AIMA website.

“Under these circumstances, they would literally wait for years to be called, the average being 30 months because of the backlog.

“In the meantime, applicants have Right to Remain but cannot leave the country, because if they do, they lose that Right to Remain and have to go back to the beginning of the whole process. It can be very challenging for someone if a family member dies and a choice has to be made between staying in Portugal or leaving and being back to square one,” admits Gilda.

On the other hand, Gilda says there is a lot of misinformation about the migration process, and she went on TV to address the lack of understanding on rules and the differences between what AIMA does and what a consulate does.

“Overseas would-be applicants turn up at AIMA armed with a fistful of documents only to be turned away. I would like to stress that people can only go to AIMA if they have booked an appointment beforehand. They can’t just turn up there with their documents and think that’s it.

“Sometimes people come to us after being in that kind of situation and it’s something that can be sorted out. That’s why it’s always best to seek advice and know what the rules are,” she says, adding that certain nationalities that come from countries with a more transactional mindset think that money can solve the problem and help them jump the queue.

However, Gilda reminds that Portugal’s bureaucracy is governed by rules. She then pauses, laughs, and admits that the rules in Portugal do have a habit of changing like the British weather.

What makes Ei! Assessoria Migratória Stand out?

I ask what makes Ei! Assessoria Migratória stand out from the plethora of other agencies offering some or all of the services that it offers, and why a client should choose its services?

Gilda Pereira says for several reasons. “Being the first immigration agency in Portugal, we have such a long expertise and track record that even different governments have consulted us for advice on immigration law.

“They know that we’re always in the field and that they can reach out to us for advice. I’m recognised as someone with experience in immigration law, and that I’ve had the opportunity to assist companies with relocating their staff”.

“For example, we advised the government on the legal framework for the tech visa and D7 visa for retired persons, and saved them time because we pointed out that they already had fundamental parts within an existing Decree-Law and were able to transpose it into that new law,” she recounts.

The second is the state-of-the-art Migration Track software and application that keeps clients in the loop on the progress of their processes, what they have completed, and what they still need to do at every step.

The third is the level of individual care taken in the services offered, which are tailor-made to suit each individual or family circumstance.

But the most important aspect, says Gilda, is the emotional support and type of expertise that Ei! Assessoria Migratória offers its clients, and makes them feel that they are the only clients that are important for them over the relocation process.

“This type of expertise is one of the reasons that I think people should come to us. I don’t believe that many companies in Portugal, even the big ones, have made as many processes as we have,” she says adamantly.

“I have trained my entire team to provide a customised service, and this has been my aim from the beginning. We are talking about people who are moving countries, they are in a stressful situation and need to be taken care of and given full attention, so I always tell my team that 50% is the technical work. The other 50% is the emotional support, and I think this is the secret of our success. Many people who can afford the best lawyers come to us referred by others and we get amazing online reviews.”

A business with a life of its own

Gilda Pereira remarks that migration consultancy is a “very interesting business that has a life of its own”.

“We need to adjust and adapt all the time. First, we have more immigrants, so we were focused on the services for them. And it’s not just overseas citizens. We have Portuguese returning to Portugal after many years, and we also help them because perhaps they don’t have Portuguese citizenship because they were born abroad,” she ponders.

“Then there’s our expertise in the different types of immigration and the law that has changed, and we have to keep track of these changes all the time.”

Currently, Ei! Assessoria Migratória is dealing with many processes from the United States and Canada.

“Our clients tell us the many reasons they want to come here. The most common are safety, healthcare, a sense of community, the good food and varied culture,” she says.

Ei! Assessoria Migratória had many Russians when the war started because many branches of multinational companies that had been in Moscow moved, some of them to Portugal.

The consultancy helped many Russian families to relocate to Portugal. “The most difficult thing for them was not the process, but opening a bank account in Portugal because of the financial restrictions and the severance of the SWIFT system, and we have to help them with all the due diligence because the banks here won’t do that in the case of Russians,” she laments.

On the emotional front, she describes the several mixed-race and LGBT couples that the agency has helped after the applicants had felt a hostility in their home countries which made them feel unsafe and unwelcome. “Some of the stories our clients have recounted were truly upsetting and shocking,” Gilda recounts.

And there are tricky cases for other reasons.”Every two weeks we have a brainstorming session to try and crack all these difficult cases.

“We had a couple from Uzbekistan who wanted to relocate here but didn’t want to go to Moscow, and so began the process from Iceland where they got a residents permit, and from Iceland they went to Helsinki [the nearest Portuguese consulate] to come to Portugal,” Gilda recalls.

Marketing

I ask Gilda where she managed to get so many clients and how they discover Ei! Assessoria Migratória? Surely she must have a slick marketing company working for the company?

Not at all. Most clients are from referrals from satisfied customers who like the way she does business and treats each and every case as special.

“We have never done publicity. Many people ask me how clients find us. It’s word of mouth and referrals.

“We did something different this year, only because its our 10th anniversary, and we wanted to do something for the brand to be better known in Portugal because our company is better known overseas in Brazil, the US and Canada than it is in Portugal,” she asserts.

“We did some marketing in magazines so that Portuguese companies that wanted to hire people from abroad knew our company and could hire our services.

“Sometimes I am a guest on an expats forum with a podcast where I answer all the doubts people have. The typical questions are ‘how can I move to Portugal?’ and ‘what is the best kind of visa for my situation?’ or ‘when do I become a tax resident?’”

Ei! Assessoria Migratória opened an office in Toronto at the start of April with another migration lawyer, because the Portuguese community there kept asking about visas.

Gilda says there has been an increase in Canadians wanting to come to Portugal, and Canadians with Portuguese descendants wanting to obtain Portuguese nationality. For Gilda Pereira, it was a no-brainer on realising that there were many people interested in Ei! Assessoria Migratória’s services.

“I went to Canada and had meetings with several migration companies that told me that, although they generally deal with migration to Canada, they have many Canadians wanting to emigrate to Portugal, so we’ve set up some partnerships with them,” she explained. However, of all the clients Ei! Assessoria Migratória deal with, just 3% of all clients want to emigrate somewhere else other than Portugal.

Programa Regressar

A fairly new phenomena that Ei! Assessoria Migratória is dealing with are those Portuguese families who are living overseas, but want to return to Portugal and do so through the government’s ‘Regressar’ (Return Programme).

Last year saw a record number of people wanting to use this programme to return to their country of origin. By the end of March, 34,000 people from France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom had returned via the programme. “The thing is that Portugal has a great quality of life and I know personally, having two kids, the importance of them being able to go outside and play or ride their bikes because it’s safe here,” remarks Gilda.

And then there are people living in The Netherlands and Belgium who have a good salary, but they cannot afford to go out for dinner at the weekends because everything is so expensive. “Here you can still find places to eat for €30 for two people,” she points out.

Casa Portuguesa

Gilda is quite the entrepreneur and runs two companies: ‘A Casa Portuguesa’, which is a buyers’ agency and was created as a sister company of Ei! Assessoria Migratória, and has an AMI licence from APEMIP so that it can share commissions with real estate agencies.

“It’s not an estate agency since we don’t sell properties, but we have partners who are estate agents which we work with, and it’s part of the concierge side of our business. We find out what clients are looking for, their budget and what their lifestyle is, and from that we start the search through our partners. If a client already has a house in mind, we then provide all the support that they need to secure the property,” Gilda explains.

“For example, we had a client who saw a refurbished house for a good price, but the neighbourhood was less than salubrious and so we advised them against.

“The first contact that the clients have is when they are still in their own country. The first service they buy is on our website – the migration consultation with us. All of our fees are totally transparent and each and every fee is explained and itemised so there are no shocks at the end of the process,” she affirms.

“We don’t provide a standard price; we analyse the situation (and that’s why this is such a customised service). We look at what will be the best type of visa for them and the best strategy for the family. Sometimes we realise they are not ready and need time to do certain things first.

And because we act in their interests and there are no hidden surprises, they trust us. If they want to buy or rent a house, we help them,” Gilda adds.

Gilda is also Vice President of the Luso-Descendents Association (AILD), as well as being director of Descendências Magazine, now in its 52nd issue, that talks about the Portuguese diaspora.

“Every year we choose a Portuguese-descendent artist and we promote that artist. Every month they design a cover for the magazine, and with that work as a basis, we organise an exhibition for them.”

A Glass of Wine with Gilda

Gilda also runs a weekly podcast on topics to do with migration legal issues and has her own podcast broadcast on YouTube. ‘A Glass of Wine with Gilda’ was launched last month, in which she has a friendly chat with her clients of different ages, backgrounds and countries talking about their journey and why they chose Portugal. “I learn so much when I do these interviews.”

Take retired couple Gary and Julie Gumanow. Gary retired from tech after 40 years while Julie had a long career on theatre production. They chose Setúbal because it was relatively near Lisbon.

“We came to Portugal 10 years ago for the first time from Portland, Oregon in the US because there we had almost 300 days of rain and here it’s the opposite,” Gary laughs. “Everything we saw in Portugal aligned with how we envisaged spending the rest of our lives,” he says.

Or Kendall Lampkin, an African-American who had been a government executive for 40 years, had travelled extensively all over the world, but had never been to Portugal.

“In 2022 I retired and, having wanted to move to Europe, did some research and found that Portugal offered all the things I wanted – a lovely climate, great food and welcoming people.

“It was a soft landing for me. There’s a lot of diversity, and a lot of people who look like me from the Portuguese diaspora,” he noted.

And Sarah Davie from the UK who had never planned to live in Portugal, but found herself coming increasingly for business as a currency exchange specialist, and was somehow inevitably and inexorably drawn into the lively bustling lifestyle in Lisbon and its young and vibrant scene.

“The more I came, the more I enjoyed my time here. I couldn’t explain it at the time. It just felt natural and easy and like home,” Sarah recalls of her decision to relocate.

Living in Cascais, she says she has a nice balance between Lisbon and the quieter Cascais, and safety is a plus.

“The weather is the main thing, and it’s easy to make friends as the Portuguese are very welcoming, and there are lots of expat groups to join. But the most important thing was being able to leave a bar or restaurant at night and not feel that I was at risk of being assaulted,” she says.

Christian Campos moved from California recently. The 33-year-old software engineer says he can work from Lisbon quite easily even though his company is in the US. “I really liked the vibe, the people and the language,” says the coding professional who loves learning foreign languages.

“I came to Lisbon in 2023 and found the city is very alive and loved the food and lifestyle. I felt that if I wanted to move, I had to do it now as I wasn’t getting any younger,” he admits. He says that his experience with Ei! Assessoria Migratória was very professional and smooth, although he found it a challenge finding a house in his price range. “House pries are just crazy in Lisbon,” he says.

Finding a work-life balance 

But between running two businesses, appearing now and again on TV, writing occasionally for newspapers and editing a magazine, I ask Gilda Pereira how she manages to find the time to have a good work-life balance.

“I had struggled with that before,” she admits, “but I have got to a point where I can say: ‘I’m okay’ and that tracking software helped a lot.

“It means I can go on holiday and don’t now have to take my laptop as I used to do my entire professional life.

“When people ask me what is your ambition? I tell them I want to be the voice and face of migration for Portugal. There are so many misconceptions and misinformation, and I really would like to change that,” she says.

But after interviewing Gilda, seeing her YouTube talks and podcasts, the clips from the TV news and newspapers, it becomes clear that Gilda Pereira, even if she doesn’t feel it, already is one of the faces and voices of migration in Portugal.