Key takeaways
- AIMA inherited 347,000 pending cases from SEF on 29 October 2023; by September 2024 the government's figures put the queue at about 1.1–1.2 million files across all categories.
- AIMA counted 446,921 pending manifestações de interesse on 3 June 2024, when Decree-Law 37-A/2024 abolished the route that let legal entrants apply for residence from inside Portugal.
- The task force recorded 763,509 attendances and 311,316 cards by its December 2025 closure, and more than 525,000 decisions and 458,000 cards by May 2026, at a net fee surplus of €62 million.
- Portugal issued 310,639 first residence permits in 2025 (Eurostat), 27 per 1,000 residents and third in the EU, while foreign residents rose only 2.7% to 1,585,854.
- Only 10% of renewals had been decided when the task force closed; about 360,000 were eligible and AIMA publishes no current renewal backlog.
- Lawsuits against AIMA at the Lisbon administrative court peaked at 133,429 in October 2025 and fell to about 89,000 by 18 September 2026 after Lei 61/2025 and a dedicated judges' task force.
- AIMA issued 23,133 voluntary-departure notices in 2025, but PSP recorded only 665 voluntary returns and 84 expulsions carried out.
- The widely quoted '386,000 permits in 2025' is a ten-month count of cards; AIMA's full-year figure is 337,880 new titles plus 189,331 renewals.
Portugal issued 310,639 first residence permits in 2025, according to Eurostat. That is 27 for every 1,000 residents, three times the EU average and the third-highest rate in the Union after Malta and Cyprus. Over the same year AIMA's count of foreign residents rose by only 42,157, or 2.7%.
The two numbers fit together because most of those permits went to people who were already in Portugal. Until June 2024 a foreigner who entered legally, often as a tourist, could apply for residence from inside the country through the manifestação de interesse. When the government closed that route, AIMA, the agency that replaced the border and immigration service SEF in October 2023, was sitting on 446,921 of those requests. Add CPLP permits, renewals, family reunification and transitional cases and the government's own figures put the queue at between 1.1 and 1.2 million files when a dedicated task force started work in September 2024. Clearing it is what pushed Portugal to the top of Europe's permit tables.
The government now says 30,000 task-force cases remain. That figure covers only the old stock. AIMA publishes no total of pending cases across all categories, renewals were 10% decided when the task force closed, golden-visa holders have no official count at all, and about 89,000 lawsuits against AIMA were still open at the Lisbon administrative court in September 2026. This tracker sets out each queue, what has been cleared, and which of the circulating numbers hold up.
How the backlog was built
AIMA opened on 29 October 2023 under Decree-Law 41/2023, taking over SEF's administrative work while border control passed to PSP and GNR. The government's first-day communiqué said it inherited 347,000 pending cases, with just over 740 staff, 190 new hires, 34 service desks and a budget of €81 million. Observador added that about 340,000 renewals would fall due by the end of 2024. idealista, using interior ministry data for 20 October, gave 327,000.
The manifestação de interesse was the main source of the stock. Under articles 88 and 89 of the foreigners law, Lei 23/2007, someone who entered Portugal legally and paid twelve months of social security contributions could apply for a work-based residence permit without a consular visa. The government said in January 2025 that more than half of the residence titles granted in 2023 had come through that route. Decree-Law 37-A/2024 abolished it from June 2024, protecting applications already filed. AIMA's interim report counted 446,921 of them pending on 3 June 2024.
A second stock came from CPLP mobility permits, issued quickly in 2023 as paper documents that later had to be converted into proper cards, and a third from renewals that SEF and then AIMA could not process. Portugal coped by extending the validity of expired documents by decree, starting with Decree-Law 10-A/2020 during the pandemic. The last extension, Decree-Law 85-B/2025, kept permits that had expired between 22 February 2020 and 30 June 2025 valid until 15 October 2025. ECO reported that more than 370,000 permits were covered.
| Date | Figure | What it covers | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Oct 2023 | 347,000 | Pending cases inherited from SEF | Government communiqué |
| 20 Oct 2023 | 327,000 | Pending residence applications (MAI data) | idealista |
| 3 Jun 2024 | 446,921 | Manifestações de interesse pending | AIMA interim report |
| Sep 2024 | ≈1.1–1.2 million | All task-force categories at start (two official breakdowns) | Government balance Dec 2025; Sec. of State Oct 2025 |
| 29 May 2025 | 69,000 | Manifestações still awaiting decision (170,000 archived) | RTP / AIMA |
| 18 Dec 2025 | ≈387,000 decided | Task-force decisions at closure; 59,000+ refused | Observador / Government |
| 13 May 2026 | 525,000+ decided | Task force incl. post-closure work; 458,000 cards | Government, 14 May 2026 |
| 1 Jul 2026 | 30,000 | Task-force residual only | Sec. of State Rui Armindo Freitas |
The CPLP shortcut and its paperwork
The CPLP mobility agreement added a second, faster channel in 2023. Nationals of Portuguese-speaking countries could obtain a residence authorisation online, and AIMA's interim report shows 120,157 pending manifestações were converted automatically into CPLP authorisations in 2023 and 2024. The documents were issued as paper authorisations valid for one year rather than in the uniform EU residence-card format, so each one later needed an in-person conversion before its holder could rely on it.
That conversion became its own queue. The government counted about 215,000 CPLP cases in the task force's starting stock. AIMA's 2024 report lists 92,341 people holding expired CPLP authorisations who had already been attended. By December 2025 the task force had recorded 207,412 CPLP attendances and issued 95,831 CPLP cards; by May 2026 the government reported 153,000 CPLP decisions and 136,000 cards. The rest of the backlog was smaller per case but larger in number: a renewal takes one appointment, and there were about 375,000 of them.
The task force: 763,509 attendances in 16 months
Resolution of the Council of Ministers 87/2024 created the Estrutura de Missão para a Recuperação de Processos Pendentes in mid-2024, with up to 300 staff and a deadline of 2 June 2025. It started operating on 9 September 2024. Resolution 99-A/2025 extended it to 31 December 2025, when it formally closed. The government says 1,610 people were mobilised in total.
Its final balance, presented on 18 December 2025, listed 763,509 attendances of 553,272 unique people, about 387,000 decisions, more than 59,000 refusals and 311,316 cards issued. It cost €39 million and collected €101 million in fees, a net surplus of €62 million. The share of each category decided at closure is the most revealing number: 93% of manifestações, 72% of CPLP cases, 52% of transitional-regime cases and 10% of renewals.
The work continued after the formal closure. By 13 May 2026 the government reported more than 525,000 decisions, about 473,000 of them favourable, 51,622 rejections and 458,000 cards. On 1 July the Secretary of State for the Presidency, Rui Armindo Freitas, told parliament that 30,000 task-force cases remained open. The government's May 2026 release breaks the output down by category.
| Category | Starting stock (Dec 2025 balance) | Decided | Approved | Cards issued |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manifestações de interesse | 450,000 | 256,000 | 229,000 | 225,000 |
| CPLP permits | 215,000 | 153,000 | 140,000 | 136,000 |
| Renewals | 375,000 | n/p (≈360,000 eligible; 104,000 attended) | n/p | 82,000 |
| Transitional regime | 80,000 | n/p | n/p | ≈15,000 (derived) |
| Family reunification | 25,000 | n/p | n/p | n/p |
| Total | ≈1,145,000 (derived) | 525,000+ | ≈473,000 | 458,000 |
Where the permits went
The surge shows in every official series. AIMA granted 218,332 new residence titles in 2024 and 337,880 in 2025, up 54.8%, plus 189,331 renewals. Eurostat's first-permit figure for 2025, which uses a narrower scope, is 310,639, up 154.9%. Employment permits made up 240,523 of them, or 77.4%, and Eurostat flags a break in Portugal's employment series that year.
Brazilians dominate the regularisation. AIMA granted 115,709 new titles to Brazilians in 2025, the same number Eurostat reports as Brazilian first permits, followed by Indians (25,694), Nepalis (17,689), Bangladeshis (17,499) and Pakistanis (15,656). Brazilians were 493,622 of the 1,585,854 foreign residents at the end of 2025, or 31.1%.
The population sits where the tourism economy is. AIMA's 2025 report counts 605,895 foreign residents in Lisbon district, 173,885 in Setúbal, 167,498 in Porto and 166,124 in Faro, the Algarve's district. These districts include Portugal's main tourism regions, and our Lisbon tourism statistics article documents the pressure on the capital's housing and accommodation market.
The backlog also sits inside the population count. AIMA's 2024 report counted 1,543,697 foreign residents at the end of 2024, but only 1,096,170 held valid titles; 286,302 were manifestação applicants who had been attended by the task force, 92,341 held expired CPLP authorisations and 61,242 were under temporary protection. A year later valid titles had risen to 1,324,411 and the manifestação group had fallen to 50,695. AIMA also revised its end-2023 total from 1,044,606 to 1,304,833, an addition of 260,227 (derived).
| Status | End-2024 | End-2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Valid residence titles | 1,096,170 | 1,324,411 |
| Manifestação applicants attended by the task force | 286,302 | 50,695 |
| Expired CPLP authorisations (attended) | 92,341 | 42,521 |
| Temporary protection (mainly Ukrainians) | 61,242 | 66,740 |
| Expired titles with renewal fees paid | 7,517 | 76,907 |
| Family reunification pending | n/p | 24,476 |
| Long-stay visa holders | 125 | n/p |
| Total foreign residents | 1,543,697 | 1,585,854 |
Two groups matter for the relocation and tourism market. AIMA counted 47,726 British residents at the end of 2025, most of them holding withdrawal-agreement cards, and Eurostat counts 19,492 valid permits held by Americans. American first permits rose from 1,115 in 2019 to 4,448 in 2025, and Americans were the largest single nationality among golden-visa grants in 2025, with 535. Neither group appears in the backlog statistics as a category, so their waiting times are known only from lawyers and client surveys.
Family reunification went the other way. Titles granted for reunification fell from 44,878 in 2023 to 25,093 in 2024 and 17,359 in 2025, a 61% drop in two years. AIMA's 2025 report counts 24,476 reunification requests awaiting decision; ECO, citing the same report, gives 51,624 active cases. The difference is one of definition and the report itself was not accessible to us.
The comparison has limits. Spain issued 635,438 first permits in 2025, twice Portugal's total, but at 12.9 per 1,000 residents. Greece issued fewer permits in 2025 than in 2024. Eurostat's stock of valid permits in Portugal reached 1,122,061 at the end of 2025, but the series breaks in 2024, when it jumped from 642,710 to 1,091,999 as regularised people entered the count, so the long-run growth cannot be read from it. Portugal's 2025 figure is best understood as a one-off: a stock of people who arrived between 2019 and 2024 being registered in a single year.
The queues that remain
Renewals. Only 10% of the renewal stock was decided when the task force closed. By May 2026 the government counted about 360,000 eligible renewals, 193,000 notified, 104,000 attended and 82,000 new cards. Since July 2025 renewals of permits expiring after 30 June 2025 go through an online portal, opened in monthly cohorts; the window now runs to permits expiring on 31 October 2026. AIMA has not published how many portal renewals are pending.
Expired documents. The decree extensions ended on 15 October 2025. AIMA then said, on its own reading of the regulations, that cards expired by 30 June 2025 remained valid in Portugal until 15 April 2026, and that later cards keep residence rights for six months after expiry under article 63(14) of Decreto Regulamentar 84/2007. Since April 2026 people waiting for a renewal rely on certificates valid for 60 days and renewable under article 78(7) of Lei 23/2007. AIMA's own guidance says these extensions apply only inside Portugal and that a receipt is not a travel document.
Golden visas. AIMA told law firms in early 2025 that about 50,000 to 55,000 golden-visa files, including family members and renewals, were pending. Minister António Leitão Amaro promised in October 2025 to clear them in 2026. No official progress figure has been published since. AIMA granted a record 2,685 golden visas in 2025, so the backlog sits alongside rising demand; industry sources describe waits of 12 months or more for biometrics.
Ordinary applications. AIMA scheduled 671,273 appointments in 2025 and completed 605,890, according to its 2025 report. It publishes no processing-time statistic. Lawyers cite a 90-day legal decision deadline, and Lei 61/2025 sets nine months for some permit decisions. AIMA's president said in September 2026 that staff had risen from 701 in July 2024 to 840; the technical staff union disputes the figure and says 19% of staff left over the same period. On 21 September the government announced that Pedro Portugal Gaspar would leave AIMA for the Competition Authority.
The queue that moved to court
When AIMA could not schedule people, they sued. The urgent procedure is an intimação para proteção de direitos, liberdades e garantias, which asks an administrative court to order the agency to act. The Ordem dos Advogados counted 7,617 such cases nationally in AIMA's first six months, 5,840 of them at the Tribunal Administrativo de Círculo de Lisboa. Pending AIMA cases at that court rose from 19,292 in September 2024 to 46,824 at the end of 2024 and 133,429 in October 2025, when about 500 new cases arrived each day.
Two changes reversed the trend. Lei 61/2025, in force from 23 October 2025, made an ordinary administrative action the default route and limited the urgent intimação to serious, demonstrable violations of rights; DN reported court costs of about €600. New monthly filings fell from 11,724 in October 2025 to 2,582 in January 2026, according to the administrative courts' council (CSTAF). Then 28 judges were assigned to AIMA cases from 7 April 2026. They issued 22,436 decisions between April and June, and by 18 September the stock was about 89,000. The court task force now has 21 judges and has been extended to 30 January 2027.
| Date | Pending cases | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 27 Sep 2024 | 19,292 | CSTAF via Lusa |
| 11 Dec 2024 | 42,710 | CSTAF via Lusa |
| 31 Dec 2024 | 46,824 | Público |
| Jun 2025 | 54,381 | 6 dedicated judges (DN, Ordem dos Advogados) |
| 11 Oct 2025 | 133,429 | About 500 new cases a day (CSTAF) |
| 23 Feb 2026 | 130,946 | 129,239 of them intimações (CSTAF via ECO) |
| 7 Apr 2026 | ≈125,000 | Court task force starts with 28 judges |
| 18 Sep 2026 | ≈89,000 | 36,000 resolved; 21 judges; extended to 30 Jan 2027 (DN) |
The law that narrowed the entrances
Parliament's answer to the backlog was to change who could join it. The first amendment to the foreigners law reached the Constitutional Court on the President's request, and Acórdão 785/2025 of 8 August 2025 struck down several norms, most of them on family reunification, by a split vote. Parliament re-approved a revised text on 30 September 2025, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa promulgated it on 16 October and it was published as Lei 61/2025 on 22 October, in force the next day.
The law ends what remained of the manifestação regime, with outstanding requests lapsing after 31 December 2025. Family reunification generally requires two years of residence, with exceptions for minor children, golden-visa holders and highly qualified workers. The job-seeker visa is limited to highly qualified candidates, who must get an AIMA appointment within 120 days and leave if they find no job. CPLP visa holders now apply for residence at AIMA rather than receiving an automatic authorisation. Each of these changes reduces future inflow into the queue rather than the stock already in it.
The task force paid for itself. The government reported €39 million in costs against €101 million in fees collected, and AIMA started with a budget of €81 million in 2023, more than 95% of it from its own revenue or EU funds. The Ombudsman's 2025 report, as described by DN, recorded more than 5,500 complaints about AIMA out of 9,685 complaints in total; we could not check that figure against the report itself.
Departures: notices against removals
Removals now sit with PSP's foreigners and borders unit, UNEF, created by Lei 55-C/2025 in July 2025, and a returns law promulgated by President António José Seguro on 31 August 2026 lengthens detention limits. AIMA's 2025 report records 23,133 notifications to leave voluntarily, against 446 in 2024. Ministers described these as returns. PSP figures reported by RTP show 665 voluntary returns carried out in 2025 and 84 expulsions. ECO, citing AIMA's report, gives 298 coercive removals. The notices count decisions, and the PSP figures count departures; the gap between them is the measure of what enforcement has achieved.
What the backlog means for citizenship
Waiting time used to count. Under the 2024 version of the nationality law, residence for naturalisation ran from the date of the residence-permit application, so months spent in AIMA's queue were not lost. Lei Orgânica 1/2026 revoked that rule from 19 May 2026, as our nationality law analysis sets out. For anyone who had not applied for citizenship by then, a two-year wait for a first card now adds two years to the road to a passport.
The two queues now feed each other. The 1,324,411 people holding valid titles at the end of 2025 are the pool from which future naturalisation requests will come, and IRN, the registry that decides them, already had 515,334 nationality files under analysis in June 2025. Many of the people regularised by the task force arrived between 2019 and 2023. Under the old rules they would have started applying for citizenship from 2024 onwards; under the new ones the non-CPLP nationals among them will not qualify until the 2030s. The Brazilians who make up almost a third of foreign residents are the exception, at seven years.
What nobody publishes
Portugal has no regular backlog statistic. Every pending figure in this tracker comes from a dated statement by a minister, a secretary of state or AIMA's president, usually in parliament or a television interview, and each covers a different scope. AIMA's annual report counts titles granted and residents, not files waiting. The task force published balances at its launch, its extension and its closure, and the government added one in May 2026; there has been nothing since the Secretary of State's 30,000 figure in July.
The gaps that matter most to people in the queue are the ones with no number at all. There is no official processing time for any permit type, no renewal backlog after May 2026, no golden-visa pending count since early 2025, and no breakdown of 2025 titles by visa type, so D7 retirees and D8 digital nomads cannot be separated from other categories. AIMA's leadership is also changing: the president who oversaw the clearance is leaving for the Competition Authority. A tracker can only be as current as the statements behind it, and this one records the date and scope of each so it can be updated as new ones appear.
Ten AIMA figures tested
Most of the disputed numbers are real figures attached to the wrong scope. The 386,463 cards cited by relocation sites, and by our own planning document, cover ten months and include card swaps; the full-year count of new titles is 337,880. The "30,000 pending" headline covers only the task force's leftover stock. Our plan's "over 400,000 pending cases" was accurate for mid-2024 and is out of date now.
What this means for travelers, businesses and analysts
Travelers. Short-stay tourists do not deal with AIMA; airport border control belongs to PSP. The visible effect for visitors has been at the border: Lisbon suspended the EU Entry/Exit System for three months from 30 December 2025, and Faro arrivals waited more than three hours on 16 May 2026 during technical failures, ECO reported. Residents planning trips should not rely on an expired card or a renewal receipt outside Portugal; AIMA says neither is a travel document. For the city itself, see our Lisbon travel guide.
Tourism businesses and investors. The regularisation turned several hundred thousand workers, concentrated in Lisbon, Setúbal, Porto and Faro districts, into legal residents, and Lei 61/2025 has narrowed the entry routes that brought them: the job-seeker visa is now limited to highly qualified work, and family reunification generally requires two years of residence. Expect slower labour inflows from 2026. Watch three indicators: AIMA's 2026 count of new titles, which will show whether 2025 was a one-off; any official golden-visa pending figure, since the 2026 promise has no published progress; and the Lisbon court stock, which falls below 50,000 only if the extended task force keeps its pace.
Journalists and analysts. Safe to cite: 347,000 cases inherited on 29 October 2023; 446,921 manifestações pending on 3 June 2024; 763,509 task-force attendances and 311,316 cards at closure in December 2025; 525,000+ decisions and 458,000 cards by May 2026; 337,880 new titles and 189,331 renewals in 2025 (AIMA); 310,639 first permits, 27 per 1,000 residents (Eurostat); about 89,000 lawsuits pending in September 2026. Do not repeat as current: "400,000 pending", "386,000 permits in 2025", "30,000 pending" as a total, "184,000 family reunification" or "23,000 returns". The series finding this article adds: Portugal reports its migration backlog only through ad hoc ministerial statements, with no regular published series, so every pending figure needs its date and scope attached.
Data & sources
Period covered: Eurostat permits 2015–2025; AIMA backlog checkpoints October 2023 to September 2026
- AIMA, Relatório de Migrações e Asilo 2024 · Foreign residents at end-2024, titles granted in 2024, task-force output to its first year Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- AIMA, interim report on pending cases · 446,921 manifestações pending on 3 June 2024 and CPLP conversions Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- ECO (AIMA RMA 2025, 23 Sep 2026) · 2025 residents, new titles, family reunification, departure notices and asylum figures Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Diário do Distrito (AIMA RMA 2025, 24 Sep 2026) · 2025 renewals, appointments and top nationalities of new titles Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Governo de Portugal, 29 Oct 2023 · Cases, staff, desks and budget inherited by AIMA on its first day Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Governo de Portugal, 18 Dec 2025 · Final balance of the Estrutura de Missão and starting stock by category Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Governo de Portugal, 14 May 2026 · Task-force output by category to May 2026 Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Diário da República, RCM 87/2024 and RCM 99-A/2025 · Creation and extension of the Estrutura de Missão Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Diário da República, Decree-Law 85-B/2025 · Last extension of expired residence documents, to 15 October 2025 Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Diário da República, Lei 61/2025 · Amendment to the foreigners law in force 23 October 2025 Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Eurostat, migr_resfirst · First residence permits by reason, Portugal 2015–2025 and EU comparison Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Eurostat, Statistics Explained · First permits per 1,000 residents, EU ranking and shares for 2025 Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Observador (Secretary of State, 18 Dec 2025) · Share of each category decided at task-force closure Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- Diário de Leiria (1 Jul 2026) · Secretary of State statement on 30,000 remaining task-force cases Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- DN (CSTAF data, 22 Sep 2026) · Lisbon administrative court AIMA caseload and judges task force Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
- RTP (PSP returns data, 23 May 2026) · Voluntary returns and expulsions carried out, 2024–2026 Accessed 3 Oct 2026.
Methodology
This tracker uses AIMA's Migration and Asylum Reports for 2024 (read directly) and 2025 (via ECO, DN, Diário do Distrito, Diário de Aveiro and Barlavento, because the PDF was blocked to our research tools), AIMA's interim report on pending cases, government communiqués of October 2023, June 2025, December 2025 and May 2026, the Diário da República texts of Decree-Laws 41/2023, 37-A/2024 and 85-B/2025, Resolutions 87/2024 and 99-A/2025 and Lei 61/2025, Eurostat datasets migr_resfirst, migr_resvalid and tps00001 with Eurostat's September 2026 release, CSTAF court data reported by Lusa, DN, ECO and Público, PSP returns data reported by RTP, and press coverage of ministerial statements in parliament.
Limitations: (1) AIMA publishes no regular series of pending cases, so the backlog is reconstructed from dated statements with different scopes; (2) the 2025 report could not be read directly; (3) no official processing times, renewal backlog or golden-visa pending figures exist for 2026; (4) court figures come from CSTAF via the press and show a counting discontinuity in mid-2025; (5) Eurostat and AIMA count permits differently and the gap (310,639 against 337,880 in 2025) is unexplained.
Every pending figure is reported with its date and scope. Where official sources conflict, both values are given and neither is silently chosen. Derived figures (sums of category stocks, per-1,000 rates, the transitional-regime card count, the mid-2025 court jump) are labelled as derived. Claims circulating in ministerial statements, press and relocation sites were tested and given verdicts in the corrections table, including two from our own planning document.
Notes on the data
Not legal advice. Gaps: no AIMA-wide pending total for any date in 2026; no full-year 2025 cards figure; no official 2026 golden-visa pending or decided count; no renewal backlog after May 2026; no AIMA processing-time statistics; no yearly totals of lawsuits filed; AIMA's 2025 report breakdown by permit type (D7, D8, study, CPLP, ARI) not accessible. Contested figures: the starting backlog, 'about one million' with components summing to 1,219,921 (Secretary of State, Oct 2025) against about 1,145,000 (government balance, Dec 2025); family reunification pending, 184,000 against 25,000 and 24,476 (or 51,624 'active cases' per ECO); AIMA's inherited stock, 347,000 (government) against 327,000 (idealista); 2025 permits, 337,880 AIMA titles against 310,639 Eurostat first permits against 386,463 cards to 22 October; coercive removals in 2025, 298 (ECO citing AIMA) against 84 expulsions (PSP); end-2024 foreign residents, 1,543,697 (final report) against 1,546,521 (preliminary); AIMA staffing growth, disputed by the union; the share of new 2025 titles for work, 95.7% (DN headline) against 77.4% (Eurostat first permits); the task force creation date, 25 June 2024 approval against 10 July 2024 publication. Failed or reframed claims: 'over 400,000 pending' as current (our plan); '386,000 permits in 2025' (our plan and relocation sites); '30,000 pending' as a total; '184,000 family reunification pending'; '23,000 returns'; '55,000 golden-visa backlog' as current; 'decree extension to 15 April 2026'. Derived: per-1,000 permit rates, the task-force starting total of about 1,145,000, the transitional-regime card count of about 15,000, the 79,000 court-stock jump, Portugal's 2.5% EU population share and 8.1% permit share. Self-reported or interview figures: AIMA president's card counts and staffing; ministers' and the Secretary of State's backlog statements in parliament; industry reports of golden-visa waits.
Frequently asked questions
How many cases are pending at AIMA in 2026?
No official total exists. The government said 30,000 cases remained in the closed task force on 1 July 2026, but that excludes ordinary applications, most renewals and golden-visa files. About 89,000 lawsuits against AIMA were pending at the Lisbon administrative court on 18 September 2026.
How long does AIMA take to issue a residence card?
AIMA publishes no processing-time statistic. Lawyers cite a 90-day legal decision deadline, but golden-visa applicants report waits of 12 months or more for biometrics, and renewals filed in September 2025 were still without cards in April 2026 according to press reports.
Is my expired residence card still valid?
Decree extensions ended on 15 October 2025. AIMA treated cards expired by 30 June 2025 as valid in Portugal until 15 April 2026, and later cards keep residence rights for six months after expiry under Decreto Regulamentar 84/2007. Since April 2026 people awaiting renewal use 60-day certificates under article 78(7) of Lei 23/2007.
Can I travel abroad with an expired card or a renewal receipt?
AIMA's guidance says validity extensions apply only within Portugal and that a receipt is not a travel document. Check with AIMA or the airline before travelling outside Portugal on either.
How do I renew a residence permit online?
Through AIMA's renewal portal, opened in July 2025 for permits expiring after 30 June 2025: register, submit, pay the fee reference and download the receipt. The window currently covers permits expiring up to 31 October 2026.
What happened to the manifestação de interesse?
Decree-Law 37-A/2024 abolished it in June 2024, protecting applications already filed. AIMA counted 446,921 pending at that point; the task force processed them and Lei 61/2025 set the remaining ones to lapse after 31 December 2025.
Can I sue AIMA for delays?
Yes, in the administrative courts. Since Lei 61/2025 took effect on 23 October 2025 the ordinary administrative action is the default; the urgent intimação is limited to serious, demonstrable violations of rights. New monthly filings fell from 11,724 in October 2025 to 2,582 in January 2026.
How many residence permits did Portugal issue in 2025?
AIMA granted 337,880 new residence titles and 189,331 renewals in 2025. Eurostat, using a narrower scope, counts 310,639 first permits, 27 per 1,000 residents. The 386,463 figure often quoted is a count of cards issued to 22 October 2025.
Does time waiting for AIMA count toward Portuguese citizenship?
Not for nationality applications filed from 19 May 2026. Lei Orgânica 1/2026 revoked the rule that counted residence from the permit application, so the wait for a first card no longer counts toward the 7 or 10 years now required.