The public immigration services held 763 thousand appointments and decided on over 525 thousand case files, 473 thousand of which were positive, claimed the Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro in Parliament referring to the work carried out by the Pending Case Files Recovery Task Force and the Integration, Migration and Asylum Agency (AIMA).

In a joint hearing of the Constitutional, Rights Freedoms and Guarantees, and the State Reform and Local Power Commissions on 13 May, the Minister noted the numbers of the extraordinary operation for migration regularisation ongoing since 2024 at AIMA, following the end of the abovementioned Task Force at the end of 2025. 

Under the Expressions of Interest, which were revoked in 2024, AIMA notified 445 thousand people. 246 thousand case files were decided on, 229 thousand of which were accepted and 26 thousand rejected; 225 thousand residence permits have been issued.

In the scheme of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP), 215 thousand people were notified, and 207 thousand appointments were made with 161 thousand immigrants. AIMA decided on 153 thousand case files, with 140 thousand approvals and 136 thousand residence permits have already been issued.

As for renewals of expired residence permits, Leitão Amaro indicated there were around 360 thousand cases included, with 193 thousand people notified for remaining in the country. Of these, 104 thousand attended the appointments and 82 thousand have been given new permits.

In 2024, there were 1 543 697 foreign citizens with valid papers or ongoing regularisation processes in Portugal, of which more than 1.03 million foreign taxpayers into the Portuguese Social Security system.

Leitão Amaro also claimed that there is no excessive weight of immigrants in the Social Protection system: “There are less immigrants in terms of percentage of the immigrant population benefiting from the Social Insertion Benefit than Portuguese people in percentage of the Portuguese population”.

Statistics

Leitão Amaro also said that the official data from the Portuguese Statistics Office (INE), which will be disclosed on 22 June, should reveal a different number between the resident population and the immigrating population in Portugal .

The Minister explained that the AIMA and INE numbers are different because the bodies use different statistical methodologies: AIMA accounts for valid residence permits and administrative processes under regularisation and INE only accounts for those who have habitually resided in Portugal for more than 12 months.

The delay in disclosing the population statistics is due to the process of reconciling data between both bodies following the elimination of the Borders and Immigration Service (SEF) and the creation of AIMA, as well as the work by the Task Force, which brought into the system 440 thousand residents who were hidden from the statistics.

Leitão Amaro noted that crossing the information involves “millions of microdata” from AIMA, Social Security, the National Health Service, schools, and the Tax Authorities.