The Agency for Integration, Migration, and Asylum (AIMA) accelerated its efforts to cut the backlog of pending applications by opening 20 centers across Portugal, capable of assisting 4,000 immigrants daily, aiming to resolve approximately 400,000 pending cases by June 2025, said Minister António Leitão Amaro. He further criticised the delays and emphasized the need for greater speed in immigration services.
AIMA has already processed 250,000 pending applications on residence visas, family reunification or residence permits for investment (ARI) in one year. The AIMA immigration agency has handled more than 560,000 phone inquiries and 230,000 in-person appointments.
The new centers are accessible to people by appointments only. AIMA has already issued a statement asking people with appointments to show up at the scheduled time, if not the system will function at reduced efficiency wasting time.
AIMA is still facing challenges such as missed appointments and immigrants arriving without scheduling. AIMA is tasked with installing security systems to capture biometric data and to train staff before opening a new center for processing applications.
AIMA has reorganized the application process for scheduling the necessary service to granting of a residence permit. This new procedure is simple and functional and also safer and more effective It is a procedure designed to respond as quickly as possible to hundreds of thousands of residence permit applications awaiting administrative resolutions. This way it will be possible to speed up the scheduling and ensure compliance with the new rules that came into force at the beginning from the year 2024.
AIMA has launched a new platform, the generation of a Single Document of Collection (DUC), for payment of fees, which must be paid within 10 working days. After payment has been made, the user will receive a proposal for scheduling within the next 20 working days, indicating date, time and location. When the date closer to the appointment, the user will receive instructions on how to resubmit all updated information and documentation, preventing the analysis of the request is based on outdated documents. The fees will be paid at the time of filing the application, not after the decision, both for new cases and for cases that were pending.
Portugal has record high foreign population of 1 million+ living in the country, making about a tenth of population mostly Brazilians.
The Portugal Golden Visa program has raised €7.5 billion in foreign investment since its launch in 2012, of which 90% of the investments made in property market. Last year in october, Portugal terminated all real estate investments, during that time, led to accumulate more last minute golden visa applications, along with those filed during Covid time. Portugal introduced measures to disbanded SEF immigration authority and replaced with new AIMA agency, this gap added to backlog. Several people have pursued legal action against AIMA for causing significant delays for more than two years in waiting.
To calm investors and restore confidence,
- The validity of residence permits extended until June 2025
- Portugal amended citizenship law, for waiting time to count towards the citizenship application after 5 years.
- A new nationality platform was also unveiled to speed up processing of nationality applications.
It is highly anticipated the Portugal government will be able to fully clear the backlog of pending applications by mid 2025.
