Immigrants in Portugal can train as electricians or plasterers on a €537 monthly grant, under rules AIMA has just rewritten
Integrar para a Construção pairs about 300 hours of technical training with a 300-hour placement at a building firm, paying up to one IAS a month plus meal and transport allowances. AIMA republished the rulebook on 3 November with three-working-day deadlines and a Portuguese-language requirement. The first cycle drew 44 trainees towards a 500 target.
If you hold a Portuguese residence permit and fancy learning a trade on a building site, the state will pay you up to €537.13 a month while you do it. The scheme is called Integrar para a Construção, run by AIMA (the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum) with the construction industry, and its rules have just been redone: AIMA Deliberation 1230/2026, published in the Diário da República on 3 November, republishes the whole rulebook with the changes signed off in October.
The first round was thin. According to Diário de Notícias, 44 trainees started the opening cycle, 8.8% of the 500 the first edition hopes to train across four cycles by summer 2027. AIMA told the paper the small start was planned, since it fell in the middle of summer, and the industry is lining up a second cycle.
How does AIMA’s construction training scheme work?
Two halves of roughly 300 hours each. First comes technical training at CICCOPN, the construction industry’s training centre in Maia, or at another IEFP centre. Then a placement at a building firm, which can’t run longer than the classroom part. Allow about four months in total.
There are seven trades on the list: electrician’s assistant, plumbing, finish carpentry, formwork carpentry, drywall and ETICS (external wall insulation), construction machinery, and painting and finishing. Each cycle says which ones run and where.
How much does the Integrar para a Construção grant pay?
Up to one IAS a month, the social-support index that sits at €537.13 this year, and it is paid according to attendance. CICCOPN covers half of it (€268.57). The other half comes from AIMA during training and from the host company during the placement.
On top of that:
- meals at the centre, or the civil-service meal allowance, on days with at least three hours of training;
- a transport allowance of up to 15% of the IAS, so up to about €80.57, where public transport doesn’t fit the timetable;
- personal accident insurance and protective kit.
Anyone on unemployment benefit keeps it while training, under the usual Social Security rules. Payments go into an account at a Portuguese bank in the trainee’s own name.
Who can apply?
Immigrants from outside or inside the EU with a valid residence document, asylum seekers and refugees, and people under temporary protection (which covers many Ukrainians). You must be an adult, and you can’t be a student or hold a study or research permit, or be retired or on long-term sick leave.
The real filter is language. You need to understand and speak Portuguese without an interpreter. Fall short at the interview and you’re steered towards the free Portuguese for newcomers courses instead.
What changed in the new rules?
The deliberation’s preamble says the amendments touch three things: how each cycle is announced, how applications are handled and chosen, and how the allowances are defined. The text now in force sets the steps out plainly:
- each cycle opens with a notice on AIMA’s website giving places, courses, locations and a deadline, and it can close early once the application cap is hit;
- you apply online with proof of tax address, a Portuguese IBAN and an employer’s letter (or proof of self-employment);
- there is an interview, ideally online or by phone, scored 0 to 20 to rank candidates;
- miss a request from AIMA, or fail to book the interview, within three working days and the application can be refused;
- a class only starts with at least 10 people selected and placements lined up at firms;
- you must attend 90% of the hours, and going over 5% unexcused absence (10% in all) can end the training contract.
Host companies agree to offer placements that could lead to a job, but nothing in the rules makes them hire.
Can you apply now?
Not yet. Publishing the rules doesn’t open applications, and as of 5 November no cycle was open. Watch AIMA’s website for the opening notice.
The scheme fits the line the government has taken since the summer, of smoothing the way for people who arrive with work lined up, and comes out of measure 19 of the Migration Action Plan, which deals with vocational training for foreign residents.
Image: Jules Verne Times Two / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
