Immigration 5 July 2026

AIMA promises to get closer: a network of local offices and shrinking waits

Portugal's immigration agency says it is speeding up biometrics appointments and building a network of local offices to ease the backlog.

Anyone who has dealt with AIMA knows the word that has best described the experience for a long time: patience. But there are signs things are moving — slowly, but moving.

Are AIMA’s waits actually shrinking?

According to the most recent picture, the gap between submitting an application and doing the biometrics is now running at around twelve months, and people who filed by the end of 2025 are being scheduled for the final quarter of this year. It is not fast, but it beats the delays that marked the previous months.

The weakest link is still the issuing of the card itself. Booking the biometrics is one thing; having the physical residence permit in hand is another, and that stage has not kept pace with the appointments. In other words: if you are in the process, expect the final step to take longer than you would like.

Services closer to home

The headline bet is bringing services closer to people. The plan is to build a network of local AIMA offices, so that legalisation and social support no longer require long trips to the big counters. Digital tools are also being reinforced to spread the workload across more staff. On paper, it is exactly what was missing; in practice, we will believe it as the offices open.

For more on the day-to-day of these processes, see what we wrote about the stricter proof of address and about facial-recognition scheduling. Official information is on the AIMA site.

By Juliana Castilho

Illustrative · Photo: Marta Branco / Pexels

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