If AIMA misses 60 working days on your renewal, the law counts it as approved
Tacit approval sits in article 82 of Portugal's Foreigners Law: 60 working days after the fees are paid with no decision, a residence permit renewal is deemed granted. A practical guide.
If you applied to renew your residence permit, paid the fees and more than 60 working days have gone by without a decision from AIMA, Portuguese law treats that silence as a yes. It is called tacit approval, it sits in article 82 of the Foreigners Law, and it exists precisely because the legislator recognised that state delay cannot be turned against someone who did everything right.
Worth saying up front what it is not. It is not a shortcut, it does not waive any requirement, and it does nothing for an incomplete file. It is a protection against administrative inertia, and it only works when the delay is not the applicant’s fault.
What is tacit approval at AIMA?
It is the rule that, where a renewal application goes undecided within the legal deadline for reasons not attributable to the applicant, the renewal is deemed granted by operation of law. No letter, no order, no email bringing good news — the right arises from the calendar. In practice it means the permit should be issued, not that the file stays under review forever.
The important word there is working. Sixty working days is not two calendar months: weekends and public holidays come out, which usually lands closer to three real months. Plenty of people miscount and conclude they have a right before they actually do.
How long does AIMA have to decide?
It depends on the type of application, and the gap is wide:
- Renewal of a residence permit: 60 working days, counted from payment of the fees.
- First issue of a permit: 90 working days.
The starting point catches people out too. The clock does not begin the day you submitted the request or the day of your appointment. It begins when the fees are paid. If the payment took a fortnight to clear, that fortnight does not count in your favour.
What do you do when the deadline passes and nothing happens?
First, gather proof. Dated submission receipt, proof of fee payment, case number and any notification you received along the way. Without that set, a complaint goes round in circles.
Second, count the working days properly and in writing, so you do not claim a right that has not matured.
Third, notify AIMA formally rather than phoning. A written request addressed to the agency, invoking the elapsed deadline and asking for the permit to be issued, leaves a trail — and the trail is what any later step rests on. Official contact channels are on the AIMA website.
Fourth, if the silence continues, this becomes lawyer territory. There is an administrative route and a judicial one, and a large share of the cases reaching Portugal’s administrative courts are exactly this: deadlines blown with no decision.
An important warning about the future of this rule
Tacit approval is not guaranteed forever. The revision of the Foreigners Law passed in parliament provides for the express repeal of the provision that makes silence count as approval on renewals. If that change beds in, missing the deadline will no longer automatically produce an approval, and a delay goes back to being just a delay.
So the practical rule is simple: if you have a pending file today, date everything and act within the framework in force when your application was made, without assuming the protection will still be there tomorrow. It is worth following our AIMA tracker, where we log deadlines, backlog and service changes as they land.
Frequently asked questions
Does tacit approval hand me the card straight away?
Not automatically. It gives you the right to have the permit issued, and the card still has to be produced and collected. What changes is your legal position: you stop waiting for a decision and start demanding the execution of one the law already treats as made.
Exactly when does the clock start?
At payment of the fees, not at the appointment or the document handover. Keep the payment receipt — that is the piece that fixes the date.
What if the delay is down to a missing document of mine?
Then there is no tacit approval. The rule requires that the delay not be attributable to the applicant. A missing document, an ignored notification or uncorrected data all break the protection.
Can I travel while I wait?
That is a case-by-case question and depends on the document you hold and where you are going. Before buying a ticket, confirm the validity of your permit and the re-entry rules in force — this is one of the few points where a wrong assumption gets genuinely expensive.
Image: GualdimG / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
