Your NISS now comes automatically at AIMA, so that's one queue gone
From late July 2026, anyone regularising their immigration status at AIMA gets their Portuguese social security number (NISS) issued in real time — no separate trip to request it and another to collect it.
If you go to AIMA to regularise your status from the end of this month, you’ll walk out with your social security number already assigned, without having to go anywhere else to ask for it. It’s one of those changes that makes no headlines and changes a lot of lives.
What is changing about getting a NISS in Portugal?
Until now the NISS was a separate errand. You had to go to a Segurança Social desk to request the number, wait, then go back a second time to collect it — all before you could close your file at AIMA. Two trips, two ticket numbers, two days off burned in a queue.
From late July, a direct link between AIMA and Segurança Social handles it: the agency enters your identification details and the NISS is issued in real time, right there, in the same appointment.
How many people does this affect?
Far more than you’d guess. In 2025 alone, around 250,000 people went to Segurança Social desks purely to sort out a NISS. That double journey is what disappears — and with it a decent slice of the queues everyone here knows by heart.
What is a NISS actually for?
The Número de Identificação da Segurança Social is what plugs you into the system. You need it to be hired on a legal contract, to pay in, to claim support, for sick leave, for parental leave, for a pension somewhere down the line. The documents and the steps are unchanged and all sit in our guide to applying for a NISS — what changes now is where and when the number is issued. Without one you can be perfectly entitled to live in Portugal and still be unable to work properly — which is exactly the knot this link unties.
The change is part of AIMA’s digital transformation programme, running since 2025, and it’s the logical next step after moving processes off the counter and online — as happened with the monthly renewal windows we follow in our AIMA tracker. Official conditions and steps are published on AIMA’s website.
One small caveat, because these things matter: the automation starts at the end of July. If your appointment falls before that, you’re still on the old route — worth checking before you count on the shortcut.
Image: GualdimG / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
