Immigration 25 July 2026

You'll soon be able to sue AIMA in your own local court, not just in Lisbon

Portugal's government approved specialist immigration courts and an end to AIMA cases piling up in Lisbon. Here is what changes and when.

If you live in Faro and your AIMA file has been stuck for a year, your case is currently handled by a court in Lisbon. That is about to change. On Thursday the Council of Ministers approved a reform of administrative and tax justice that creates specialist immigration and international protection benches, and scraps the rule funnelling every case against AIMA into the Lisbon Administrative Circuit Court.

What actually changes for AIMA cases?

The new rule is refreshingly plain: your case goes to the administrative court covering the area where you live. Today almost all litigation against the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum lands in the same Lisbon courthouse, which has built a queue of thousands of applicants waiting on a residence or asylum decision. Spreading those files across the country is the most direct way to unblock the jam, and to shorten waits currently measured in months.

The second piece is the specialist benches themselves. The thinking is that judges deciding immigration matters should do it full time, with teams fluent in the subject, rather than slotting it between tax and planning disputes. The bill also carries court management and transparency measures, at a moment when Brussels has been flagging the lack of progress on the efficiency of Portuguese administrative justice.

When does it take effect?

Not yet. The proposal now goes to Parliament, which is in summer recess, so the debate only starts when MPs return. Nothing changes in practice until then, and anyone with a live case stays in the court that already has it. Worth flagging too: some lawyers question whether courts specialised in one subject sit comfortably with the constitution, an argument that will surface in committee.

If you are mid-application, the advice hasn’t changed. Keep your receipts, keep your contact details current, and track the file through official channels. Start at the AIMA portal, and Council of Ministers decisions are published on the government’s site. This is another piece of the administrative reboot that recently let people apply for permanent residence online, and one we keep logging in our AIMA tracker.

By Juliana Castilho

Image: Threeohsix / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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