AIMA Quietly Reopens CPLP Family Reunification Portal 72 Hours Before Lula Lands in Lisbon

Portugal's immigration agency, AIMA (Agência para a Integração, Migrações e Asilo), quietly reopened its online family reunification portal to holders of CPLP residence permits on Saturday, 18 April 2026 — ending a freeze that had effectively blocked tens of thousands of Brazilian and other Lusophone migrants from bringing their children to Portugal for more than a year.

The move landed 72 hours before Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is due to arrive in Lisbon for a bilateral visit dominated by immigration and the treatment of the Brazilian community in Portugal.

What Changed on 18 April

From Saturday, holders of a valid CPLP residence authorisation can file a family reunification request through the AIMA services portal for minor children who are dependent on them. The applicant must already hold — not just be waiting for — their new plastic residence card; those still sitting on a paper comprovativo from the 2025 replacement programme cannot yet use the portal.

AIMA did not issue a formal press release to mark the reopening. The change was picked up by Público's Brazilian edition on Saturday evening and confirmed by the AIMA services site.

Why It Was Shut in the First Place

Family reunification for CPLP permit holders was effectively suspended from February 2025, when Portugal began a massive programme to replace nearly 220,000 CPLP residence titles. The old permits, printed on A4 paper, had lost their validity after the European Commission ruled that they lacked the biometric and anti-fraud features required of EU residence documents.

Throughout 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, AIMA channelled its capacity into the document swap, warning applicants that reunification requests would not be processed until the exchange was completed. In practice, that blocked one of the most common family-law pathways used by the 400,000-plus Brazilian community in Portugal — the largest migrant group in the country.

Who Can Apply — and Who Still Cannot

Under the Lei dos Estrangeiros, the base rule is that a non-EU resident needs at least two years of valid residence before applying for family reunification, with narrow exceptions: 15 months if the couple cohabited for at least 18 months before coming to Portugal, and no minimum waiting period for dependent minor children or incapacitated dependents.

The reopening on Saturday only activates the last of those three channels. Spouses, adult dependents, and parents of adult children remain outside the portal for now. Brazilian-Portuguese law firm Lamares, Capela & Associados noted last week that the agency has indicated that the other categories will be phased in, but has not published a timeline.

Applicants whose residence card is still being produced — or who were issued a comprovativo de pedido while awaiting biometrics — are told to wait. That excludes a non-trivial share of the 60,000 renewal cases that AIMA acknowledged earlier in April remain pending.

The Lula Factor

The timing is not coincidental. Lula da Silva arrives in Lisbon on Tuesday, 21 April, with a 15-strong delegation that includes the ministers of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Racial Equality, and Human Rights. The Brazilian government has been openly critical of Portugal's tougher line on immigration since Law 61/2025 narrowed the family-reunification rules and the Nationality Law reform passed on 1 April doubled the residency requirement for citizenship from five to ten years.

Senior Brazilian officials have told Público that "xenophobia and the treatment of the Brazilian community" will be on the table when Lula meets Prime Minister Luís Montenegro and President António José Seguro.

An open letter sent last week by Casa do Brasil em Lisboa — the main civil-society organisation for Brazilians in Portugal — asked Lula to press the Portuguese government on reunification, AIMA backlogs, and the climate of hostility around the new immigration laws. Reopening the portal three days before the flag-carrier plane lands at Figo Maduro hands both sides a concrete deliverable.

Reality Check

The portal reopening is narrow and does not undo the wider tightening of Portuguese immigration law that unfolded across 2025 and 2026. The ten-year citizenship clock is still ticking through Belém Palace. The detention window for undocumented migrants has been extended to 18 months. The Entry/Exit System is now recording fingerprints at Faro and Lisbon borders, lengthening queues on the Brazil-Portugal route.

But for the several thousand CPLP permit holders with a child waiting in São Paulo, Rio, Luanda, or Maputo, a portal that accepts their application is the practical difference between a reunited family this summer and another year of bureaucratic limbo.

What to Watch Next

• Whether AIMA publishes its promised timeline for reopening reunification to spouses and adult dependents.
• Whether Lula's delegation secures any bilateral language on AIMA processing guarantees for Brazilian nationals.
• Whether the agency can clear the remaining 40,000-60,000 pending renewal cases before the 15 June extended-validity deadline expires, preventing another wave of frozen reunification requests.

Sources: Público (Brazilian edition, 18 April 2026); AIMA services portal; Diário de Notícias Brasil; Lei dos Estrangeiros; Casa do Brasil em Lisboa open letter. For foreign residents bringing family to Portugal, our 2026 guide to family reunification (reagrupamento familiar) in Portugal — the AIMA process, the Lei 23/2007 spouse, children and parent tracks, and the documentary chain to the cartão de residência sets the latest reference. On the AIMA / immigration / family-status rail, our 18 May AIMA read — dedicated Article-124 submission track at contactenos.aima.gov.pt for the residence-authorisation of babies and minors born in Portugal to foreign-resident parents, six-month deadline from the assento de nascimento and an automatic-discard rule on out-of-scope filings sets the latest reference. On the CPLP and Cabo Verde bilateral rail, our 19 May Cabo Verde legislativas read — PAICV reclaims the Assembleia Nacional in Praia with an absolute majority on 17 May, Francisco Carvalho lands 37 of 72 seats including the diaspora circles, Ulisses Correia e Silva steps down from the MpD leadership, and Montenegro wires the felicitation from Lisbon by mid-morning Monday sets the latest reference. On the AIMA-litigation throughput side, our 23 May read on the AIMA deportation-challenge curve at the Tribunal Administrativo de Círculo de Lisboa — the TAC Lisboa booking 496 new impugnação and providência cautelar filings in April 2026 against AIMA's expulsion, voluntary-departure and residence-denial orders, up roughly 45x from the 11 cases of January 2025, with 2,271 cases pending and 128,851 residence-and-reunification cases in the broader pool sets the latest reference. On the NISS identity-number side, our 2026 practical guide to obtaining your NISS — the four legal routes covering the NISS@Inscrição online form at seg-social.pt for new residents, the employer-triggered auto-generation path at admission, the Espaço Cidadão one-stop NIF+NISS+NNU procedure and the consular route for non-residents, plus the Segurança Social Direta activation workflow with 7-to-14 working day postal password and Chave Móvel Digital as the 2FA-exempt login factor sets the latest reference. On the unemployment-benefit side, our 2026 practical guide to claiming the Subsídio de Desemprego in Portugal — the 360-day contribution carência, the 65%-of-RR headline rate, the 5-to-26-month duration ladder by age and contribution record, the IAS-anchored €537.13 floor and €1,342.83 cap, the mandatory IEFP centro-de-emprego inscrição and the Segurança Social Direta application flow sets the latest reference. On the AIMA residence-permit renewal side, our 2026 practical guide to renewing the Título de Residência with AIMA — the 30-day-before-expiry window under Artigo 75.º of Lei 23/2007, the CMD-authenticated pedido de renovação on aima.gov.pt, the €92.50 / €56 taxa structure, the documentary chain across D7, D8, CPLP, Estudo, Trabalho and Reagrupamento Familiar categories, the comprovativo-pendente buffer that carries you through the 4-9-month AIMA processing window, and the year-5 upgrade to the Autorização de Residência Permanente or the Estatuto de Residente de Longa Duração-UE sets the latest reference. On the EU foreign-policy and diplomatic-postings side of the file, our 4 June read on Kaja Kallas's 33-ambassador EEAS rotation — Sofia Moreira de Sousa moving from the Commission's Lisbon Representation to EU Ambassador in Tirana (Albania) and Francisco André transferring from Mexico City to EU Ambassador in Brasília (Brazil), with the EU-Mercosur ratification window framing the André posting and the Western Balkans Cluster 1 fundamentals framing the Moreira de Sousa brief sets the latest reference. On the demographic-ageing and social-sector side of the file, our 5 June read on President António José Seguro warning the 15th National Misericórdias Congress in Braga that Portuguese demographic ageing is a 'bomba-relógio' (time bomb) and crediting immigrant workers with holding the 388-strong, 52,000-worker, 158,000-daily-beneficiary social-sector network together — 508 senior residences across the misericórdia perimeter, third lowest EU elderly-care-beds-per-capita, fourth on the projected 2050 over-65 ranking sets the latest reference. On the Ordem dos Advogados, OAB Brazil reciprocity, lusophone legal-profession cooperation and CPLP side of the file, our 8 June read on the Ordem dos Advogados reopening reciprocity talks with Brazil's OAB at the 5 June 2026 Lisbon meeting — Bastonário João Massano sitting opposite OAB Secretary-General Rose Morais and Special Commission for Lusophone Law president Alessandra Balestieri, the 2023 termination by then-Bastonária Fernanda de Almeida Pinheiro, the 4,039 Brazilian lawyers (13% of the active 32,000-strong Portuguese bar) already inscribed, three working files on a quality-anchored reciprocity instrument and the 50+ administrative-court actions hanging over the regime sets the latest reference. On the D3 altamente qualificados, Article 61.º-B Lei 23/2007, EU Blue Card, IAS-multiple salary floor and Portaria 95/2018 qualifying-occupation side of the file, our 2026 D3 Visto para Trabalhadores Altamente Qualificados practical guide — Article 61.º-B Lei 23/2007 path, the 1.5 × IAS national salary floor, the EU Blue Card sub-track under Article 61.º-D, four worked applicant profiles and the €1,500-€3,800 cost envelope sets the latest reference. On the Portuguese naturalisation Article 6 Lei 37/81 path, the five-year residency anchor under Lei 9/2024, the CIPLE A2 language proficiency and the IRN Pedido cycle side of the file, our 2026 Portuguese naturalisation practical guide — Article 6 Lei n.º 37/81 path, the five-year residency anchor under post-Lei 9/2024, the CIPLE A2 Portuguese-language test, the criminal-record threshold and the IRN Pedido de Aquisição cycle through the Conservatória dos Registos Centrais sets the latest reference.