Portugal Asks Angolans Who Want to Work Here to Use the Official Route, and Promises a Contract Waiting at the End of It
On a visit to Luanda, labour secretary of state Adriano Moreira said Portugal needs workers, pointed to a new labour attaché now in post in Luanda and tied the formal route to social protection from the first day.
Portugal needs workers and is open to Angolans who want to fill those jobs, provided they come through the official channel. That was the message the Deputy Secretary of State for Labour, Adriano Moreira, took to Luanda on Wednesday, at the start of a working visit to Angola that runs until Friday.
"Our coming here is to make the Angolan community aware that they should do it through the official route, and contact the official institutions of the Angolan government here," he told reporters after meeting Angola's Secretary of State for Social Action, Dina Mayimona. Portugal, he said, currently needs workers to keep growing and to meet the needs of its companies.
What the official route is meant to offer
The pitch is certainty. Labour mobility under this route will rest on protocols between official Portuguese and Angolan bodies, Moreira said, so that working conditions are guaranteed. "On the Portuguese side they will have an employment contract waiting, and the steps are taken with a certainty that may not happen by other routes," he said.
He tied the formal route to social protection from day one. Starting the process through official channels, he argued, guarantees that coverage "will appear from the moment it is needed": access to health care, unemployment protection and the other social needs a worker may have in Portugal. He urged Angolans to take the first step through whichever institutions the Angolan government selects as the entry point for looking for work in Portugal.
Two practical pieces are already in place or planned. Moreira highlighted the appointment of a labour attaché in Luanda, who has now started work, to make the formal visa side of the process easier. And Portugal wants vocational training to be delivered as far as possible in Angola, before departure, and completed in Portugal only where necessary.
The Angolan side was receptive. Mayimona called the meeting positive, pointed to existing cooperation between her ministry of social action, family and the promotion of women and Portugal's labour ministry, and said the two sides would coordinate across sectors. Moreira's programme in Angola also includes visits to vocational training institutions and a meeting with Portuguese companies.
Why Angola matters here
Angolans are already one of the largest foreign communities in Portugal. The immigration agency AIMA's migration report for 2025 puts Angola second only to Brazil among the nationalities of foreign residents, as we reported when AIMA published its count of 1,585,854 foreign residents. The emphasis on a job offer arranged before departure fits the direction of Portugal's immigration policy since 2024, when the manifestação de interesse route, which let people arrive first and regularise afterwards, was closed.
The visit also coincides with a separate piece of bilateral paperwork. Decreto n.º 20/2026, published in Wednesday's Diário da República, approves a cooperation agreement between Portugal and Angola on civil protection and firefighting, signed in Lisbon on 25 July 2025. It provides for exchanges of experts and good practice, joint training and operational exercises, and mutual assistance if either country suffers a serious accident or disaster, overseen by a joint civil protection commission meeting periodically.
For Angolans considering work in Portugal, the practical takeaway is to start with the Angolan government's designated institutions and the Portuguese labour attaché in Luanda, and to secure a contract before travelling, rather than arriving first and looking for work afterwards.
