Portugal's Screening Centres and Twelve-Week Border Returns Become Law on Friday, and a Work Permit Holder Can Now Change Employer With a Notification
Lei n.º 62/2026 was published on Thursday and takes effect on Friday. It writes screening into Portuguese law with a seven-day border clock, caps border return at 12 weeks and replaces the voluntary departure notice with a duty to leave.
The law that carries the European Union's Pact on Migration and Asylum into Portuguese law was published in the Diário da República on Thursday morning as Lei n.º 62/2026, and it enters into force the day after publication: Friday, 11 September. Parliament approved it on 17 July, the Constitutional Court cleared it in August, President António José Seguro promulgated it on 31 August and the Prime Minister referended it on 1 September.
It gives national effect to seven EU regulations, transposes two directives, and rewrites parts of three Portuguese laws: Lei n.º 34/94 on temporary installation centres, Lei n.º 23/2007 on entry, residence and removal of foreign nationals, and Lei n.º 27/2008 on asylum. Procedures already pending under the old asylum law on Friday keep the old regime.
Screening Gets a Clock and a Place
The most concrete addition is triagem, screening, written into Lei n.º 23/2007 as new articles 40.º-G to 40.º-N. It applies to anyone intercepted crossing an external border without authorisation, anyone who asks for protection at a border post without meeting entry conditions, anyone found irregularly in the country who crossed an external border and has not yet been screened, and anyone disembarked after a search-and-rescue operation.
Screening covers identity verification including biometrics, a security check against the relevant databases, a medical examination and a vulnerability check, and it ends by routing the person into whichever procedure follows. It must be completed within seven days at an external border and three days inside the country, barring justified exceptional circumstances. The GNR and the PSP carry it out, except for the medical examinations. Screening centres are to be designated by ministerial despacho and may sit at border posts or temporary installation centres; the law names a national centre, regional centres, support centres and mobile centres.
The text is explicit that being held for screening is not, as a rule, a detention measure, and that completing it decides nothing about the right to enter or remain. Unaccompanied minors must be given a representative quickly, and that person must be independent of the officers running the screening.
Twelve Weeks at the Border, and Then Entry
A separate new subsection creates the border return procedure. Someone whose protection claim is not accepted in a border asylum procedure stays in an airport or port international zone, a temporary installation centre or another designated place for no more than 12 weeks, extendable by six weeks in a crisis as defined by Regulation (EU) 2024/1359. If removal cannot be carried out inside that window, the person is authorised to enter national territory and the ordinary removal chapter takes over. The PSP issues, prepares and executes the border return decision.
Article 138.º is also rewritten. A foreign national notified that a residence application has been refused, or that a visa or permit has been cancelled, now carries a duty to leave within a fixed period of 20 to 30 days, extendable by order of the PSP national director on grounds that include children in school and family and social ties. The duty is recorded in the Schengen Information System as a return indication for one year.
Two Changes That Cut the Other Way
The single-permit directive brings two provisions that make life simpler for people already holding permits. A holder of a residence permit for subordinate employment may change employer by notifying AIMA, with no new permit issued. A holder of a permit for independent activity may likewise change the nature of that activity by notification. Article 123.º now allows AIMA to reuse declarations an applicant made in an earlier procedure.
Against that, article 92.º loses its fourth paragraph and article 122.º now limits the visa-exempt route for parents to those with minor children of Portuguese nationality. Our guide to registering on the electoral roll as a foreign resident covers a different corner of the same rulebook.
